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Friday Photo #5 – Ytterpollen Ice Flower

Ice formation of frozen coast of Ytterpollen, Lofoten Islands, Norway

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

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Friday Photo #4 – Aurora Over Olstind

Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis in night sky behind Olstind mountain peak, Reine, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Northern Lights over Olstind, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 6, 2012, 19:25

Northern Lights over Olstind:  Olstind, as it rises from the waters of the Kjerkfjord is perhaps the most Iconic mountain on Lofoten.  A near perfect pyramid when view from some angles, it just begs to be photographed over and over again; which often I do!

This photo is taken a few hours after last week’s image.  With a rare moment of clear skies, I parked my car near Reine, hoping to capture an image such as this.  And one of the benefits of sleeping in a car is that I don’t have the temptation of being lulled back to a warm room and a hot meal.  I suffer from the cold and eat bread and butter for dinner, but I can also sleep more of less wherever I want, and thus be quickly ready when moments like this occur.

I don’t quite like the reflected lights from the distant village of Kierkefjord.  I could have located myself a bit more to the right, but this would also have concealed the brightest part of the Aurora, so a bit of a compromise had to be found.  For me this image is just a start of an idea, and something I hope to approve upon over the years.

Another element to this image is that it was captured a few days before the full moon, hence the landscape is well lit.  I often read the somewhat misinformed advice that the Northern Lights are best captured when there is no moon.  Not true in my opinion.  And with a snow covered landscape, I think moonlight is an essential part of night photography; to photograph a Northern Lights landscape, not just the lights themselves somewhere in the sky with a dark silhouette in the foreground.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
24mm
ISO 200
f 5.6
132 sec
WB Auto
Single Image
No Filters

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Friday Photo #3 – Reine Winter Blue

Reflection of Olstind mountain peak in harbour at Reine, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Winter blue, Reine, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 6, 2012, 16:50

Winter blue, Reine:  The day to this point had been my most productive day yet after 1 week on the islands.  A light dusting of snow had fallen over the previous night but as morning arrived the sky was clear and the islands were frozen in silence on the coldest day of 2012, -10.7˚C.

As evening arrived I hung out around Reine in hopes of some Northern Lights, though the forecast showed only a small probability.  As evening began in late afternoon the islands took on this amazing tone of blue.  And with near perfectly still waters, I knew this was an image to capture.

This is taken from the turnout on the side of the E10 just after the turnoff into Reine and is probably the most photographed scene of Lofoten.  Despite this, when you encounter a special light, you can still create something somewhat unique.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
44mm
ISO 200
f 10
15 sec
WB Auto
Single Image
No Filters

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Friday Photo #1 – Unstad Winter

Winter storm over snow covered beach, Unstad, Lofoten islands, Norway

Photo: Clearing winter storm, Unstad beach, Vestvågøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.   January 7, 2010

For me, photography on the Lofoten Islands is more than just pointing your camera at something scenic and pressing the shutter.  This is the first photo in my new ‘weekly photo’ series I’ll be posting every Friday.  For the most part I’ll be selecting from Images already appearing on this site, but from time to time I’ll also post some photos that didn’t make it here for some reason which I still find interesting.  In these posts I hope to go beyond simple descriptions of each photo and talk more about why I made the image, how I made the image, and other elements I think are of note.

Clearing storm at Unstad:  It had been snowing heavily since the night before.  I was now halfway through a short 5 day trip January trip to the islands.  A trip that so far had shown me the islands in a way I’d never seen, nor photographed before; and which produced some of my all time favourite images.

By the afternoon on this day I was beginning to grow frustrated with having spent the day driving in circles without finding any scenes to shoot.  Finally, as the light was fading I headed out along the snow covered road to Unstad to see if by chance the storm would have been deflected around the mountains. [note: Unstad can often have weather isolated from the rest of the islands.  It can be extremely windy while most other places are relatively calm.  Alternatively, Unstad can escape any detrimental weather hitting the rest of the islands.] Emerging at the far side of the tunnel, I found the snow had ceased falling, although it must have happened recently as the entire village and beach was completely covered and some of the residents had just pulled out their snow shovels and tractors.

I probably drove a little to fast in my excitement and desire to spend as much time as possible in the ever darkening light.  The road to the parking lot on the right side of the beach hadn’t yet been cleared, so I drove as far as I could until I got stuck. I got out and walked down to the sea from there.  Light is more important than a stuck car!

I spent the next hour shooting, until it was completely dark.  This image, produced sometime about halfway though, remains one of my favourites.  Something about snow covered rocks leading into the sea seem totally surreal for someone who grew up on the beach in southern California.

A few technical notes:  With few exceptions, I always keep my camera white balance set to daylight.  Firstly, because I learned photography on film, so I more of less know what I’m going to get in different lighting conditions.  And Secondly, since I often combine multiple images for panoramics or square crops, it’s best to have a consistent white balance; and if I leave my camera on auto, I’d forget to change it 90% of the time.  But, when shooting in dark, winter conditions like this, daylight white balance doesn’t work very well.  The reason is that there is so much blue light present in the scene, that you will clip the blue channels while red and green remain underexposed.  By switching to shade white balance, a more neutral exposure is produced, and thus you can make a properly exposed photo without clipping the blue channels.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
ISO 200
f 16
25 sec
WB shade
Single Image
No Filters

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