Friday Photo #205 – Lofoten Mørketid

Photo: Nesland coast, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. December 9, 2016. 12:01

This week was the begging of the winter mørketid, literally dark time, but otherwise known as the polar night. On Lofoten it occurs during the weeks around the winter solstice when the sun no longer rises above the horizon. And while there is no proper daylight, there are some hours of twilight around noon. And even now at the time of my writing, there is still some glow in the southern sky at 15:00.

The Islands have had pretty bad weather for the start of December, which is actually quite normal. Think 1-4˚C with lots of wind and rain. The heavy cloud cover of the last days makes it feel much dark than it really is, and even getting up at 10:00 feels like an early start to the day! I feel myself slowly going into a hibernation mode, quite of opposite of the insomnia during the midnight sun period of summer.

It was a strong north wind blowing down the fjord today, but I figured I would have a little shelter down the road in Nesland, so I headed there. I was trying to shoot an image that showed what the sky looked like, but the only expanses of clear sky were over the open water to the south, and thus not very interesting compositionally. Luckily there were some holes in the clouds as they swept in from the north, so I did my best to show a bit of sky in the best composition I could find.

Hopefully I’ll come up with something better for next week…

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
24mm
ISO 50
f 14
25 seconds
WB Daylight
6 stop B+W ND filter
2 images – top, bottom