Photo: Small waterfall flowing from melting spring snow below the mountains of Flakstad, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 12, 2021. 21:46

It was a strange and mostly snow-less winter in west Lofoten and so much of the lower elevations have been snow free since the beginning of April (minus a quick snow shower or two) but it finally seems the spring thaw is underway in the higher elevations and the small mountain rivers are flowing. The first flowers are in the fields and the lower elevation trees have their first leaves. Higher up though, the landscape is just beginning to grow, otherwise remaining mostly winter-like in appearance.

I always find this a strange time of year for photography. The days are now endless and there has been some interesting light over the last weeks. But I don’t like the brown, winter landscape so much. It just feels a bit dull and boring – especially since I know that the lush greens and meadows full of wildflowers are only a few weeks away. So May always feels like a month of waiting for me: The summer light has arrived, now the landscape needs to catch up. But day by day it does and the fields outside my house look slightly greener each morning and a little more snow has disappeared from the mountains. And with the sun shining bright, it might actually be t-shirt weather this weekend and it looks like the weather will cooperate for a nice 17th of May barbecue on Monday.

This photo is actually 3 vertically shifted image from at 24mm tilt-shift lens. The original cropping is 4:5, but this here is 2:3 – which I normally don’t like in vertical format. However, in the 4:5 crop, the rock on the lower right side of the image felt too large and overpowering. I tried cropping in tighter overall, but then I needed to compromise with getting too tight on the mountains, or loosing too much flow in the water. So out of all the options I had, 2:3 crop seemed the least offensive one to me.

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

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 31
f 13
0.4 second
WB Daylight
3 image vertical pano

Photo: Male Ptarmigan in winter plumage in spring field, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. April 16, 2021. 18:42

I make to claims to be any sort of even near competent wildlife photographer, and in general, I’ll only pursue any soft of animals should the opportunity basically present itself before me – ie, a moose standing on the side of the road, etc. The one small exception to this is in the spring time when the fields around my house fill with various birds. Then, I’ll bring out the telephoto lens and make various, usually failed, attempts at getting some images.

I think this is also because I don’t find the brown fields and melting snow that attractive for landscape photography. Everything just feels a bit ‘ehh’ looking to me at this time of year. And in only a few weeks the trees will be green and the fields full of flowers. This is also one of the reason why I don’t really offer any photo workshops at this time of year, unless by special request, as it is not the most scenic time on Lofoten.

Of all the animal and birds cruising around, the mountain hares are probably the easiest to photograph, with the ptarmigan – rype in Norwegian, probably being the next easiest to get near enough to. Everything else just flies away as I attempt to approach, and i’m way too lazy to sit out in a hide for several hours just for a picture of a bird. Although there might be one exception, as there is an eagle that semi-regularly sits on a small lump of grass overlooking the ocean, which might be worth a proper attempt at wildlife photography one of these years.

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

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6
500mm
ISO 320
f 5.6
1/1250 second
WB Daylight

Photo: Northern Lights in sky over glowing April horizon, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. April 13, 2021. 01:10

It is mid April and the northern horizon is growing lighter with each passing night as the sun continues on it’s northern journey over the next two months. And so, it is time to say goodbye to the northern lights until they return again in late August.

Every year it is always a question of when I will see the last aurora, doing it’s best to shine brighter than the midnight April sky. So far, the night of April 12/13 is the latest I have photographed northern lights here on Lofoten. Today’s image is also of that night. It won’t be until next week when the sky will definitely be too bright, that I will know if this was this years last aurora image or not.

However, the weather forecast is showing clear skies this weekend and there is also some solar energy hitting earth, which means there is a good change I might get one or two more nights of northern lights in the coming nights. And it really is a light night event at this time of year, usually becoming visible around midnight.

While the northern lights often get stereotyped as a winter event, from the Lofoten Islands, and in a strictly astrological sense of light and darkness, they are potentially visible for about 8 months of the year – about August 20-25 – April 15-20. So about 2/3rds of the year they are visible! I guess that is why I always lose a bit of motivation during the last month or so and don’t put too much effort to get out unless conditions seem ideal. The exception being, to try and get the last aurora dance of the season.

This year was a strange northern lights season, and defiantly not the best of the 5 winters I have now lived full time on Lofoten. It was much better than the 2019/2020 season, which simply had terrible weather overall. This season we had a pretty rainy and gray start to the season and it wasn’t until January that the weather improved somewhat. And while we were lucky to have some large aurora displays on a few perfectly clear nights, they were still somewhat few and far between. And frustratingly, there were also multiple clear but aurora-less nights this season. I guess that is why northern lights photography is usually referred to as, ‘chasing’ or ‘hunting,’ or some other verb to describe the pursuit – as even in otherwise perfect conditions, you never know if they will show up or not…

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

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-200mm f/4
140mm
ISO 1000
f 4.5
1/1600 second
WB Daylight

Photo: Stortind rising into the midnight sky above flowing waters of the spring snowmelt, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 25, 2020. 23:29

Finally, after a seemingly never ending winter the thermometer broke into double digits again last weekend and gave us the hottest day of the year so far – 16˚C! Well, I’m sure for most of you reading this, that doesn’t sound like much, but for us here on Lofoten, this was only the 2nd time above 10˚C this year, the previous time being on January 2nd during a strange warm period. Otherwise, we’d have to go back to late October to find 2 more days above 10˚C.

Though unfortunately this was just a quick teaser of what’s hopefully to come. As the rest of the week since Tuesday has fallen back to a pattern of heavy grey skies and cool rain. But At least we had a few days to sit outside while not in a down jacket and remember what the warmth of the sun felt like – I don’t think my arms have seen sunlight since September…

Thus far in May, most of the precipitation arrived as snow. And while it has mostly since melted away from the coastal areas, the inland mountains still have significant snow coverage, even here in west Lofoten. Last year I was already hiking up snow free trails on moderately hight peaks by now. I might have to wait a little longer this year.

The mountain snow combined with the sun and warm temperatures quickly set the spring thaw into motion. All over Lofoten the often quiet little streams were flowing high and fast. Driving by this location on my way to somewhere else I noticed the river flowing across a section of rocks that for whatever reason I’ve never photographed before – I usually only visit the lower waterfalls here.

I first made a stop in the late afternoon and hiked a little ways up the valley to where the river was flowing across the flat, slabby rocks. But the sun was in the wrong part of the sky, so after a little while exploring and observing the conditions, I made the plan to come back later in the evening.

As the hours passed the winds picked up into quite some gusts out on the exposed coastal areas. Luckily, this valley was mostly sheltered, though at times the wind gusted strong enough to blow water across my lens. The sky was nearly completely cloudy, yet luckily enough there was a hole somewhere in the northern sky to allow a ray of light to shine across the upper half of Stordind – without that, I don’t think the image would have worked as well.

Camera Info:
Nikon D885
Sigma 14mm f/1.8
14mm
ISO 31
f 16
1 second
WB Daylight