Friday Photo #192 – September Aurora

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Friday Photo 192 - Northern Lights

Photo: Autumn northern lights, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. September 2, 2016. 23:22

Last Friday was the beginning of the northern lights season for me here on Lofoten. There had been a few displays during the last days of August, but I was always too busy to go out shooting. But as Friday rolled around, with a forecast for calm and clear weather – something a bit rare these last weeks, I knew it would by my chance for the first aurora of the season.

I first started the night at Skagensanden beach, near Ramberg. But as the first aurora began to appear in the sky, I immediately knew I was in the wrong position, with the lights forming behind the beach, in a location that wasn’t very photogenic.

I immediately headed to Ytresand beach, which basically points towards Skagsenden, and the location of the aurora. I missed the first large outburst as I was driving, but I caught some nice lights and shot a time-lapse for about 30 minutes before deciding to move to another location during a dim period.

I had seen the water was calm near the Fredvang bridges as I was initially driving out, and so I headed there to see if I could find anything interesting. Shortly after I arrived and setup my camera, the sky exploded with light! So bright that I over exposed my first shot, not having changed setting from my previous exposures. While I wasn’t completely happy with the foreground, and the small bit of power lines off the the left of the frame (most people would just edit this out probably), the aurora was good enough that I stayed until they calmed down again.

Truthfully, I don’t know anything about KP levels or any of the technical stuff. It seems to be a fascination among some photographers to label their shots KP 6, or whatever. I don’t know or care too much. I just compare what is immediately in front of my eyes to what I’ve stored in my memory. Friday night was a good one. I’m glad I was there to photograph it.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
14mm
ISO 800
f 4
8 seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #184 – Ramberg Beach

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Friday Photo 184 - Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Ramberg beach from Nubben, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 29, 2016. 18:55

I’m slowly working on my next Lofoten ebook, and the view from Nubben, will be part of it. A small rock outcropping rising above Ramberg, there are fantastic views over Ramberg beach – also if you hike out to the edge of the mountain on the right side of the photo.

I would not label myself a typical landscape photographer, who typically only shoots in dramatic light with the sun low on the horizon. I like to shoot everything! And sometimes, a summer day is just a nice time to be out, it needs a clear blue sky and bright light. I often label these days ‘too good for photos days.’ Days when it’s simply enough to sit outside and enjoy the weather, and maybe get a little sunburn in the 24 hours of daylight.

For this site, I think it’s important to show some ‘normal’ sides of Lofoten. Too often I get shown examples of once-in-a-decade lighting conditions, with the person wondering when they can shoot such photos. It creates a bit of an unrealistic goal for someone to achieve in a week, much less a couple of day, which could very well rain the whole time!

For this image, I really should have been up the mountain a bit earlier – the clouds were slow to burn off.  The sun is just off camera to the left in this scene. It works okay here, however, as I headed out to the edge of the hill, forcing me to shoot more left, any decent compositions became too backlit, with the sun in the corner of the frame. One of two hours earlier would have been better in this particular case

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
35mm
ISO 100
f 11
1/250 second
WB Daylight
4 image panoramic

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Friday Photo #183 – Volandstind

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Friday Photo 183 - Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Volandstind winter sunrise, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 16, 2016. 08:05

Last week’s Friday Photo was a view of this same peak, Volandstind, but from summer and taken just out of frame on the left of this image. But it’s an example of how perspective on Lofoten can change so quickly – the mountain becoming a steep pyramid in this photo, whereas, if viewed from the side, it is actually a flat mountain ridge.

This image was taken during my photo workshop in February. We had stopped on the nearby bridge to photograph the distant peaks of Moskenesøy, but I could see the light quickly changing and knew this would be a good image. So I ran back to the van to quickly get to this vantage point. The light lasted about 5 minutes before it moved away from the scene.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
24mm
ISO 100
f 11
1/13 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #181 – Hestraeva

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Hestraeva - Lofoten Islands

Photo: Five minutes till midnight on the summit of Hestræva, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. June 5, 2016. 23:55

The summer solstice has now passed us and the sun will once again begins its journey south. However, here on Lofoten, we have several more weeks of the midnight sun until it once again sinks below the horizon in mid July. The term Midnight sun, while romantic sounding, isn’t quite accurate. While the sun is above the horizon at midnight, the lowest point isn’t until near 01:00, and it remains well above the horizon even then. Summer on Lofoten is a sun that never sets.

This image is from a few weeks back in early June while spending a still evening on the summit of Hestræva. A light layer of cloud was hovering over the northern horizon, casting a soft, golden sunlight as the sun grew low on the horizon.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
38mm
ISO 100
f 10
1/30 second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #178 – Volandstind

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Volandstind, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Spring hike on Volandstind, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. May 31, 2016. 14:03

The midnight sun has arrived in the north with the snow is melting fast while the spread of green creeps higher and higher up the mountains. There have been some fantastic summer days in May thus far, and I’ve already complained of the heat on more than one occasion. Perhaps I didn’t more far enough north! 😉

But with summer just around the corner, it is now my time to head into the mountains over the next months and start gathering the data and photos for the next series of hiking guides and ebooks. And now that I’m getting more settled in to life on the islands, I’m finally beginning to realize that I don’t need to rush. There will be another sunny day and the sun won’t set for 6 more weeks.

Heading up Volandstind the other day the weather was a bit wild. Layers of cloud were spinning across the mountains and fjords – with the actual summit of Volandstind just in the cloud, unfortunately. However, the route up was mostly cloud free, which provided a spectacular overview across the surrounding, surreal looking landscape.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
28mm
ISO 100
f 7.1
1/600 seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #176 – Spring Aurora

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April Northern Lights - Lofoten Islands

Photo: Spring Aurora, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. April 1, 2016. 22:03

This is the final image from my 2016 northern lights season on Lofoten – though there were some displays afterwards, so it wasn’t the last of Lofoten in general.

Overall, having been on Lofoten since early February, I would call in a below average northern lights season for me. There were many clear nights this February and March, but the sky seemed to be quite, something which can be quite frustrating while waiting on top of a mountain in otherwise perfect weather. Perhaps I’m just getting a little more picky in the images I want to create – simply seeing a faint green glow on the horizon no longer excites me – I want to creating dynamic and exciting images of the lights.

With the nights no longer dark, I’ll be eagerly waiting till autumn for my next chances of camping under the dancing sky.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
16mm
ISO 1250
f 4
25 seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #167 – Skagsanden Beach Winter

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Small river running through snow on Skagsanden beach, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: River flowing across Skagsanden beach, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. January 17, 2015. 12:09

Skagsanden is one of Lofoten’s most popular beaches among photographers these days.  The nice thing about winter is that a light dusting of snow overnight will cover up the traces of everyone who has been there before you.

This soft pastel light is a common occurrence in January as the sun is barely able to rise above the horizon. Instead of focusing on the beach itself, I found this stream running through the snow covered sand to be much more interesting.

The one thing that distracts me is the mountain in the background, I wish the river had been flowing a bit more to the left. But this is nature, and I cannot change things – though some might. Though I think this is a philosophy among landscape photographers who see themselves as the most important element of the image, and want to show what ‘they experienced;’ Whether that reflects what was actually in front of them or not.

Perhaps I lack the confidence to add such a strong vision to my images, and I often think of myself as just a simple observer, seeing if there’s anything interesting to photograph.

One of these years I will come back and things will be as I imagined. Patience…

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 100
f 11
13 seconds
WB Daylight
3 images: top, middle, bottom

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Friday Photo #166 – Flakstadøy Coast

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Rocky coastline of Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: High tide along the rocky northern coast of Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 12, 2015.  16:46

Having already photographed sunset at Å an hour earlier, I was headed east looking for a place to park the car and sleep for the night. As I passed Ramberg, there was still a nice winter blue hour glow to the sky and so not yet ready for dinner, I headed to this section of rocky coastline near Skagsanden beach.

The tide was high and the waves were big enough that I could get a nice view across to Hustinden, rising in the distance.  The color was gone from the islands, but I think the texture and shape of this scene work better as a B&W (blue and white) image.

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 31
f 11
13 seconds
WB Daylight
2 images: top, bottom

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Friday Photo #157 – Flakstadøy Coast

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Rocky coastline of Flakstadøy overlooking Nappstraumen, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Crashing waves on Flakstadøy coast, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 18, 2015; 10:19

Beyond the beaches on the east side of Flakstadøy, there are near endless possibilities of other coastal scenes. This section of coast, before reaching Storsandnes, was particularly nice on this day as the bigger waves carried just enough strength to wash over the flat, coastal rocks.

Though I often shoot 2 image with a tilt-shift lens for the square crop, this image a bit rare for me in that I utilized separate exposures for each image. for the waves, I wanted a nice flow of water, but still a bit of detail and not a totally soft and milky look, so I use a 1 second exposure. However, for the sky, I wanted a bit of softening of the clouds, so I exposed at 10 seconds for the upper image. I could have gone longer, but shooting 2 images always takes a bit of extra time, and I usually end up having to run away from a bit wave multiple times while shooting, so I need to work fast…

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 24mm f/3.5
24mm
f 13
ISO 31
1 second, 10 seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #154 – Hustind Winter Hike

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Winter climber ascending steep snow covered slopes towards summit of Hustind, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Winter climb of Hustind, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 21, 2015; 13:39

The weather was bad basically everywhere on Lofoten this day, however, with my friend Till having just arrived on the islands from Germany, we were looking to head somewhere into the mountain. Hustind seemed like a good option.

One of Lofoten’s more iconic peaks as the background of the popular Skagsanden beach, the summit is a rather lonely place much of the time, and even more so in winter.  With passing waves of snow and no trail to follow, the route simply takes you up, until reaching the top.

This photo is from about mid way, as the mountain begins to steepen before reaching the summit.  In the background, the next wave of clouds and snow are approaching, which would envelop us shortly after arriving on the summit, leaving us in a white-out until we descended back down the mountain.

You can checkout a summer hiking guide for Hustind HERE.

Camera Info:
Nikon D810
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
14mm
ISO 400
f 8
1/400 second
WB Daylight

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