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Friday Photo #616 – Winter Roads

Photo: Northern lights shine in sky over icy Myrlandsveien road, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. November 27, 2023. 22:13

Already in October, a Finnish tour bus full of passengers slid off Lofoten’s ice roads and multiple other cars have made it to the infamous ‘bil i grofta’ newspaper headline. Even a police car up in Finnmark while still driving with summer tires ended up sliding on ice: which according to Norwegian police themselves – no matter what the season, it is the driver’s responsibility to have appropriate tires for road conditions. In Nordland, Troms, and Finnmark the period for winter tires is October 16 – April 30. However, should icy/snowy conditions present themselves outside of this period, it is your responsibility to have correct tires. If it was you or I off the road with inappropriate tires for conditions, we would have a temporary loss of our driving license. The police have said they will investigate themselves about the incident… 😉

So, with November, and increasingly winter driving conditions just around the corner for Lofoten, this is my yearly reference to winter driving and safety on Lofoten. You can find the follow article below:

Winter Driving On Lofoten

With all the hype around the solar maximum this year, the coming winter is probably going to be the busiest ever on Lofoten. And that means many inexperienced winter drivers on Lofoten’s narrow and winding roads. I would roughly guess that a majority of traffic in western Lofoten will be tourists in rental cars, and probably basically every car driving around at night as people hunt for northern lights – rain or clear weather, snow or storms. And it will probably be sometime in mid February when I wonder why I work terribly long hours as a photo guide, when I could earn just as much money in a few hours driving a tow truck picking up rental cars from the side of the road.

If you are reading this, please drive safely! There might be some days during your trip where it is simply not safe to be on the roads. There is no shame in sitting around your cabin or hotel and waiting for conditions to improve. And if the weather is that bad, you’re probably not missing out on much anyhow. Weather caused travel disruptions are frequent throughout winter on Lofoten, so be aware that you might need a plan B, C, or D if severe weather hits at an in opportune time in your travel.

I almost forgot to write about the photo! With a nice full moon light I had been photographing the aurora over Nappstaumen and Himmeltindan looking towards the northeast. As the activity slowly increased and the aurora rose overhead, Looking west down the road from my current location provided a nice shot without having to drive anywhere else. Without the moonlight, I don’t think this image would have worked, is I feel in needs the bright snow to balance out the foreground and mountain. Ideally I should have been in a better location with a cleaner view to the west, but at the moment, this was the best I could do.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Sigma 14mm f/1.8
14mm
ISO 2000
f 2
1.6 Seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #615 – Red Aurora

Photo: Colorful northern lights rise into the sky over Storsandnes beach, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 7, 2024. 21:06

Since one image was not enough, here is another photo from the fantastic October 7 aurora display on Lofoten. While globally overshadowed by the October 10/11 display that was visible across most of Europe and the US, this ‘smaller’ aurora was better photographically for Lofoten’s high northern latitude.

And we were quite lucky here on Lofoten, as it has basically been rainy and stormy every day for the last two weeks since then. While I generally like autumn auroras, the weather this year is proving to be a bit problematic in regard to clear night skies. When the weather statistics for October are published, I suspect this year will have been rainier than average, as by my rough calculations we have already almost met the average rainfall already by the middle of the month, with the forecast not looking to improve very much next week.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Sigma 14mm f/1.8
14mm
ISO 1600
f 2
3 Seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #614 – Just Look Up!

Photo: Just look up! Colorful cascading aurora corona fills the sky, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 7, 2024. 20:38

It has been a crazy week for northern lights watchers! Last weekend brought strong auroras to Lofoten on Sunday and Monday nights. The Sunday aurora arrived quite late in the evening, while the Monday aurora was beginning already as it became dark.

Monday evening I rushed out of my house down to the Storsandnes beach once I could see a little green in the sky, which then completely exploded with color shortly after my arrival around 20:15. By 20:25 the whole sky was dancing in colorful aurora, with reds visible to the eye.

Storsandness was actually not the best location, as the aurora was quite far south in the sky, behind the 700m mountains which rise over the beach. But even looking straight up was incredible enough! The image is uncropped at 14mm and the cascading corona fills the entire frame. Crazy! It was one of those nights where you didn’t know where to look as it was dancing around the sky.

But Sunday and Monday were just a warmup for what was to come. Earlier in the year on May 10/11 was a ‘once a decade’ type solar storm, with aurora visible across much of Europe and even down to California and the southern US. Yesterday and today, October 10/11, was another such ‘once a decade’ aurora event. Perhaps even bigger than May. My brother at 33˚ latitude in southern California was able to see a red glow in the sky.

For Lofoten, it was actually too big! Combined with a partially cloudy sky, the northern lights were actually too far south for Lofoten to receive a spectacular show. So while they were visible across most of Europe and the US again, it wasn’t as spectacular in northern Norway as the weekend’s show had been. One of the rare times when bigger is not necessarily better in the far north.

With the sun’s increasing activity as it heads towards it’s solar maximum next year, hopefully this is a sign up things to come. And not just for aurora watchers in the far north, but middle European and North American latitudes as well.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Sigma 14mm f/1.8
14mm
ISO 2000
f 2
1.6 Seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #613 – Unstad Surf

Photo: Surfer in wave at Unstad beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 4, 2022. 17:19

The autumn storms bring nice swells to Unstad each year, which combined with the still mild water temperatures and autumn holidays make it a popular time for surfing. This day with one of my autumn photo workshops a nice clean slightly overhead swell was rolling into the bay. Though I don’t surf too much these days – hard to find the time! I still enjoy shooting surfing when I get the chance. And it’s usually a unique experience for workshop clients who often don’t associate the arctic and surfing.

As the afternoon light began to fade I decided to change things up a bit. Instead of continuing to increase my ISO to keep a fast enough shutter speed for the surfers to remain sharp, I did the opposite. Putting my ISO down to 31 and stopping the lens down to f22 – which unfortunately made every dust spot on my dirty camera sensor visible – I should have put on a 3 stop ND filter instead – I was able to get an exposure around 1/2 a second.

Tracking the waves and finding the correct movement and shutter speed is relatively straightforward enough. Adding a surfer onto the wave who then moves within a 3 dimensional space makes things a little more tricky. Ideally the surfer should move as closely with the wave as possible, without too much up or down motion, which then turns them into a mushy blur.

Once finding roughly the right settings its mostly down to a bit of luck to for everything to come together, which I think it mostly did with this image.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z7 II
Nikon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6
300mm
ISO 31
f 22
0.3 Second
WB Daylight

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