Friday Photo #690 – Fish and Rain

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Photo: Drying stockfish under a rainy March sky, Reine, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. March 19, 2026. 16:47

It had been an almost perfect winter, until it wasn’t. As soon as March arrived, the cold and calm days of January and February were instantly replaced with wind and rain. It was almost like a light switch was flipped. Almost a month later, and Lofoten has since received only a light dusting of snow, which is now melting away in the next waves of rain. My hopes of much, if any, skiing this year have melted away.

It is always difficult to make an impression about one year’s weather. What will next winter bring? No one can say. But looking across the years, it seems Lofoten’s winter season is becoming shorter. Not in an abrupt end, but kinda just fading away never to fully return. This is where Norway’s ’11 seasons’ joke comes into play. Perhaps we are in Fool’s Spring, or maybe it’s already Spring of Deception. There is still time for lots of winter left, but it just doesn’t feel like it will return this year.

In this week’s photo, Lofoten’s stockfish attempt to dry beneath a rainy grey sky. You can see in the background mountains that most of the snow is gone – it is already looking more like May than March. Despite being out in the field guiding nearly every day of the month so far, my own photography slowed down to a handful of days – although this is also due to many perfect photography days earlier in the winter. Even a week up north on Senja was filled with positive temperatures and rain.

While the clouds did part at times, grey has been the dominant color of March this year and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen the sun. A north wind in shaking my house as I write this and Thursday’s scheduled cruise ship guiding was canceled because of the weather – though a big storm and 10m waves down south are largely to blame for that.

I was out last night, the first clear night in a long time, waiting for the rocket launch from Andøya (it was canceled). A faint aurora was in the sky, which would have looked cool with the rocket launch. As it became clear things were canceled around 21:30, I began my walk home. Turning off my headlamp once back to the road, I could see the horizon was still glowing. Soon I can dream of summer…

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 14-30mm f/4
30mm
ISO 200
f6.3
1/125 Second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #689 – Unstad Flow

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Photo: Waves flow over rocks at Unstad beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. January 28, 2026. 11:25

After all these years, Unstad still remains one of my favourite beaches on Lofoten and is one of the few beaches that I’ll still go to on my own as well, not just with photo workshops. On this day though, it was my first workshop of the year which got lucky with some nice and moody conditions before warming back up with a nice cinnamon bun at the surf shop. Not a bad way to start the morning.

In general for Unstad, the stormier the better, to the extent that you can still walk normally and not risk getting blow over, as there’s not much fun shooting in that. But some nice waves flowing over the rocks with passing snow flurries in the distance give Unstad a pretty nice mood when it happens. And with the constant passing of winter storms and high or low tides, the rocks are always in a different pattern and the waves flowing differently.

Unstad also works well as a beach for teaching seascape photography. While Uttakleiv is more popular among photographers, I find it easier to get better compositions out of Unstad. And, more importantly, it is generally a bit safer for many clients than the slippery and icy rock slaps at Uttakleiv, which has been particularly icy so far this winter due to the many weeks of cold. And in a couple more weeks, when the sun begins to set to the right over Helligberget, the last mountain, all kinds of interesting light becomes possible. I’ll be back for sure…

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 14-30mm f/4
25mm
ISO 64
f10
1/2 Second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #688 – Sea Eagle

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Photo: White-Tailed Sea Eagle silhouetted against winter sky, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 6, 2026. 12:45

It took me several days this week to delete around 500gb of data or roughly 10,000 photos to clear up some hard disc space. Of those 10k photos deleted, probably 90% of them were flying puffins and other birds from a couple Scotland trips last year; mostly tiny or out of focus birds somewhere in the frame or too zoomed in and cutting off the wings, which is usually my biggest error with flying birds: Trying to get too close.

And so for this year’s eagle trips I tried to keep all my bird issues in mind. I was partially successful. I defiantly got more keepers and some interesting moments than last years attempt, but there were also many moments where I was close, but just missed something – mainly my issue with being too zoomed in and cutting off the wings.

I think this image is perhaps my favourite from the first day out on the boats. Though I do wish I was a bit wider in the overall framing, to give a bit more of a sense of place, as it was a nice sky and atmosphere in the background. But at the end of the day, I’m pretty happy with this image as well.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6
250mm
ISO 720
f6.3
1/2500 Second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #687 – Olstind Reflection

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Photo: Classic view of Olstinden mountain peak rising over Reine harbor in winter, Reine, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. January 27, 2026. 11:34

Some scenes require little work and this is one of them. When you have a perfect reflection, nice dappled light, fresh snow on the mountain, and a few wispy clouds, all you need to do as a photographer is basically point you camera somewhere towards the mountain and the photo will more or less take itself. It is no wonder this is such a classic view of Lofoten.

I’m not sure how many times I’ve photographed this scene over the years. And often I’ll just stand to the side or help others. But at least once a winter, I still need to photograph it on especially nice days. This year it seemed to happen on my first workshop of the year in January. But I’ll be by more than a few more times in the coming month, so maybe I’ll get another version as well. Only time will tell for that…

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 24-120mm f/4
35mm
ISO 32
f11
60 Seconds
WB Daylight
10 stop neutral density filter

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