Friday Photo #538 – Misty April Mountains

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Photo: Mountains emerge from misty clouds, Eltofttuva, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. April 24, 2022. 14:19

Last week I was somewhat optimistic that it would be an early start to barbecue season this year. But unfortunately, what I thought would be a warm April has cooled again and a layer of snow was once again sitting in my yard over the past weekend. So I think I’ll have to wait a little longer this year. But that is almost always Lofoten at this time of year – sitting in a limbo of not-winter and not-summer. Up north they are still getting good ski days in the mountains, while down south the land is already turning green. On Lofoten, we just wait.

I actually haven’t been out shooting too much lately. There has been some nice light, but I’m often stuck on the computer most of the day and then the thought of sitting up on a mountain in the cold wind waiting for sunset at 21:45 turns me a bit lazy. Though I guess I probably need to get the legs moving soon in preparation for summer, as even after my winter photo workshop season ended, I only managed a few days on skis before the snow melted away. But if I have to be stuck on the computer, I’d rather it be now than during the summer.

Another reason is that my photographic focus isn’t on Lofoten at the moment. In 2020 I had meant to spend most of my time hiking and photographing in the eastern parts of Lofoten for a new ebook companion to my West Lofoten Hikes ebook. But it is actually a lot of driving for me to get to the eastern parts of Lofoten, and with everything surrounding Corona, I had to put that project on the shelf for a while as I simply couldn’t afford the driving required.

But as the world normalised again, I found I had a new interest, which is my current ongoing ebook project. This one is my most ambitious one to date and I’ve already put in a few weeks on it during the last couple years. If I am lucky I might finish up most of the photography by this autumn and the writing over winter. I guess I found it easier, and more interesting, to take a longer trip a bit further to new places, than just driving around in circles over Lofoten all summer. And there are so many beautiful regions in Norway, that I sometimes wonder how they are so overlooked. I guess it’s just branding and name recognition, like any other commercial product. I could spend 10 lifetimes just trying to photograph Norway.

So, with my mind on big plans for other parts of Norway, I’m a bit lazy about day to day photography on Lofoten without having a project to work on. Though the good news is that I still have a backlog of hikes that I’ve never added to the website for some reason. Mostly this will be some mountains on Vestvågøy which I don’t have anywhere else to use at the moment, and a few ones from West Lofoten Hikes ebook that never made it online. Though some of those hikes in that will remain only in the ebook for the time being.

This week’s photo is from one of those new hikes on the website, taken on a misty and rainy April hike to Eltofttuva – hiking guide here. I think I’ve probably skied from the summit of Eltofttuva 10x more than I’ve hiked it, but as a fairly easy short hike just east of Leknes, I still usually make a couple trips a year, mostly for a bit of afternoon exercise with friends.

On this day, we were mostly in thick grey clouds and minimal visibility. I could see on the radar that the rain would (mostly) pass shortly after arriving at the summit, so we waited around a bit until I could at least see some distant peaks begin to emerge. I actually think this shot came out quite nice for what the day looked like. My only complaint would be the unfortunate location of the power lines running though the bottom of the frame. But nothing I can do about that…

Head over to my Instagram account for (almost) daily postings of the local conditions here on Lofoten: @distant.north

Camera Info:
Nikon Z7 II
Nikon 24-200 f/4-6.3
175mm
ISO 100
f 8
1/250 Second
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #537 – Spring Thaw

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Photo: Spring mountain reflections in Selfjord, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. April 17, 2023. 10:17

Some years the weather seems to switch as quickly as if one is turning a light off and on. What was an unseasonably cold March has now (mostly) turned into a sunny and warm April, and now finally a bit of rain. The snow which I thought would last well into May seems to be melting away quite quickly, especially in western Lofoten, and many of the coastal mountains below 500 meters are already snow free. Though as I write this, the weekend’s weather is supposed to be cold with the chance for some fresh snow – so don’t change to those summer tires just yet!

I’ve probably written a dozen times before that I always find this an odd time of year for my photography. The clean beauty of winter is over and I know the lush greens and flower fields of summer are only a few weeks away. April and early May on Lofoten is often just a waiting period for me – which is needed, as I have a ton of computer work needed to finish up ongoing projects and prepare for new ones during summer. But I also find it frustrating, as I enjoy the light of this time of year and the nights get brighter and the midnight sun approaches. So I find myself inspired by the light, but bored by the brown and tired landscape itself.

Today’s image is a rare calm moment in Selfjord, taken from the side of the road. I was on the way to Reine to attend a conference, but out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something in the water. The back story to this is that there have been some humpback whales in the area of the last few weeks. They were first spotted in Svolvær harbor at the end of March. I saw them briefly in stormy water near Reinehalsen as I was headed to Moskenes to catch the ferry before easter, and then over easter they spent several days swimming around Hamnøy and Sakrisøy. So a few days after they had last been spotted, I thought maybe I was lucky and there they were!

So I quickly pulled over and scanned the fjord. Nothing. It was, however, a quite nice reflection, so I took a few quick snapshots before continuing on my way to Reine for the day. Had it not been for the possible attempt at whale watching, I most likely would have just driven by without stopping.

Head over to my Instagram account for (almost) daily postings of the local conditions here on Lofoten: @distant.north

Camera Info:
Nikon Z7 II
Nikon 24-120mm f/4
50mm
ISO 100
f 8
1/320 Second
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #536 – Hamnøy Aurora

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Photo: Northern lights – aurora borealis shine in sky over red cabins of Eliassen Rorbuer, Hamnøy, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 19, 2023. 23:30

The arrival of mid April means the end of aurora season on Lofoten. By next weekend the sky will no longer be dark enough for the northern lights to be visible as the sun continues its journey towards the northern horizon.

Overall, this year has been a pretty good year for northern lights. My season started on August 27th while just outside of Kvikkjokk in Sweden before heading out to hike sections of the Padjelantaleden and Kungsleden trails (eBooks available here). Once back in Norway, the aurora continued on a fairly regular basis throughout the autumn and into early winter. Some heavy weather arrived with the beginning of photo workshop season in mid January, but every group managed to get at least one night of northern lights during their workshops, and many groups got lucky with multiple nights.

I was over on the mainland with perfectly clear skies March 23 when a G4 solar storm hit, in one of the best and most colourful northern lights displays I’ve ever seen. This was the biggest solar storm in 6 years, and was visible throughout Europe and down to the southern US. Crazy! Not sure if I’ll ever post any of the pictures here, but maybe they’ll eventually show up over on distantnorth.com.

By now, only the brightest displays are visible in the hours around midnight. Have I seen my last aurora for the season yet? I’m not sure, but probably. The chances grow lower with each passing day. And by the 20th, I’ll be pretty confident the aurora will be over.

This image was the last stop of what had been 4 hours of dancing aurora this night with a workshop group. Usually I don’t like to put too many signs of civilisation or light pollution in my images, but as it had already been a good night for the group with multiple other locations visited, we decided on one last stop just around the corner from our cabins at Eliassen rorbuer – so we were actually shooting out cabins from this location.

On a lower activity night, this would normally be a somewhat risky location, if the aurora only remained in the north. But luckily, the activity pickup up after 23:00 and the aurora moved to the southern part of the sky. The exposure was quite tricky, and I was bracketing with 0, -1 stop exposures just to be on the safe side with the bright lights of the cabins. Though this photo is from a single image. A bit of moonlight would have definitely helped with this scene to balance out the light. Overall, still a nice shot I think, and one that I’ve not previously taken, despite the amount of time I spend in the area each winter.

Head over to my Instagram account for (almost) daily postings of the local conditions here on Lofoten: @distant.north

Camera Info:
Nikon Z7 II
Nikon 20mm f/1.8
20mm
ISO 1600
f 2
3 Seconds
WB Daylight

Friday Photo #535 – March Freeze

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Photo: Snow from sea to summit across over western Lofoten, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. March 18, 2023. 13:29

This week, more weather news! Perhaps I’m getting a little too repetitive and basically just turning into a weatherman these days. But after 10 years of these Friday photo posts, I often find myself struggling with what to write about. I’ve even thought of reducing the frequency to every other week, but I fear that would allow me to become too lazy. So once a week it will remain, but likely with a fair amount of ‘here’s what happened this week on Lofoten…’ type of posts. I’ve also contemplated on maybe switching over to a YouTube type vlog post for each week, but I also don’t really think I have the personality to be a YouTuber. I’m better with just written words.

Anyhow, last week (Friday Photo #534), I wrote that I expected March to come in around 3-4˚c degrees below average for the month, which is 0.1˚c. And I was pretty accurate! The average temperature for March 2023 was -3.3˚c, so just in the middle of my guesstimate. I’m actually surprised the average didn’t come in a little colder as there were 14 days which fell below -10˚c. My hands can still feel the cold of many days and nights out guiding!

But now with April, ‘mild’ weather has arrived. Though this was not before a moderately intense storm last Friday brought a lot of chaos to northern Norway, mostly in Troms and Finnmark. Tragically, 4 people died in 3 separate avalanches on Friday, two skiers, and two people sitting at home when their house and farm was hit by an avalanche and pushed into the sea. Such an occurrence also occurred in Skjelfjord, here in Lofoten, I believe in 1998 or so. By modern safety standards, many houses here in Norway would not be allowed to be built in the locations in which they are. The same for many roads.

This week’s photo is a drone view showing the beautiful white snow covering off west Lofoten in mid March. Often these last years, Moskenesøy on has periodic snow cover as longer spells of rain and warm southern wind seem to be more common. But this image is how Lofoten should look! Snow from sea to summit.

Head over to my Instagram account for (almost) daily postings of the local conditions here on Lofoten: @distant.north

Camera Info:
DJI Air 2s