Photo: Rainbow at sunrise emerges from mountains at Bunes beach, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 17, 2013.  04:29

Perhaps one of the best sunrises I have ever photographed on Lofoten, I nearly slept through this one. My second morning on the islands, I was still suffering the effects of jet lag and staying up till midnight the previous night – the short summer nights don’t leave time for much sleep. So when my alarm went off at 3:30am and I drearily peaked my head out from the tent the sky looked somewhat boring, I laid back down.  I know I am on the islands to take photos, but there are times in tiredness where for a fleeting moment, I wouldn’t mind if it were raining.  Then I come to my senses.  Sleep when I die!

A little more time passed before my next alarm sounded and I figured I might as well get out of the tent and see what the morning would provide. By now a small bit of color was beginning to appear in the sky so I hurried out to the beach. The sunrise towards the east was quite nice with some pink glowing clouds filling the sky, but as I passed around a corner on the coast, this came into sight.

The world seemed to be at a standstill, and even the wind was calm.  For 20 minutes, the rainbow slowly drifted out from behind the cliff until the clouds finally faded.  It was one of those lucking moments where a combination of elements all come together at once.

I returned to my tent for a couple hours more sleep before having to pack up camp and hike back to the ferry.  As I was leaving the beach the sky was now a flat grey and a gentle rain began to fall.  A rain that some hours later would see me arrive soaking wet at Horseid beach and forced to hide in my tent for the next 18 hours…

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 50
f 16
3 seconds
WB Daylight
2 images – top, bottom

Photo:  Kvalvika Beach Friends, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Aug 26, 2012.  16:00

While I typically choose to exclude people from my landscapes, sometimes a human element helps make a scene.  I can’t remember exactly what I was doing at the moment, probably wanding around the beach to collect driftwood, when this group of people showed up and caught my eye.  And so I pulled out my camera to see if anything interesting might happen.

I would have preferred the beach to be clear of footprints, but what can you do, other than hiring some models to re-create the scene at low tide.  As the 3 friend sat and chatted for a minute, before one of them went diving into the water, I grabbed a couple quick photos.  Somehow the 3 of them standing there helps show the massive scale of Kvalvika beach, to me the cliffs in this image almost look bigger than they are in real life.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
56mm
ISO 100
f 10
1/160 sec
WB Daylight

Photo: Dark skies over Horseid beach, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 22, 2012.  15:51

I arrived on Lofoten early the previous morning and immediately caught the ferry to Kierkefjord to make the hike to Horseid beach.  Exhausted, I fell asleep in the early afternoon to the sound of a gently rain falling on my tent.  15 hours later I finally emerged.  The sky was still gray, but at least the clouds had risen and the rain was now only arriving in passing showers several times per hour.  As time passed the northwestern sky began to clear and moving beams of light would shine across the beach.

With the right tide (high), the small peninsula of land at the far end of Horseid beach provides an almost perfect view directly back towards the pass; the mountains in almost perfect symmetry.  Now it was my task to wait around for a bit of light.  When the sun happened to pass across the beach, the water was a brilliant turquoise. I knew I wanted to highlight this aspect of the scene, while not minding so much about the lighting on the background, or actually preferring it to remain dark and dramatic.

With the quickly moving light, I first shot with ‘normal’ exposures, but wasn’t getting the mood I was looking for out of the scene.  So I added my 10 stop B+W neutral density filter and then waited for the next found of light.  Shooting with 30 second exposures, it took a while for the elements to align themselves: a pleasing blur in the water with the correct timing of the waves and a long enough moment of sunlight across the beach to bring out the exposure and add some contrast against the mountains in the distance.  And even though the wind was fairly soft by this time, the 30 second exposure helps soften up the clouds a little, giving a bit more separate between them and the mountains.

For reference, I’ve included the following ‘outtake’ photo of the scene exposed at 1/250 sec.  While you can tell it would be something pleasant to sit there and look at in person (albeit a bit on the chilly side), visually, there is nowhere near the impact of the above photo.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 80
f 11
30 sec
WB Daylight
2 images – top/bottom
10 stop ND filter

Photo: Row boats float in Ågvatnet, Å I Lofoten, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  July 2001

This is the oldest Lofoten photo I’ll ever post on this site. But this photo is perhaps the whole reason this website exists. It was the summer of 2001 and a 20 year old long haired version of me was on his first ever backpacking trip to Europe. Or more specifically, 10 weeks of summer in Scandinavia. Becoming a photographer was not anywhere on my mind, infact, I would be moving to Santa Cruz to study computer science (ha! That didn’t last too long…) shortly after my return. But I still carried my trusty old Nikon FE (my first ever slr camera) and a couple dozen rolls of film to document my summer in Scandinavia.

I’ve written elsewhere about my discovery of Lofoten while in Bodø, because I had merely wanted to go north of the Arctic circle somewhere. The following morning I was on the ferry to Moskenes. Not having any idea of where to go, I teamed up with the only other Americans making the journey and followed them to Å. Sometime shortly before midnight I was wandering back from a walk and took this photo.

It is not technically perfect. In fact I’d dare say its pretty damn bad. I should have given a little more room in the foreground, and no doubt a tripod and a little hyperfocal-distance also would have helped, but the overall balance of the image is still appealing to me Or perhaps my memories from back then still hold power over something that would never see the light of day today.

Anyhow, I made a print of this when I returned home. It hung on my wall in the various places I lived for the following 5 years until I was finally able to return to Lofoten again. Since that second visit, the Summer of 2006, I’ve been to the islands every year except 2008, when I was doing my best to live in Germany.

Over these last years I’ve returned here again and again to try and make a ‘better’ version of this photo. I’ve never succeeded. Either the boats were missing, or half sunk, or it was raining, or too windy, or Frozen, or… And so this image remains an inspiration to my future and my love of the islands.

Perhaps when I once again have a place to live, I’ll pull the dusty print out of storage and give it a deserved place on my wall.

Camera Info:
Nikon FE
Nikon 35-105 F3.5-4.5 ais
Fuji Provia 100