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Friday Photo #684 – Pastel Dawn

Photo: Misty clouds conceal Ristinden peak at dawn, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 5, 2026. 09:30

I will dare to say that the last month has been the best winter in recent memory. Day after day of cold and still weather, barely a hint of wind, and nights of dancing northern lights over the snow covered mountains. Having completed my first 2 photo workshops of the year, both groups have walked away with amazing images that would often take multiple visits to Lofoten to achieve. It has been a good start to my winter guiding season compared to the struggles with warm, stormy weather of the previous couple years. Let’s hope this continues!

This image is from one of those mornings where I wish I could freeze time. Central Vestvågøy was largely covered in a low, wispy fog flowing in and out of the valleys and hills. Rarely have I ever seen such conditions in winter. Unfortunately, it was also a day in which I had to move the group from Leknes to Svolvær, which always makes things a little difficult with a van stuffed with luggage (and this group had a lot of luggage!).

As we drove east across Vestvågøy I could see the misty clouds swirling around the mountain peaks and as I reached the low pass at Torvdalshalsen, which, most importantly, has a parking area, I knew it would be a near-perfect location for the time being as the dawn light lit the steep slopes or Ristind among the swirling mist.

Despite the stillness, moments like this are often brief, and this was one of those times to remind the group with one of my common sayings, ‘Less talk, more walk!’ In other words, get moving people, this light isn’t going to last forever! And eventually the mist rose and concealed the mountain.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6
340mm
ISO 200
f5.6
1/160 Second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #683 – Windswept

Photo: Winter winds blow over Haukland beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 2, 2025. 11:48

But where are the mountains? Yes, there should be mountain in the background of this image, except at this moment in the middle of a passing snow shower, there aren’t. Or well, the mountains are there, you just can’t see them. Only a bit a patience, and understanding of Lofoten’s weather will determine if you leave the windswept beach or wait things out a little bit. For Lofoten in general, patience is often the key. Or perhaps experience is the key, as in the moment of this photo, all views seem lost. Should one stay, or walk away?

It is probably because of the false illusions of social media that many now expect almost every moment to be perfect. We want perfect scenes of a perfect snow covered beach and mountains, yet don’t expect to be there when the snow is actually falling and the mountains aren’t visible – that just occurs in some other magical time when we are not present. We only want the results, the scenes of perfection we now see a thousand times a day on social media.

But for a snow covered landscape to exist, it must snow at some point. And that moment might be when you are walking across a windswept beach.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 14-30mm f/4
25mm
ISO 100
f9
1/15 Second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #679 – Pillows of Snow

Photo: A young birch sapling in pillows of snow, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 14, 2025. 11:52

One thing I sometime miss about the Lofoten landscape is the ability to find a nice lonely tree in the middle of a field or a small isolated grove without too many other distractions. There are a few places around here and there, but most require more effort to reach than I’m able to do on most winter photo workshops. This area is one of the more accessible places, though even the bigger trees are more like bushes, and this ‘tree,’ more like a couple of sticks.

I was actually just shooting a bit of really abstract stuff of just the snow when I decided this little group of twigs might help a little with the scene. It is nothing much, but still a nice abstract moment of winter and snow – which there seems to be less and less of in Lofoten these last years…

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6
360mm
ISO 200
f6.3
1/500 Second
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #674 – Fullmoon Aurora

Photo: Northern lights – Aurora Borealis illuminate the sky before a full moon, Skreda, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 14, 2025. 21:04

By now Lofoten’s northern lights season is almost half way over for the year: roughly August 20 – April 20. The bulk of my images will be be shot during my winter photo workshop season from late January to late March. On this evening, my group and already had a few hours of somewhat faint, but colourful aurora at Vik beach, just over the hill from our accommodation at Skreda. It was a cold night afternoon an already long day, so it was an early evening to be back to the cabins by 21:00.

Walking out onto the balcony of my cabin, there was still a nice green arch of aurora shining across the southern sky. The sea was calm and I actually liked the addition of the lights shining on the distant shore. And the nearly full moon added a little depth to the scene. Not the usual snowy mountains or beaches of my typical northern lights photos from Lofoten, but I like this image in a bit more of an abstract way – even more so as I was only 10 meter from my bed.

I still read online quite often the misinformation about not being able to see the northern lights with a full moon. This is absolutely false, as you can see here in this image. Yes, a full moon will reduce the visibility of a very faint aurora that you can already barely see with your eyes. But for any aurora worth photographing at least, the moon doesn’t make too much of a difference, and in fact, often aids in the overall image quality by illuminating the landscape and allowing for lower ISO and shutter speeds.

My main dislike of a full moon comes not from its direct interference with the visibility of the northern lights themselves, but more of what to do with it as a compositional element. In this image, I think the mood adds to the overall scene. But sometimes, the moon just doesn’t fit with where the aurora are in the sky and it’s in some awkward part of your preferred composition. Or, with the moon high overhead, it can cast your own shadow onto the foreground of the scene, leaving you struggling to find a foreground to the image. These are mostly critiques about composition, and not the full moon interfering with the visibility of the northern lights themselves.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 14-30mm f/4
16mm
ISO 2000
f4
3 Seconds
WB Daylight

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Friday Photo #673 – Rorbu Sunset

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

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Friday Photo #671 – Eggum Waves

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

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Friday Photo #670 – Autumn Tree

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

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Friday Photo #669 – Cormorant Sunset

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

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Friday Photo #668 – Unstad Storm

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

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Friday Photo #667 – Sunset Wave

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

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