Photo: Winter tide, Vik Beach, Vestvagøyå, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb. 16, 21013.  17:19

For several days a layer of low clouds had enveloped the islands and concealed the sun.  Flat, gray light was all there was to be found over most of Lofoten.  Finally, as evening arrived I headed out towards Utakleiv, where I planned to spend the night.  I was originally going to stop at Haukland beach while on my way, but there was already a crowd of other photographers there – and for some reason, I’m a bit self-conscious about invading another photographers ‘working space.’  Nothing more annoying than composing a shot and have some dude, or usually a workshop group, as numbers bring boldness, set up a tripod in the middle of your scene.  But I digress, a rant for another day perhaps…

So I instead headed towards Vik beach, which sat empty.  I had good luck with my timing as the incoming tide was meeting the snow line on the beach, which I often find an interesting motif.  The clouds here on the north side of the island also began to show some texture as they first met with the mountain wall of Lofoten.

There seem to have been a sheep or two which had wandered up and down the beach, leaving a maze of footprints in the otherwise almost completely untouched snow.  This reduced the possibilities of including more foreground in the composition and meant I needed to keep just to the water’s edge.  But in the end, I think it worked out quite okay.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 50
f 16
25 sec
WB Daylight
6 stop B+W ND filter
2 images – top/bottom

Photo: Haukland Beach winter, Vestvågøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 20, 2013

After a week of fairly cold temperatures and calm conditions, the weather began to change on this day.  Winds and increasing temperatures swept across the islands.  Rain instead of snow now fell and setting up a tripod became difficult.

I was planning on spending the night at Utakleiv, but after a quick trip out to the beach, it was quite obvious that I wouldn’t be taking any photos there.  So I headed back through the tunnel to Haukland beach and relatively calmer conditions – though I still had to wait for a lull in the breeze before attempting to take a photo.  The sea was rough, and crashing high up on the beach, so after a few minutes of observation, I found myself just at the edge of the high water line.  Then comes the waiting game…

Finally, after what seems like forever, the next set of waves arrives, pushing the sea just to the edge of my tripod legs.  With luck, the wind also remains calm for the 25 second exposure to keep my light backpacking tripod from shaking too much.  Moments later, drops of rain begin to fall from the clouds and photography is over for the day.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
24mm
ISO 50
f 16
25 sec
WB Daylight
Filer – B+W 6 stop ND

Photo: A frozen tide line on Haukland Beach in the day’s first light, Vestvågøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Jan 6, 2010.  09:55

Having arrived on the islands the previous day, I spent the night sleeping in my rental car out by Utakleiv beach.  It was a stormy, uncomfortable night, and I worried that my car might get blown off the ice covered parking area and into the sea.  Fortunately, exhaustion from nearly 2 days of travel and little sleep meant I was actually shut my eyes for a while.

In the morning, I awoke to near silence, only the sound of gently crashing waves below me.  Leaving Utakleiv, I came upon this scene at Haukland Beach, just on the other side of the tunnel.  It had been cold for several days, and the beach lay littered with chunks of ice, frozen from the river that runs through the beach, and washed back ashore from the tide.  The nights wind seemed to have scoured away most of the snow from the beach, leaving only a thin, ice coat over the sand.  Overhead the sky glowed a brilliant pink as the sun was preparing to rise above the horizon for the first time in nearly a month.

I spent some time photographing the ice and then wandered closer to the shore where this scene caught my interest, where the high tide line frozen into the sand.  In the distance, the moon hung low over the sea while waves gently lapped the shoreline.  I stayed until my feet were so cold that I had to go back to the car and heat them up again.

This day ended up being one of my most photogenic days ever on the Lofoten Islands, and I there are many images that I still consider to be my favourites over 3 years later.  There will likely be more ‘Weekly Photo’ post with images from this day.

Technical info:  The final photo consist of 3 images, shifted vertically so I could get the 1:1 crop.  And for this scene especially, I think 1:1 works well.  With 2:3 format, it would appear too narrow if framed vertically, while horizontally I would have needed to shoot too wide not to cut off the top of the mountain.  I shot at f/16 and ISO 100 because I wanted a long(ish) exposure the flatten out the sea.  I also need quite some depth of field.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 100
f 16
10 sec
WB Daylight
3 Images – top, middle,  bottom. For square format
No Filters

Photo: Ice flower on Ytterpollen, Vestvågøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 8, 2012. 09:39

This image is a product of the highly changeable weather of the Lofoten Islands.  Two days prior, February 6, the temperature was -10.7˚C, the coldest day for the whole of 2012, and the islands were covered in a light dusting of fresh snow.  Two days later, when this photo was taken, the temperature had risen to over 4˚C and a night of rain had melted nearly all the snow covering the lower elevations, including the snow that had been covering the frozen sea ice here at Ytterpollen, between Borg and Eggum.

I had been mostly been sleeping in my rental car out at Eggum and had been eyeing this section of coast as I drove by, knowing there would be possibilities of something interesting.  The previous day, as the last light was disappearing from the sky I stopped near here, while there was still a covering of snow, and took a few photos of patterns in the ice cracks.  But as I drove by the following morning I noticed the nights rain had melted the remaining snow, and these ‘ice flowers,’ where rocks cracked through the sea ice, took on surreal in interesting shapes.  So of course, I parked on the side of the road and headed out for some photos.

First step onto the ice and I was immediately on my ass.  Good that I hadn’t yet taken my camera out.  To say that rain covered ice is slippery would be an understatement.  Any minor gradation in the ice and I would slide, and slide until I reached a low point.  I finally resorted to extending my tripod as using it as a makeshift walker along the lines of what old people use as I sort of skated and slid over the ice in a rather comical fashion.  The ice creaked and cracked under my bodyweight and I thought it possible that I might break through at anytime (I was safe and wouldn’t have fallen in any deep water, just maybe some when feet, though still not desirable.).

I found the symmetrical nature of this ‘ice flower’ to be the most appealing of them all, or at least the ones I was willing to risk getting to.  I made several compositions, with this extremely wide angle one, emphasising the foreground being the most appealing to me.

Technical info: The light was extremely flat so I had to increase the contrast in the image quite a bit in the foreground.  And As I was in the shade, while there was some sunlight on the clouds in the background, I brought down the sky a bit to give a bit more balance to the image.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 16-35mm f/4.0
16mm
ISO 200
f 13
1/13 sec
WB Daylight
Single Image
No Filters