Photo: Pink dawn, Reine, Moskenesøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 19, 2013.  08:16

This is perhaps what Winter photography on Lofoten is all about, mountains glowing pink in the low hanging sun.  In mid January, this would be your view the entire day.  However by mid February, the sun rises sufficiently high were only the first hour of the day will provide this sort of light.

Having stayed up somewhat late the previous night shooting a fantastic display of the Northern Lights I was perhaps a bit sluggish to leave my sleeping bag this morning; also aided by the fact that this was the coldest day of the entire trip.  Lucky for me, the sun moves slow in the north, leaving enough time for a lazy photographer to prepare for the day.

Having slept in the car at the parking lot in Å, not my preferred sleeping place, but all the others were covered in deep snow, I figured heading to the tourist viewpoint in Reine would probably be my best bet.  The upper view point was already crowded with others, so I headed down to the lower one, which few people seemed to visit for some reason.  I like the view from here better anyhow.  And so, I now have yet another image of Olstind, a mountain that I’ll probably never grow tired of photographing.

Camera Info:
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70 f-2.8
40mm
ISO 100
f 10
1/30 sec
WB Daylight

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