Photo: December Rorbu sunset, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. December 1, 2023. 13:08
As Lofoten waits for the arrival of winter’s polar night, the little remaining sunlight may often glow bright on the southern horizon. But what looks like a nice colourful sunset in the above image, was only a small portion of the overall scene.
The following image is the overall scene I was presented with the moment I took the above image. It was a nice and calm December afternoon, but already by 13:00 the light of the day was beginning to fade. Standing in the same position and simply zooming in to 120mm provided an entirely different appearance and atmosphere to the moment.
So is one image more realistic than the other, both taken from the same location only 30 seconds apart. Was it a bright colourful sunset over snow covered cabins? Or was it just a glowing horizon surrounded by a world of blues and greys? Or perhaps both at the same time?
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 120mm ISO 100 f10 1/30 Second WB Daylight
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 24mm ISO 100 f10 1/30 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Misty waves crash along the Eggum coastline, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 2, 2025. 12:06
This was one of those days where the weather isn’t quite as bad as the forecast predicts. After a late night shooting aurora the previous evening, the forecast of a rainy day wasn’t too unwelcome as a bit of rest was needed. But, despite the dreary, grey sky, the rain was mostly staying further out to sea, and so we headed to the sea.
I don’t often take groups to Eggum, as it can be a tricky place to photograph and is highly dependent on what weather and light you arrive to. But with a moderate size swell still hitting Lofoten and the dark sky, I thought it could be a good place for some atmospheric seascapes along the rocky coastline.
I initially started out on the rocky part of the pay just out of frame on the right side of the image, and shooting towards my position here and the mountains behind me. But it wasn’t quite working for me. I wanted to be up higher, and shoot across the breaking waves. And so I walked some distance down the old pathway to the opposite end of the shallow bay.
Here, I had a higher vantage point, and also a better background – the dark mountains of Vesterålen, some 50km away.
Like with most seascape photography, I sat and watched the breaking waves, hoping for the elements to line up across the frame. I was also trying the hide the rocky shoreline before me, as the white-wash was too distracting from the rest of the scene. I stayed for a while, until the misty rain turned into proper rain drops and it was time to head back to the van.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 350mm ISO 500 f7.1 1/640 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Autumn tree and old stone wall, Slydalen, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 3, 2025. 15:50
By now the autumn storms have blown the last leaves from Lofoten’s trees and the islands wait for the long dark night of winter to settle in. But only a month ago the landscape was full of autumn color – a short lived, but perhaps Lofoten’s most colourful time of the year – including the nights as well. Of all the season’s on Lofoten, autumn probably passes the quickest, with maybe 3 week of color from Sept 15-20-ish to October 5-10-ish. This year felt a little on the late side, as the temperatures remained quite mild throughout September and into early October. But while the cooling air gets the autumn season started, it is the winds of the first høststorm – autumn storm which bring it to an end as the leaves fly into the sea.
With flat light from a layer of high cloud on this day, I was looking to capture a little autumn color, as I had otherwise not done too much this year. I headed up the old mountain road to Slydalen, now a mostly empty place of long abandoned farms mostly used for summer holiday homes. Some of the trees higher up the mountain were already past their prime, while the main valley remained bright and vibrant.
This old birch tree growing from an old stone wall running through a fallowed field caught my eye. There aren’t many stone walls on Lofoten and to me this scene looks more like an image I might have taken in Scotland. I took some wider compositions as well, with the mountain Blåtind rising in the distance over the valley. But the sky and light weren’t quite right and the scene felt out of balance. In the end, I preferred this simpler shot of just the tree and the wall, together in their surroundings as they probably have been for a hundred years or more.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 220mm ISO 200 f6.3 1/100 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Cormorant spreads wings in front of setting sun, Haukland beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 1, 2025. 18:05
I must admit that a clear sky sunset at Haukland beach is no longer the most interesting thing in the world for me and so I had actually left my camera gear in the van as I walked down to the beach with my group. But when I saw a few cormorants sitting on the rock just off the beach, with the sun soon to be heading into the background, I thought there might be an image for me yet. So I ran back to the van, put a 1.4x teleconverter on my 100-400 lens and headed back to the beach – hoping the rest of my group hadn’t scared the birds away yet!
I’ve been drifting a little more towards wildlife photography over the last couple years, but most of that occurs outside of Lofoten, and so doesn’t get posted here. So while most people were focused on the beach, I was happy to see what I could achieve with the cormorants sitting on the rock. There were several compositions I worked with, including a bird directly in the sun itself. But overall, I kinda like the balance of this image the best, although overall, I’m happy with 5-6 different compositions I took.
Luckily, the birds were coming and going on a semi-regular basis. The spread-winged cormorant is a popular symbol on Lofoten and coastal Norway in general. So, keeping an eye on the returning bird, I knew they would eventually spread their wings to dry off in the setting sun. There was also a sitting seagull just out of frame to the right, on the highest point of the rock, which I found somewhat distracting, as it just looked like a blob with a head compared to the standing cormorants. Though this left me not quite happy with where I had crop the sloping rock. The cormorants will be there the rest of the winter, so maybe I’ll try again in March once the sun is high enough in the sky again.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 + 1.4x Teleconverter 560mm ISO 32 f9 1/3200 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Flowing waves at Unstad beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 10, 2025. 14:19
Another image from Unstad beach, but this time on a much stormier day than last week’s (Friday Photo #667) image taken a few days earlier. This winds on this day were too strong for any surfers to be out and we were on the edge of heavy rain showers.
This is a pretty similar composition to last week’s photo as I was trying to capture a similar scene or the overall setting of the bay. I wanted to capture the flow of the waves, so I set my tripod next to my van for shelter from the wind, and used a 6-stop neutral density filter to get a longer exposure of 1/2 second.
The idea was good, but I didn’t quite capture the exact image I had in my mind. I wish I could have been 5-6 meters higher in elevation for a better look across the bay and the lines of incoming waves. The right side of the image is a bit boring as well, without much happening. I have a few images from the continuing of the wave, but I think it just wasn’t the best wave overall and perhaps the swell should have been 1/2 a meter higher.
What this image does show is how different the same location can be just a few days apart in the always changing weather of Lofoten.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120 f/4 92mm ISO 100 f9 1/2 Second WB Daylight 6 Stop ND filter
Photo: Breaking wave at sunset, Unstad beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. September 28, 2025. 18:19
The first afternoon of this year’s autumn photography workshop left us with a few hours between the arrival of the first half of the group and the second half, so we couldn’t go too far from Leknes before picking everyone up for the drive to our accommodation at Sakrisøy. Lucky for us, a nice swell was rolling into Unstad bay. And for me, there’s just about no place better on Lofoten than Unstad beach with nice waves. So it was an easy decision to pick our sunset location.
There was a layer of high clouds filling most of the sky, and so I spent the first half of the afternoon/early evening shooting surfers. As time passed by the sun eventually dropped below the cloud layer, casting a golden light across the bay. This light, combined with a strong off-shore wind created a golden spray on the breaking waves.
I should also add that I didn’t have access to my tripod, as one of the clients’ luggage never made it from Germany, so I lent them mine for the evening. This left me slightly limited on what I could do, but I eventually found a scene I was pretty happy with, where I tripod wasn’t needed anyhow. Then it was just waiting for the right wave to break in the right location, with the right amount of wind and hope everything came together. Which I think it did pretty well. Though maybe another partially breaking wave somewhere in the mid ground would have added a bit more depth. Overall, not a bad start to the week…
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120 f/4 76mm ISO 100 f7.1 1/160 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Mountain birch tree on Haugheia overlooking Nappstraumen, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. August 14, 2025. 14:38
The weather has shifted and it feels like autumn is in the air. Last week I was down along the Helgeland coastline for a bit of a road trip and while the weather started off nice – too hot even – for a hike up Rødøyløva, it quickly deteriorated to wind and rain for much of the remained of the trip. I had planned to go to some mountain areas closer to the Swedish border as well, but it was evident that I would just get wet without much reward for photography. And so I headed back to Lofoten, where it is still rainy and windy, and looks to be so for the foreseeable future. I hope this year is not a repeat of last year.
With autumn around the corner and after a fairly lazy summer without much hiking, long overdue house projects had priority on any sunny days, it is time to get my legs moving again in preparation for planned autumn hiking season over in Sweden. Though this year I must say I don’t have too much motivation as I don’t currently have any ebook hiking projects underway. So I probably just go somewhere easy and hike for a week or so, and hopefully not the entire time in the rain.
Haugheia (hiking guide here), which I pass on the way to Leknes is my usual stop when I need to go for an hour walk just to get some movement in for the day. While most of the views are nothing too interesting, especially if I’m up there in grey-ish weather, the small grove of wind-twisted mountain birch trees on the western side is always an area I like to photograph. So even if just for a bit of exercise, I still always carry my camera just in case.
This tree here used to be part of one of my favourite compositions in the area – see Friday Photo #408. Unfortunately, the tree you see lying in the foreground also used to be part of the composition, but has since fallen in one of Lofoten’s many winter storms. It is a windy place up there along the ridgeline, which is what makes the trees what they are.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120 f/4 48mm ISO 100 f5.6 1/320 Second WB Daylight
https://www.68north.com/content/2025/08/friday-photo-658-wind-trees.jpg15001000Codyhttps://www.68north.com/content/2016/12/68north-logo-V4.pngCody2025-08-15 05:38:162025-10-16 08:22:58Friday Photo #658 – The Wind Trees
Photo: New 4-hour parking limit signs installed at Skreda rest area, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. July 15, 2025. 14:06
A couple weeks ago in Lofotposten it was announced that Statens Vegvesen (Norwegian road authority) was planning to install a dozen or so parking time limit signs along the E-10 in Lofoten, Driving to and from Leknes this week, I noticed one of the new signs had just been installed at the Skreda rest area, which is the marking parking location for the popular Offersøykammen hike. Parking is now limited to 4-hours.
In other locations, 2-hour limitations have already been installed – like the parking area at Skagsanden beach, a popular surf location for locals and tourists a like in winter. So I guess surf session will be quite limited.
With 20˚c weather finally arriving this week, the weather isn’t the only thing which has heated up as the usual parking chaos at Haukland beach even lead to a farmer abandoning is tractor in the middle of the road, as illegally parked cars blocked the roadway and he couldn’t drive further. I was at Haukland at 10:30 yesterday morning with my first group of cruise ship guests and the parking lot was already completely full.
The main intent of these new time limit signs is an attempt to stop every parking location across Lofoten from turning into de-facto free campgrounds, which has been the case. Part of this has also come from truck drivers who are required to take breaks by law, but find their parking areas already filled with motorhomes and camper vans staying for the night. But driving by Skreda a couple nights ago, it seemed the signs had only a little affect as a dozen or so people were still camped there at 03:00 – and its not like anyone is going out to write tickets at this hour. So, I imagine for Skreda at least, camping will continue as usual.
As always, the Lofoten communities have poor inter-island cooperation. So limiting the parking in a larger parking area like Skreda will now just push the 15-20 free-campers somewhere else and make it someone else’s problem. And then more new signs and fences will be put and and everyone will get moved somewhere else again. Until finally there is no place for anyone to park and enjoy Lofoten’s nature.
The Lofoten that existed 10 years ago is gone. The freedom to pull off alone in some quiet spot and camp for the night has been replaced with no-camping signs, fences, time limits, paid parking, full campgrounds, and, for the last few remaining free parking areas, motorhomes and camper vans packed in like sardines – defiantly not how I would enjoy things. And this then makes finding parking for hiking more difficult for everyone, locals and tourists alike. But no politician is creative enough here to come up with shuttle bus systems to relieve traffic to popular areas like Haukland beach or Fredvang/Kvalvika beach or other solutions to the growing traffic along Lofoten’s outdated narrow roads. And so Lofoten becomes a neglected victim of its own popularity to the benefit of few.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 25-120mm 57mm ISO 100 f8 1/400 Second WB Daylight
Photo: Bluehour reflection of Stornappstind with dusting of snow, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 28, 2025. 06:37
For many weeks this winter even just a dusting of snow mid-way down the mountains like this morning was a welcoming sight. The temperatures for the entire week prior to this morning had been averaging over 6˚C and this was the first time in 8 days to fall below 0˚C again.
It takes close inspection of the image to know it was taken in winter, as it looks more like a typical autumn dusting of snow or maybe something from late spring. If you look closely, you can see some small patches of snow here and there on the mountain as well as some remaining snow in the gullies on the right of the image. These are small signs that more snow had previously been present but that almost everything else had melted away at some point. It has not been a good year for us skiers who live in the western half of Lofoten.
And while the image doesn’t look very wintry to me, I actually do like the look of the image overall and think the snow line helps add a little depth to the scene. Luckily, this was also a rare morning of still wind, so the reflections in these small tidal pools near Gravdal worked out quite nice in my opinion. Perhaps some areas are a bit dark and heavy – it was low tide – but I think it works as a nice framing of the mountain as it rises into the deep blue of the early morning sky.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 48mm ISO 100 f 7.1 6 Seconds WB Daylight
Photo: Setting winter sun behind misty waves at Unstad beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 25, 2025. 16:47
One benefit to this year’s windy and stormy winter is that the sea is anything but boring! Unstad in particular is always better photographically when large swells are rolling into the bay and I always try to take my groups there in such conditions.
This day was quite a stormy one, with the strong offshore wind blowing mist off the tops of the waves as they broke across the bay. At first I was just shooting the waves themselves with a telephoto lens from up near the parking lot. But as the setting sun emerged from behind the mountain Helligberget (the Holy Mountain), I headed down the the shoreline to see if I could come up with something different.
And while I love this conditions, it is also quite hard to capture the sense of being there amongst all the chaos into a single, still image. The wind, the mist and spay, the rumble of the waves, the smell of the ocean, the approaching storm, the surrounding mountains – there is a lot so see! For me, I was manly looking at the atmosphere of the mist blowing into the air and the atmosphere this created with the sun setting in the background.
Unfortunately though, the angle needed to get the mist blowing into the sky meant getting down by the beach where visibility of the larger waves breaking further out in the bay was lost. Overall I like the feeling of this image, but it does fail to capture much of the drama and the size of the waves on this day.
Camera Info: Nikon Z8 Nikon 24-120mm f/4 97mm ISO 100 f 8 1/50 Second WB Daylight
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