Photo: Aurora over Kvalvika beach campsite, Moskenesøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Aug 30, 2013. 22:54

As August (and summer) comes to an end the Arctic sky finally begins to darken enough for the Aurora to return from their summer Holidays.  Well, they’ve been in the sky all along, but it was never dark enough for them to shine.  This year, might first sighting of the Northern Lights was on August 21st, Though they were quite faint against the twilight night.  The night of this image, August 30, the sky was significantly dark and the Aurora strong enough for a decent image to be made.

This is also an image that I nearly missed, as a few hours earlier I had sprained my ankle while coming down from sunset up on Ryten, and was thus is a fair amount of pain and without the ability to move much.  But as soon as I saw the Aurora, I left the warmth of the campfire and did my best to hobble and crawl around the ground to get myself in position.  And with the fairly dark foreground of the campsite, and the Aurora high overhead, I needed to keep my camera quite low to the ground to capture more of the sky.  Thus I would probably would have ended up laying on the ground anyhow, sprained ankle or not.

The Aurora only lasted for a few moments and then disappeared as quickly as it arrived.  But due to the high cliffs surrounding Kvalvika beach, it is probably not the best location for Aurora watching anyhow, most of the lower horizon is hidden from view.  Had I still been up on Ryten, it probably would have turned out to be quite a nice display.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 16-35mm f/4
16mm
ISO 800
f 5
10 seconds
WB Daylight

Photo:  Kvalvika Beach Friends, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Aug 26, 2012.  16:00

While I typically choose to exclude people from my landscapes, sometimes a human element helps make a scene.  I can’t remember exactly what I was doing at the moment, probably wanding around the beach to collect driftwood, when this group of people showed up and caught my eye.  And so I pulled out my camera to see if anything interesting might happen.

I would have preferred the beach to be clear of footprints, but what can you do, other than hiring some models to re-create the scene at low tide.  As the 3 friend sat and chatted for a minute, before one of them went diving into the water, I grabbed a couple quick photos.  Somehow the 3 of them standing there helps show the massive scale of Kvalvika beach, to me the cliffs in this image almost look bigger than they are in real life.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
56mm
ISO 100
f 10
1/160 sec
WB Daylight

Photo: Reinebringen Mountain Sunset, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  July 26, 2010.  00:35

The sky was a perfect blue as my friend Søren and I arrived back in Reine after two nights camping at Bunes beach.  The original plan was to head back to Stamsund, but such a day was too good to spend sitting on buses and waiting around Leknes.  Not having planned ahead for such a situation when leaving Bunes, my water bottles were empty and so I resorted to purchasing 1 liter of overpriced water from the small store in Reine.  And at that, we were on our way towards Reinebringen.

Despite our heavy overnight packs we made good time up the mountain, with a few odd comments and looks of surprise from the people we managed to pass.  We were on the summit before noon, with hardly a cloud in the sky and barely a wisp of wind to be felt.  Absolute perfection!  After some time of sitting in the sun, I set up my tent for the sole purpose have having some shade.  And by mid afternoon I was down to about 200ml of water.  But we were determined to stay on the mountain and so the hours slowly passed by as the sun sunk lower and lower on the horizon.

Not trusting if the weather would last, I took the tent down around 11pm, deciding that it would be safer just to sleep in the open; allowing a faster escape if the weather turned.  By midnight I was in my sleeping back, trying to get a few hours sleep before our 5am wake up call.  Though some 20 minutes later I opened my eyes to this scene emerging. Shit!  Time to get up…

I didn’t even bother getting dressed or putting shoes on.  So there I stood, barefooted and only in my underwear on the summit of Reinebringen as I photographed a midnight sunset.  It probably would have been a pretty funny looking scene had someone else decided to show up then.  By 5am we were on the way back down the mountain for the 6am bus back to Stamsund, where I slept the rest of the morning away on the deck outside.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 200
f 8
1/40 sec
WB Daylight
2 Images – Top/Bottom

Photo: Dark skies over Horseid beach, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 22, 2012.  15:51

I arrived on Lofoten early the previous morning and immediately caught the ferry to Kierkefjord to make the hike to Horseid beach.  Exhausted, I fell asleep in the early afternoon to the sound of a gently rain falling on my tent.  15 hours later I finally emerged.  The sky was still gray, but at least the clouds had risen and the rain was now only arriving in passing showers several times per hour.  As time passed the northwestern sky began to clear and moving beams of light would shine across the beach.

With the right tide (high), the small peninsula of land at the far end of Horseid beach provides an almost perfect view directly back towards the pass; the mountains in almost perfect symmetry.  Now it was my task to wait around for a bit of light.  When the sun happened to pass across the beach, the water was a brilliant turquoise. I knew I wanted to highlight this aspect of the scene, while not minding so much about the lighting on the background, or actually preferring it to remain dark and dramatic.

With the quickly moving light, I first shot with ‘normal’ exposures, but wasn’t getting the mood I was looking for out of the scene.  So I added my 10 stop B+W neutral density filter and then waited for the next found of light.  Shooting with 30 second exposures, it took a while for the elements to align themselves: a pleasing blur in the water with the correct timing of the waves and a long enough moment of sunlight across the beach to bring out the exposure and add some contrast against the mountains in the distance.  And even though the wind was fairly soft by this time, the 30 second exposure helps soften up the clouds a little, giving a bit more separate between them and the mountains.

For reference, I’ve included the following ‘outtake’ photo of the scene exposed at 1/250 sec.  While you can tell it would be something pleasant to sit there and look at in person (albeit a bit on the chilly side), visually, there is nowhere near the impact of the above photo.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift
24mm
ISO 80
f 11
30 sec
WB Daylight
2 images – top/bottom
10 stop ND filter