Friday Photo #268 – Vik Aurora

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Vik Aurora - Friday Photo #268

Photo: Moonlit aurora over Vik beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 22, 2018. 22:32

The nighttime sky has been quit active over the last week, with impressive aurora on many nights, though also a quiet night or two. Last night the aurora came out early, before 19:00 with the sky barely even dark and 4 hours later it was still going!

While staying at Haukland for a small private workshop we first headed to Uttalkelv, as we hadn’t yet shot the northern lights there. But soon we figured it would be best to head elsewhere as car after photo tour van after car arrived. To be blunt, Uttakleiv is a total shit show these days, with groups just walking up and setting their tripods right in front of you and shining headlamps all over the place. It is unfortunate, but Lofoten’s popularity has killed the enjoyment of this location for me and I will no longer shoot there during the winter season.

Luckily, there still remains a few more peaceful options, for now, just around the corner. And so we relocated first to Haukland and then to Vik as the night progressed. Normally I like the moon to help illuminate the scene. But the quarter moon of the past few nights just always seemed to be in the wrong position and made getting a nice composition someone difficult.

If the moon was in the side of the frame, then it would pull your eye away from the aurora. Eventually I just figured it was best to put the moon in the middle of the image, and hopefully the aurora would cooperate and form a nice enough shape around it. Which in this image, I think worked out well enough.

As the whole sky was filled with dancing aurora, and you can see by my exposure how bright it was, I needed a wider field of view than just 14mm. So I composed the scene with a lower, foreground image, and an upper, sky image. I could have perhaps cropped to 4:5, but I feel 1:1 works a bit better with this one.

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
19mm
ISO 1600
f 3.2
4 seconds
WB Daylight
2 images – top, bottom

Friday Photo #267 – Narvtind

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Narvtind Dawn - Friday Photo #267

Photo: Winter dawn over Narvtind, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. January 23, 2018. 9:39

Sometimes you get lucky. Guiding my first tour of the year in late January, we were actually on our way to a different location when I saw the sky over Narvtind looking like this. So of course I stopped! As a location I have photographed numerous times over the years, it is still a nice scene that can provide some nice light with the right timing.

The light of late January is still quite directional to the south. Which unfortunately, doesn’t actually provide too many compositions for many parts of Lofoten, as the mountains block much of the sun. But a few areas will get some morning light, and this is one of them. But conditions also need to cooperate, with a still wind, so the fjord can have the mountain reflections.

I took a few other compositions this morning, but this still remains the classic view from this location.

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
70mm
ISO 100
f 11
.3 second
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #266 – Reine

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Reine Winter - Friday Photo #266

Photo: Olstind rises above the frozen shoreline, Reine, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. January 22, 2018. 09:50

It is not often that I take photos in Reine anymore. But occasionally, and usually when I’m guiding a workshop, I’ll come across some nice conditions in which it’s worth pulling out the camera. After several days in the area this january with an annoying south wind keeping the bay reflection-less, conditions finally calmed.

After some decent snow, and then rain which washed much of it away, it was almost completely dry during the 2nd half of January this year. But the dry conditions also brought a freezing cold to Lofoten, and so even without snow, we had ice.

As the tide receded, the frozen sections of the shoreline waters were left to fall and break across the rocks. Without this element as a foreground, I probably wouldn’t have shot this scene – even though the twilight was nice enough itself! But the this layer of ice helps hide what would be, for me, the overly messy rocks and seaweed. I also shot another composition with just Olstind’s reflection in the water, but I like this version better, as it gives a better sense of place to the image.

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
29mm
ISO 100
f 10
.5 second
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #265 – Ryten Aurora

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Ryten Aurora - Friday Photo #265

Photo: Aurora over Fuglhuken from Ryten, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. March 2, 2017. 20:03

I’ve already posted another image from this night: Friday Photo #218. So if you read that you already know that I was supposed to have gone skiing with some friends, but saw the aurora forecast and changed my mind at the last moment, eventually making my way up Ryten in the fading twilight.

While the main aurora display was off to the right of this image, it didn’t have the best composition. So after shooting that for a while, I looked for something else. Important tip – never get too focused on the aurora themselves that you forget to move and shoot different compositions. I see this happening a lot when I’m out, people just standing shooting the same image 1000 times. Yes, the aurora moves, but so should you!

So even without the brightest of the aurora, I felt this image had a stronger overall composition, and is something I likely would have photographed if the aurora were replaced with clouds. At 14mm, my lens still wasn’t wide enough to capture enough foreground the anchor the image, while also capturing enough of the sky. So shot two images, one for the foreground and one for the sky – same setting for each image. Later after merging, I cropped to 4:5, which I have become quite fond of over the last years. Perhaps it’s only memories from shooting film on a 4:5 camera back in the day.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
14mm
ISO 2000
f 3.2
10 seconds
WB Daylight
2 images – foreground, sky