Friday Photo #355 – October Snow

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Photo: Snow dusted autumn mountains over Skjelfjord, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 20, 2019. 16:01

The snow comes and the snow goes. It’s the last Friday in October and that time of year on Lofoten where we begin the long, slow wait for winter. I think it’s safe to say that autumn is gone by now, along with the leaves from nearly all the trees. The first ‘autumn storm’ swept over the coast of northern Norway earlier in the week – though pretty late in the year for the first proper storm – and the snow seems to creep a little lower down the mountains more regularly.

In just over 6 weeks the polar night will begin and our days here at the moment are already shorter than most people in Europe experience even at mid winter. And with a loss of nearly 1 hour of daylight per week, we need to head out hiking a little earlier each day, not to get caught out in too much darkness.

But of course, the weather here is as unpredictable as always. And while the temperature is generally on a downhill trend, it tends to fluctuate in cycles, so we never know when we’ll get the first day of summit to sea snow turning the islands white. At this time of year though, I generally prefer a bit of snow to be falling while I’m in the mountains than a cold 2-3˚C rain. That is miserable!

Hopefully there is still a bit more time in the hiking season – I don’t like to push things too far into snowy hikes/photos for the guides. I’m still mostly focusing on west Lofoten and before next year’s hiking season I’ll have a good sized update for the West Lofoten Hikes Ebook. But those of you who follow me on Instagram know that I’ve also spent a lot of time over in Sweden this summer and autumn. The results of one of those trips is getting the final edits and should be out next week. The other project I’ll announce a bit later, as I’m also planning a long overdue Seasons on Lofoten: Spring and Autumn guide for Lofoten, so not sure which one will get priority – and I doubt I can finish both before my winter guiding season begins. Either way, I’ll be spending a lot of time at the keyboard over the next months!

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
24mm
ISO 250
f 13
1/20 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #351 – Autumn Sea

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Photo: Waves crash against the coast at Nesland, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 9, 2018. 10:41

With the first storms of autumn sweeping across Lofoten, this is when the season for seascape photography begins on the islands. For the most part, the summer ocean is calm and mild, and even days for surfing are few and far between most of the time. But as the weather begins to ship and the storms become larger and more frequent, large swells crash along the coastline once again.

On this particular day, a large swell in the Vestfjord was crashing along the southern coast of Lofoten – not to mention the strong wind which was blowing! Nesland is always a nice place for such situations, especially if Solbjørntind is visible in the background (only partially in this image).

Sometimes it can be hard to judge the scale of the waves, so luckily one of my tour participants had gone out wandering along the rocks. I thought this looked pretty nice, so I asked her to wait for a minute so I could get a photo. I slowed the shutter speed down a little to get a nice flow out of the crashing waves. The result turned out pretty good I think. I only wish she had had a brighter jacket on to stand out a little better from the dark rocks.

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
24mm
ISO 100
f 11
1.3 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #348 – Autumn Light

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Autumn sunset over village of Flakstad, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Light and shadows dance over Flakstad in a passing autumn rain, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. September 27, 2018. 18:04

Autumn is the season of light on Lofoten. Where the rain and sun dance with each other and brief moments of magic occur. I always look forward to the autumn. The year’s shortest season here in the north, but the most colourful and brilliant.

This was a brief moment on one of last year’s workshops. Driving west for sunset, I came around the corner and the light was casting down on the village of Flakstad. I would have rather had a natural scene with no houses or power lines, but I can’t be too picky in such conditions. I hopped out of the van, changed lenses and quickly began to shoot, not even worrying about a tripod. And within moments, the light was gone.

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 170-200 f/4
200mm
ISO 100
f 8
1/320 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #342 – Tourist Overload

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Photo: No camping or camping? Skagsanden beach, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. July 16, 2019. 00:58

It is July in year XXXX and once again the newspapers of Lofoten and Norway are filled with stories of the tourism overload which occurs each summer as the motorhome armies of the continent head north to fill every single parking space available for the whole of the summer. Somehow they seem shocked each year, but it is nothing new. Though with each year the numbers grow, and yet little is done on the Norwegian side.

And so each summer, there comes a point of frustration among the locals. This year they have added a few new ‘no camping’ signs to some of the popular parking areas and supposedly the parking lot which turns into a de-facto campground in Å will have an 18 hour parking limit (in the fjord region down south they are now limiting the parking to 2 hours in some popular destinations). But as you can see in this photo taken at 01:00, where there were around two dozen motorhomes/campers in the parking lot, just 200 meters from an official (paid) campground, little seems to be done to enforce the few rules. And so the locals continue to grow frustrated.

But such is the cycle of life here in the North, the free playground for Europe. Nothing will change soon, only more restrictions mostly affecting us that live here, not the occasional visitor for a few days each summer. And next July I’ll be writing another similar post…

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-200 f/4
110mm
ISO 800
f 5
1/100 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #338 – Blue Water

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Photo: The colorful azure water of Flakstadpollen, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 3, 2019. 13:30

In my last couple posts I’ve written about mostly becoming nocturnal – midnight sun time – during the summer, as that is when I typically like to be out in the mountains to photograph. However, there are some exceptions, such as today’s image.

The colorful water of Flakstadpollen is always a scenic sight on a sunny summer day with it’s near immediate transition from azure to deep blue. I knew to capture this the best, I’d want to be there on a clear day with the sun relatively high in the sky – typically not ideal light for landscape photography. Furthermore, with the image looking west, I knew it would also need to be a mid morning to early afternoon shot, as any later and the sun would begin to creep around into the background of the image – something I wanted to avoid.

While the forecast was good, a light layer of high clouds eventually grew over Lofoten. So I’ll likely try for a better version of this image sometime before the end of summer – though maybe an autumn version could also work. But ideally, a nice sunny day maybe with some puffy white clouds in the sky, should have me running back up the mountain.

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
17mm
ISO 125
f 7.1
1/640 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #334 – Summer Wildflowers

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Photo: The beginnings of summer’s fields of wildflowers, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 26, 2019

The warmth of mid May this year gave the landscape of lofoten a head start for summer. Already many of the fields are quite filled with flowers, and all the trees are green.

Though for the past week we have also had a typical return back to some wintry weather. Last Saturday an a midnight hike I sat in to the summit in freezing temperatures and passing snowstorms – no sun to be found, despite the more optimistic weather forecast.

Sunday remained could as well, with more snow falling, even at sea level, such as the background mountains of this image from Sunday evening. An evening where I should have been in the mountains, but Norwegian language tests on Monday and Tuesday mornings meant I couldn’t be up all night as I would like. Class is soon over though, and I can return to my normal night schedule soon, hopefully!

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-200mm f/4
70mm
ISO 125
f 4.5
1/640 second
WB Daylight
2 images – foreground, background for 4:5 crop

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Friday Photo #332 – Syttende Mai

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Syttende Mai - Friday Photo #332

Photo: 17th of May parade through Ramberg, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 17, 2019. 11:30

Syttende mai – 17th of May is Norway’s constitution day, when in 1814 Norway declared its independence from Denmark.

All over Norway flags will be flying and music playing today. The biggest celebration will be in Oslo of course. But even here on Lofoten, even many of the smaller villages across the islands will have their own parades and celebrations. I headed to Ramberg, the capital of Flakstadøy where several hundred people were gathered.

Down south they have temps over 20 degrees and sunshine, summer. Here 17th of May usually has a bit trickier weather, and while it was forecast to be sunny, a low heavy cloud hangs over Lofoten. Though at least its not snowing or hailing like in previous years!

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-200mm f/4
200mm
ISO 320
f 5.6
1/500 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #331 – Spring Flowers

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Photo: Early wildflowers and a dusting of May snow, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 4, 2019. 21:02

After the unusual warm at the end of April, the weather corrected itself back to normal patterns and once again snow was falling in the first days of may. The warmth though already sent the spring ‘greening’ of Lofoten into motion much earlier that normal. So even in the first days of May the fields had already begun to turn green and fill with flowers in some areas.

So when the fresh snow fell, I though it would be an interesting juxtaposition that we don’t often see here – snow and flowers. Usually it’s plenty of one or the other, on their own.

And while working on the update to the Seasons on Lofoten: Summer ebook, I was also planning on what I need for a possible Spring/Autumn edition – Though I’m still not wholly convinced there is enough demand for one. Even though website traffic here is so high these days I had to move servers and hosting the other week, ebook sales have been going down over the last year – I guess more access to free information that ever, even here, and more competition as well. But I am still out shooting when possible, trying to answer the question visually: what is spring on Lofoten?

I think I could have executed this image slightly better. While I wanted to isolate the flowers against the mountain, I think the mountain is perhaps a bit too abstract. I should have stopped down a little perhaps. On the bright side, the flowers and mountain are only a stone’s throw from my front door, so new attempts will be easy. Though I’m not sure if we’ll get much more snow this year – it already almost feels like summer here again…

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-200mm f/4
70mm
ISO 160
f 5.6
1/160 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #330 – Saharan Sunset

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Photo: Spring Saharan sunset over Myrland beach, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. April 27, 2019. 21:21

When I wrote it last weeks Friday Photo (#329) that it had been warm for several days, it turned into a weekend of t-shirt weather, not a cloud to be seen and barely a hint of wind. The weather was actually too good for photography!

However, it as not just the normal hazy blue sky that sometimes occurs in summer, instead it was caused by sand from the Sahara desert drifting over Lofoten. And so over several nights, despite the cloudless sky, we were given orage and red skies, something that I’m more used to at home in California.

In the sun and warmth I could see the fields outside my house growing greener by the day, at the trees in my yard have already begun to bud. A few weeks earlier than normal this year.

But Lofoten being Lofoten, the summer days are over and a cold north wind with passing snow flurries has been sweeping over the islands over the last days. Summer has been put on pause for the time being. But actually, this is the more normal weather for this time of year and snow is a fairly regular occurrence until the end of the month. So it will be a little while longer before I can put the jackets away…

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 31
f 13
6 seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #328 – April Twilight

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Photo: April twilight just before midnight, Myrland, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. April 17, 2019. 23:55

With a perfectly clear sky on Wednesday I wandered down to the beach just before midnight to see if I might get lucky with one last aurora. Last year, April 13th was my last one, this year, it will be the image from last week’s post (Friday Photo #327) on April 10th. Now it’s a 4 months wait until late august when I’ll look to the night sky again. Until then, we have the season of light!

Already in mid April, the sun is only 12˚ degrees below the horizon at its lowest point. For comparison, in Berlin at midsummer, 2 months away still, the sun is at 14˚ below the horizon. It is a quick change up here from the season of darkness to the season of light.

With each passing night, the sunsets and sunrises with move further and further north and the horizon glows brighter and brighter until one night in late May, the sun no longer sets – and the season of the midnight sun is here – though due to Summer Time it’s really the 01:00 sun when it reaches its lowest point in the sky.

The snow has been melting quickly this last week and today it is even 10˚C outside, though with a misty rain. Yesterday I even saw the first dandelion flowers down at the beach, so it feels like spring is off to an early start – but that still doesn’t mean that the winds can’t shift and winter will make a return.

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
18mm
ISO 200
f 5
15 seconds
WB Daylight

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