Friday Photo #622 – The Night Is Coming

Photo: Early afternoon darkness as Mørketiden – The Polar Night begins, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. December 8, 2020. 14:20

This weekend Lofoten will see its last sunlight of the year as the Mørketid – Polar Night begins. For me, it has already been many days since I last saw the sun, as this years grey and dreary weather has maintained a strong presence over the islands: stably unstable is the current forecast for the weekend.

Stably unstable. It kind of has a nice sound to it, despite meaning that you’ll probably don’t want to spent too much time outside. This autumn and start of winter has perhaps been the longest period of consistently poor weather since I moved to Lofoten in 2016. I guess this is the payback for nice summer. I’ve been needing to do some housework which requires me to be outside in relatively calm conditions – so stuff doesn’t go flying all over my yard, and lately it is only one afternoon every couple weeks where this is possible. And despite all the hype over the coming solar maximum, I have read many reports of frustrated northern lights chasers, even up in Tromsø, which is largely suffering the same weather as Lofoten.

I’ve only photographed on 1 day in the last 3 weeks, so this photo is from a couple years back. Only 14:20 in the afternoon, you can already feel the last moments of twilight before the darkness of night arrives.

Despite the overwhelming presence of darkness in the polar night, there are some brighter moments as well. I’ve put together a new article and gallery with images from Mørketiden.

POLAR NIGHT GALLERY

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-200 f/4
119mm
ISO 100
f 6.3
1.6 Second
WB Daylight