Friday Photo #390 – Midsummer Sun

Photo: Midsummer’s eve: the sun’s lowest point on the year’s longest day. Offersøykammen, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 21, 2020, 01:04

Last Saturday night I hiked up Offersøykammen to watch shoot the sun on the summer solstice (which was Sunday). Hot and cloudless – like it had been for most of a week already – the endless blue skies were getting a little boring photographically. But I wanted to photograph the sun at its lowest point in the sky, which occurs just after 01:00.

Beyond just shooting a single photo, this image is actually taken out of a time-lapse sequence which I shot from about 22:30 – 03:00. If you follow me on Instagram (@Distant.North), you would have seen I posted that video already. I was using too cameras: one at 24mm and this one at 14mm. If I’me going to sit up on the mountain all night, I might as well be 2x as productive.

The night was quite warm and there was a surprising amount of mosquitos, something which generally aren’t a problem in west Lofoten – this was probably the worst I’ve experienced them, my legs and ankles are still itching!

It was a little difficult to choose the correct location, knowing that I would likely want to pull a still frame (this photo) out of the time-lapse sequence, where both products might have wildly different crops: 2:3 for this and maybe 16:9 or maybe 2.35:1 if I want something more cinematic looking. I also wanted to be relatively sure that the sun wouldn’t sink below any of the background mountains for too long – in this case it only disappeared behind Himmeltindan for a couple minutes when it was well on its way to rising again.

There were a couple mountains I had in mind, but Offersøykammen seemed the easiest and safest – though perhaps not the most spectacular. But it was hot and I was kinda lazy, so… Perhaps if there had been a bit more of a dynamic sky, I would have tried something better. But really, I can’t be too motivated for hiking hours in the heat for a cloudless blue sky.

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Sigma 14mm f/1.8
14mm
ISO 100
f 13
1/125 second
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #389 – Midnight Zoom

Photo: Rays of the midnight sun shining from behind Skottind from Ballstadheia, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 15, 2020. 23:54

Photo: Hazy mountain layers in light of midnight sun from Ballstadheia, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 16, 00:19

The power of zoom – one location and two completely different photos: 14mm and 200mm. I had been a bit indecisive as to where to go on this night. We’ve now had over a week of nearly cloudless skies over Lofoten and there is only so much you can do with the sun in a clear sky.

With the summer solstice tomorrow, when the sun it’s at its lowest at 01:00, it still remains well above the horizon during this period. So going to the coastal peaks on the yttersia can be a little boring – with just the sun sitting over the ocean – though maybe I try and shoot a time lapse of this in the next few days. Otherwise, finding something to put in front of the sun is the best in such good weather.

initially I drove to Justadtind, but I didn’t quite feel up to that long hike. Next I drove to Skottind, but again, something just felt off. Almost thinking of going home and being lazy, I finally drove to Ballstad and decided to go up the little hill of Ballstadheia so I would at least do something!

I took my time, wandering around the maze of trails to several different overlooks before making my way to the high point of the hill. Just as I arrived, I could see the sun emerging from around Skottind as well. This sent me into a slight panic for a moment thinking I might have missed my timing by only 1-2 minutes. But luckily its possible to walk down the mountain ridge, back into the shadow, find a new composition, and wait for the sun to emerge around the mountain again. Actually pretty perfect and much better than I had planned! I repeated this for several shots.

But also in the distance I could see the sea haze glowing in the sunlight. Switching to 200mm, I shot several compositions of this as well before the sun moved too far into the scene causing too much lens flare. again, I just had lucky timing and luck for the conditions – I wasn’t expecting such cool haze.

Looking at the two images next to each other, you can seen the area in the first photo where I then zoomed in and shot for the second image. But if you looked at each image individually, it would be easy to think they were shot at different locations at different times and not more of less from the same location within less than 30 minutes.

One of the most frequent questions during my photo workshops is, ‘What lens should I use?’ And my common response is, ‘What do you want to photograph?’ (with further detailed explanations of course…) This is a perfect illustration of that: You’re standing on a mountain watching the sun emerge from around another mountain. What lens should you use? There isn’t just one answer…

Camera Info Photo 1:
Nikon D850
Sigma 14mm f/1.8
14mm
ISO 100
f 13
1/10 second
WB Daylight

Camera Info Photo 2:
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-200 f/4
200mm
ISO 100
f 7.1
1/500 second
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #388 – Nesheia Desert

Photo: Desert-like mountain highlands over Nappstraumen, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 6, 2020. 23:55

Summer seems to have fully arrived here on Lofoten during the last week, and despite a couple cold misty days we’ve mostly experienced blue sky and endless sunlight. Tomorrow we might even hit 20˚c for the first time this year! I guess its time to work on my summer sunburn.

With such good weather, I actually haven’t been camping and have been saving most of my hiking for the evening hours. While the days are nice to be outside, a solid blue sky isn’t the most productive photographically, so it’s better I put my energy towards the most productive time of day, which is the night. And there’s not really any point in spending the night in 24 hour sunlight for a hike that is only 3-4 hours in length anyhow.

But with the full summer ahead, it is time to begin exploring some new mountains, and revisiting places I haven’t been to for some years. The main work for summer will be to cover Vestvågøy and Austvågøy in the east. But there’s still some new places in the west that I’ve never been to for whatever reason. This photo from Nesheia being one of them.

I’ve driven by and looked at the rocky mountain landscape hundreds if not thousands of times, but for sum reason until last weekend I never ventured up there. It is kind of a unique landscape which feels more like the deserts of California than anything found on Lofoten. I think this will be a cool place to visit again in autumn with a fresh dusting of light snow, so I’ll provably be back again before the year is over.

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
27mm
ISO 100
f 13
1/15 second
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #387 – Rockfall

Photo: Rockfall over Myrlandsveien which hit mail man and closed road for 24 hours, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 3, 2020. 11:38

Summer seems to have arrived with June this year as the temperatures have warmed up over the last week to 15 degree and sunny t-shirt weather. May was much colder than average here and so the spring greening of the islands feels a couple weeks late this year. But as always with the melting of the snow comes rockfall.

All across Lofoten you can see dark brown streaks of rockfall across sections of remaining snow. And when out and about in mountain area photographing, even at midnight after the day has cooled, you can hear numerous rockslides and snow/ice avalanches falling from the peaks. I posted video of a bigger one on my instagram story the other day that lasted long enough for me to hear it, see where it was, pull my phone out of my pocket and start recording.

Yesterday, Thursday, a large rock/snow fall occurred on Reinebringen in the late afternoon, covering a section of the steps in a layer of debris. Numerous people have already been hiking the mountain in the nice weather of the last days, but luckily tourism is off to a slow start this year and no one was present when the rockfall occurred.

I myself had even been planning on hiking Reinebringen yesterday, and likely would have been in the area near the time when the rockfall occurred. Luckily as I was driving there in the early evening I could see the evening sun would go into a layer of clouds, so I decided to go elsewhere last night.

But that is two reminders in two days for me that this is always a dangerous time of year in the mountains of Lofoten – though that’s not saying you can just relax the rest of the year – but the melting of the mountains in spring and early summer is always a period of elevated rockfall.

So, when you’re planning your hikes in the next weeks, be sure to know what your route is like and try to avoid areas traveling below steep cliffs.

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
44mm
ISO 200
f 9
1/500 second
WB Daylight