Photo: East face of Stjerntinden catches morning sunlight as it rises over Storvatn, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 7, 2020. 01:55
One of the difficult things about evening hikes during the midnight sun period is that by the time I get home a new day is often well underway. This is even more true with a cloudless blue sky such as on this evening, or, at this point, early morning.
This photo is from a (nearly) cloudless summer evening wandering around the strange, almost desert-like landscape of Nesheia, located on the southeastern corner of Flakstadøy. Already almost 02:00 in the morning, and having been out for several hours already, I had to stop for a couple more quick photos before I descended off the ridge and back into the forest below. Though the light was not very dramatic, the reflection of Stjerntinden (938m), the highest mountain of Flakstadøy, catching the morning light was a nice tranquil scene.
In full blue sky like this during the midnight sun period, I dare say the light can be a bit boring. With the sun never touching the horizon, there are no real sunsets or sunrises at this time of year. I generally prefer a bit of clouds for at least some hope of drama or interesting light.
A bit of clouds also help with sleep! It was another hour after this image that I finally got home, and by this, it basically felt like the middle of the day, not time to go to sleep…
Camera Info: Nikon D850 Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 28mm ISO 100 f10 1/15 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Summer sea fog approaching from the north, Myrland, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 4, 2021. 21:42
The sea fog, or fog monster, as I generally refer to it is the ruin of many summer evening BBQs and camping plans each year. Within a very short period of time, what is a nice summer day can suddenly drop in temperature as the fog arrives, cloaking the landscape in a layer of cool, misty grey. Above the fog, it still remains a nice summer day, but if you had not already made the plans to be at 400-500 meters, the normal highest elevation of fog, you will be stuck in the grey.
Sea fog occurs when warm air passed over cold water, quickly reaching its saturation point. For Lofoten, this is most often in early summer, but can occur later in the summer as well. The fog is quite difficult to forecast, but a warning sign that it might arrive will be a forecast for a nice sunny day with a slight northern wind – this is a prime recipe for fog along the northern coast of Lofoten.
I can often watch from my house as a wall of grey begins to approach from the north. Usually quite gradually at first, but once the fog near, it can be a quick change from sitting outside in a t-shirt and shorts to rushing to find a fleece and jacket, and then probably just going inside all together.
These two photos today are taken just 12 minutes apart. That’s all the time it takes to go from nice BBQ weather an mountain views, to barely being able to see my neighbours’ houses.
Camera Info: Nikon D810 Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 70mm ISO 100 f10 1/60 Second WB Daylight
Camera Info: Nikon D810 Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 24mm ISO 100 f10 1/60 Second WB Daylight
Photo: The twin peaks or Ryten and Fuglhuken rise over a twilight reflection on Kvalvika beach, Lofotodden National Park, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 16, 2021. 00:09
By mid-May the nights are no longer dark and its possible to be out all night long without need for a headlamp, so this is usually the start of my summer’s midnight hiking season on Lofoten. This evening’s forecast was for a nice clear sky so I headed out to Vestervika – West-Kvalvika beach to watch the sunset, which is already at 23:30 at night and sunrise again at 02:30 the following morning.
The slightly hazy but otherwise clear sky actually resulted in a fairly boring sunset of soft light just slowly fading away. But after the sun had been below the horizon for some time, this night pink twilight afterglow began to emerge and light up the landscape. This is basically the same light as the twilight nights in the 2nd of July, which is perhaps my favourite time of year for camping on Lofoten. It is generally too bright for me to do much camping during the midnight sun period these days when I can simply hike back out and have a nice bed to sleep in.
From this side of Kvalvika I always like the symmetry of the two peaks. And though it looks slightly smaller, Fuglhuken is 557 meter hight, while Ryten is slightly smaller at 543 meters. Though from the other side of the beach, standing directly below the vertical cliffs of Ryten, it is an impressive mountain to look at. I guess both views are nice in their own way.
After this shot, I packed up my back for the 4 kilometer hike back to my van and then the 40 minute drive home. Not a bad evening.
Camera Info: Nikon D850 Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 26mm ISO 64 f11 20 Seconds WB Daylight 6 stop ND filter
Photo: May sunset over summit of Volandstinden, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 16, 2020. 22:46
From mid May it is not long until the midnight sun arrives. Though as I often write, the light and temperature often do not match well at this time of year. Tomorrow the 17th of May is Norway’s constitution day – a day of parades and flags and bbq and more. And while down in Oslo it will be a sunny 20˚c, up here on Lofoten it will be a grey and maybe misty 6-7˚c – not exactly bbq weather!
Today’s photo is also from the 16 of May, but from several years ago. Lofoten had received a nice mid May snowfall, and so I headed up the mountains in the evening for a rare-ish combination of winter conditions and sun location. A couple days prior I had been on Ryten, for the evening sun to shine across the snowy bay (Friday Photo #384) , and it was a tough hike through the deep snow. On this day I took a little easier option of Volandstind, for a little rest of my sore legs.
I have already posted a different image from this evening (Friday Photo #595), showing more of the wintry landscape. This image is of the setting sun itself over the 2nd summit of Volandstind. Even at 22:46 at night, the sun still won’t set for another 45 minutes.
I was actually shooting a timelapse sequence as well. I actually shot a lot of timelapse sequences in May 2020 planning to put a short little video together, but 5 years later, I still haven’t found the time for that. Maybe one of these days, as there was some amazing light that year…
Camera Info: Nikon D850 Sigma 14mm f/1.8 14mm ISO 100 f11 1/30 Second WB Daylight
Photo: The first signs of spring as the fields begin to turn green in mid May, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 9, 2025. 14:27
While the landscape is still dominated by the brown dead grasses of winter, the fresh green growth is finally becoming more visible with each passing day. Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but in only a couple more weeks, this field will be full of yellow wildflowers under the 24 hour daylight of the midnight sun.
Here you can see this same location in early June 10 years ago – Friday Photo #131. Quite a difference from today’s photo! And probably easy to see why this time of year I’m always sort of just waiting for summer to arrive…
Just a short post for today as I’m deep into a long overdue update for the Seasons on Lofoten – Summer ebook. A lot has changed in Lofoten since the last update and all the Covid related chaos. Hopefully I’ll have the update out by next week – at least the mostly gloomy weather makes it easy to spend all day on the computer…
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 85mm ISO 100 f7.1 1/320 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Willow Ptarmigan in flight over grassland, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 1, 2025. 15:30
April and May are always a strange time of year for me in the mix of summer daylight but winter-ish temperatures and landscape. I’ve already made a few trips down south this year and have seen green trees and meadows and fields of flowers and flying puffins. Yet returning north to Lofoten is like taking a time machine back to the brown cold of winter while the islands wait several more weeks to catch up to southern Norway.
I know it will be summer soon, so I find it difficult to photograph the drab, brown landscape which exists at the moment. Though the forecast for the weekend is calling for up to 20cm of snow in some places, so maybe a bit of white winter will make a short return; though soon to be melted away by the high May sun.
The local wildlife don’t really care about the looks of the landscape, but they too are under transformation from winter to summer. From late March and into early April a large majority of the migratory birds arrive and fight for nesting grounds and mates. The moorlands around my village have been a bustle of activity for weeks now.
The year round residents like the mountain hares and, in this photo, the willow ptarmigans are in various phases of change from winter white to summer brown. The remaining white hares looks like ghosts as they hop around the fields in the twilight nights – probably easy pickings for any eagles flying around.
But just a couple more weeks and all signs of winter will be gone. Hopefully we have a repeat of last years fantastic summer, but that is yet to be seen…
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 600mm ISO 280 f 6.3 1/2500 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Mountains of the ‘Lofoten Wall’ rise from the sea while traveling on the Bodø – Moskenes ferry, April 24, 2025. 19:52
20 hours after I should have originally been home from a short trip to Scotland, Lofoten’s mountain wall was finally growing larger as the ferry approached Moskenes harbor. The pervious day I had not planned to be on the ferry as I flew into Evenes airport where my van was parked. Unfortunately though, I large rockfall across the E10 just west of the intersection to Henningsvær meant I could not make the 4 hour drive from the airport and would instead need to make a long detour via Bodø.
I generally don’t like to fly from Evenes during winter and the weather is too unreliable and the driving conditions often difficult. Last year after dropping off clients I made it past a stuck semi-truck only minutes before what resulted in an 6 hour road closure in blizzard like conditions. Long winter journeys in northern Norway always bring a bit of uncertainty if they will go as planned. And this week, despite the weather almost being spring-like, things did not go to plan.
Rock slides of such, while rare, do happen every couple years here on Lofoten. As I was sitting in Oslo I still wasn’t sure what my plan would be. Normally I would have had some camping gear in my van and could just wait things out for a day or two by making a short road trip to Vesterålen or somewhere else. But unfortunately for me, I had been lazy after a long winter guiding season, and had not converted my van back to road-trip mode. Stupid mistake.
As they were uncertain with the actual opening dates for the road, but said it would likely be today at the earliest, I decided the best plan of action would be to stay at the airport hotel in Evenes and then make the 6 hour journey to Bodø in the morning. Snow showers were in the weather forecast, though the roads remained mostly snow free for the long and winding drive and so I made pretty good time to Bodø – with enough spare time for a quick stop at Bilthema. Once on the ferry I could tell I was not the only one making the long detour around the road closure – and the waiting line in Moskenes at arrival also looked overly full for a random day in late April.
Once on the ferry it was announced that the road would open at 21:30 that evening, so I could have driven back directly and just sat some hours in Svolvær had I know this. But I didn’t. And for people leaving Lofoten, there is only one ferry per day while on the winter schedule, so you had to commit to the ferry already before the info got out about the opening of the road.
And my 4 hour drive turned into a 21 hour detour through northern Nordland and a calm sailing across the Vestfjorden – which I seem to be doing a lot in recent years as I spend more time down along the Helgeland coast and Islands.
Snow showers were passing intermittently and I was hoping that the ferry’s arrival on Lofoten would be timed with some backlit snow from the evening sun. But the snow showers were too far to the east or had already passed before arrival, so I was presented with the south faces of the mountains in shadows and the sun shining from overhead. I should have switched to longer telephoto lens and focused in a bit more on the backlit blowing snow on the ridges. And even this image is somewhat cropped to remove the sun out of the top of the frame, but I still feel there is too much water in the foreground which doesn’t add much to the scene.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 120mm ISO 100 f 8 1/3200 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Bluehour reflection of Stornappstind with dusting of snow, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 28, 2025. 06:37
For many weeks this winter even just a dusting of snow mid-way down the mountains like this morning was a welcoming sight. The temperatures for the entire week prior to this morning had been averaging over 6˚C and this was the first time in 8 days to fall below 0˚C again.
It takes close inspection of the image to know it was taken in winter, as it looks more like a typical autumn dusting of snow or maybe something from late spring. If you look closely, you can see some small patches of snow here and there on the mountain as well as some remaining snow in the gullies on the right of the image. These are small signs that more snow had previously been present but that almost everything else had melted away at some point. It has not been a good year for us skiers who live in the western half of Lofoten.
And while the image doesn’t look very wintry to me, I actually do like the look of the image overall and think the snow line helps add a little depth to the scene. Luckily, this was also a rare morning of still wind, so the reflections in these small tidal pools near Gravdal worked out quite nice in my opinion. Perhaps some areas are a bit dark and heavy – it was low tide – but I think it works as a nice framing of the mountain as it rises into the deep blue of the early morning sky.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 48mm ISO 100 f 7.1 6 Seconds WB Daylight
Photo: Setting winter sun behind misty waves at Unstad beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 25, 2025. 16:47
One benefit to this year’s windy and stormy winter is that the sea is anything but boring! Unstad in particular is always better photographically when large swells are rolling into the bay and I always try to take my groups there in such conditions.
This day was quite a stormy one, with the strong offshore wind blowing mist off the tops of the waves as they broke across the bay. At first I was just shooting the waves themselves with a telephoto lens from up near the parking lot. But as the setting sun emerged from behind the mountain Helligberget (the Holy Mountain), I headed down the the shoreline to see if I could come up with something different.
And while I love this conditions, it is also quite hard to capture the sense of being there amongst all the chaos into a single, still image. The wind, the mist and spay, the rumble of the waves, the smell of the ocean, the approaching storm, the surrounding mountains – there is a lot so see! For me, I was manly looking at the atmosphere of the mist blowing into the air and the atmosphere this created with the sun setting in the background.
Unfortunately though, the angle needed to get the mist blowing into the sky meant getting down by the beach where visibility of the larger waves breaking further out in the bay was lost. Overall I like the feeling of this image, but it does fail to capture much of the drama and the size of the waves on this day.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 97mm ISO 100 f 8 1/50 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Northern lights dance over Storsandnes beach, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. March 6, 2025. 20:46
Like every year, the ever shortening nights of April mean Lofoten’s northern lights season is quickly coming to an end. This season has been a good one. Especially so for my photo workshop clients, which, despite some challenging weather, each group had at least 2 nights of aurora, and some 3-4 nights. And not just nights of a bit of green between some clouds, but nights of dancing light across the sky.
This image was taken on the last night with my fourth group of the winter. It was raining and heavily clouded as we showed up to the beach after dinner. But as the forecast said, the clouds began clearing after 20:00 and soon enough the sky was dancing with light! This particular moment was so bright that I only needed a 1 second exposure.
Not a bad way to finish an otherwise stormy week on Lofoten.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 16mm ISO 2500 f 2.2 1 Second WB Daylight
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