Photo:  Patterns of snow on lake Ågvatnet, Å I Lofoten, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  February 2, 2014.  15:27

I had been following the on Lofoten for the months before my travels at the beginning of February and knew the islands where having a ‘dry’ winter.  This first was evident as I walked the cold, windy streets of Bodø from the airport to a friends house.  Usually it is a perilous and slippery journey along icy sidewalks and streets, yet now I found only blowing circles of dust on the midnight roads.

So it was a surprise for me when I woke up expecting to see the first glow of dawn on the horizon, only to find my car enveloped by swirling snow and the world beyond the reach of my headlamp a deep black.  I drove the winter roads, parked at some beach and waited in darkness until the storm began to pass and black turned to grey before turning to deep blue.

As afternoon arrived I made my way to the end of the road at Å, Normally a good location for winter sunsets.  Waiting for the light to improve I hesitantly wandered out onto the frozen lake Ågvatnet.  A few locals were out and about on their afternoon walks, so I figured it should be fine, and the ice was quite thick.  Still, it makes some interesting noises while you stand out there.

The morning’s snow had blown into some interesting looking patterns, giving a nice contrast to the nearly black ice of the lake.  And in somewhat flat, fading light of late afternoon in February, I searched for some interesting elements.

As much as I like this image, I do feel it a bit imbalanced.  I would have liked to go with a square crop, but that caused me to loose too much of the cloud in the sky, which I think is important to the image.  So I decided on a 4×4 crop, to give a little more space in the sky.  But this leaves the image a bit centred I think, my eye not quite sure where to go first and not as drawn into the scene as I would like.

One of the difficulties of using multiple exposures with a tilt-shift lens to achieve square or panoramic images is that you never can see the overall composition as you are shooting.  I do my best to estimate where the horizon will land one I combine the images and I often shoot a bit extra to give myself room to crop down, either from the top or bottom, but there are times like this where keeping the full image seems to work better.

Do you see an animal in the cloud?

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 50
f 16
45 seconds
WB Daylight
3 images – top, middle, bottom
6 stop B+W neutral density filter

Photo:  Morning at Hamnøy, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  February 14, 2014.  08:46

This is the first image from my recent Lofoten trip.  All in all I was on the islands from February 1 – 15 and February 26 – March 8.  A long trip!  It was an odd, nearly snow-less winter, which was at sometimes somewhat disappointing.  But it was also quite a productive trip for me, and I think the absence of expected conditions lead me to an overall greater diversity in the images I have returned with, a few of which might be some of my strongest images of the islands yet.

But to start, here is an image from the somewhat ‘common’ view point of Hamnøy, taken from the bridge.  For this part of the trip I was traveling with several other photographers from Australia and in a change from my normal accommodation of either the back of my rental car, tent, or hostel at Stamsund, I was treated to the luxury of staying at Eliassen Rorbuer, Located here on Hamnøy.  Meaning, in my laziness, this image was only a short walk from the front door, not bad!

It was also the morning where I was headed out to Bunes beach, and with the late sunrise of mid February, I didn’t have much time to wander away before I had to be in Reine to catch the morning ferry to Vindstad.

You can also see how little snow was present on the islands.  Normally I’m used to some periods of rain during my winter photo tours where the snow line will creep up the mountains a but.  But this year was something new all together!  There seemed to be less snow than my April/May trip last year.  But even with the lack of snow, I still find this a pleasant image.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 100
f 8
20 seconds
WB Daylight
2 images – top, bottom

Photo: Olstind Winter panoramic, near Reine, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 6, 2012.  16:10

Every time I travel to Lofoten I try and remind myself that I already have enough images of Olstind.  And yet every time I am there, Osltind provides me with something new, whether I want it or not.  And so, like sailers lured by the sirens, I find myself hopping across the rocks on the edge of the fjord, drawn towards Osltind.  The perfect mountain.

This particular day had been calm and cold.  The surface of the fjord began to freeze and the ice made an eerie sound as it gently broke against the rocks a few inches from my feet.  The sky was not quite what I was hoping, and the light a bit flat in the day’s final moments.  But with near perfectly still water, the reflection was perfect.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 200
f 8
.3 sec
WB Daylight
3 images – left, right, middle