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

Photo: Cormorants at dawn, Haukland beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. February 15, 2024. 09:11

As the blue hour light over Haukland beach faded into early dawn I was ready to head off to the next location. But walking back to the van, I thought this row of skarven – cormorants had a nice profile against the distant mountains. And as a beginning wildlife photographer, I thought I might try and get a photo.

I would have liked to shoot a little wider, capturing the whole rock, but unfortunately with the tide level, there was a small rock to the right of the frame which I found too distracting. But in this image I also find the sloping of the rock on the right side a little distracting as well. I think this image has potential, but needs another attempt or two for something better.

The main difficulty though, was waiting for all the birds to have their heads up and in a sideways profile. Had they been sitting in this position the whole time, I probably could have gotten a better composition immediately. But as they were constantly cleaning themselves and moving around, it was really a bit of luck to get them all with their heads up, and not much time to do much else. Next time…

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6
360mm
ISO 800
f 6.3
1/800 Second
WB Daylight

Photo: Noon winter sun casts long shadows over icy shoreline at Nappstraumen, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. January 24, 2025. 12:23

Lofoten hasn’t had much sun this year. Well, Lofoten hasn’t have much sun since last August. But today finally arrived to a fully clear sky and bright sun for everyone to enjoy – at least those on the south facing side of Lofoten. For those of us on the north side, it will still be some weeks or months until the sun is high enough in the sky to shine over our houses.

I had originally written a different article for today, mostly about the frequent changing weather so far this year – from deep snow to heavy rain and flooding to freezing and Icy – which is Lofoten’s current state until next week when it warms up and rains again. But with such a wonderful day, I thought a sunny photo would be nicer.

My original plan had been to shoot a photo at 12:00 noon, mostly to illustrate now low in the sky the sun still is right now, 3 weeks after it first rose again after the Polar Night. But heading out my door in what I though was plenty of time for a short drive down the road, I didn’t realize my van was frozen solid like a rock – even the doors had trouble opening. I guess it must have rained after I returned home yesterday and frozen overnight. So what I thought would be a short drive down the road first turned into 10+ minutes of me scraping ice off my windshield so I could drive. (Remember, in Norway you always need to have clean windows, being in a rush is no excuse)

As I arrived at my planned location just 5 km down the road, I could see my delay caused me to miss my originally planned shooting location as the sun was already emerging too far from behind the mountain. This led me to have to climb up a small icy hill to get the sun back in a better position in relation to the mountain. But again, it wasn’t quite perfect – at least for me planning to have a photo taken directly at 12:00. I probably missed the shot my 1-2 minutes.

Not being satisfied, this led me to drive over to the other side of Nappstraumen, where I’d then have a 2nd chance for the sun emerging from the mountain – although by this time, I’d obviously lost my planning for a shot at 12:00 noon.

Luckily the shoreline was well frozen and a number of small icy ponds were around to attempt to use as a foreground. I always find this a slightly difficult location as it’s full of potential but difficult to find a composition that works well.

Once the sun was a little higher into the sky I noticed the nice shadows being cast from the small rocks in the ponds. So instead of using the end of the pond as a foreground, I put my camera almost all the way down on the ice and looked for what I could come up with. I shot a few different variations and think this one probably came out the best – my 3rd attempt for this weeks photo…

Camera Info:
Nikon Z8
Nikon 14-30mm f/4
17mm
ISO 100
f 14
1/100 Second
WB Daylight

Photo: Moon in twilight sky over Skolmen, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. January 3, 2023. 11:19

Welcome to 2025! When I first registered 68north.com in 2010 as a small portfolio for my growing collection of travel images from Lofoten, I never imagined what the journey over the next 15 years would have been. Nor did I image when I first started writing these Friday Photo posts over 10 years ago that I would still be here writing one every week. The world is a lot different today than it was then, especially the world of travel, photography, and information.

In some ways I still have one foot in that old world. I still don’t use a gps when hiking, I’m not that into video and social media, I’ve never put any advertising or sponsored content (other than my own products) on this website, and I’m still writing blog posts. With the growing presence of AI in both imagery and words, perhaps a hand written site like this is more important than ever. Even if no one reads blogs anymore amongst the increasing supply of fantasy depicted as reality. At least the information is here should anyone come searching for it.

And a new year means the days are getting brighter as the Polar Night is quickly coming to an end. Weather permitting, it might be possible to see the first half of the sun tomorrow as it floats across the southern horizon. That said, these first days are the year as still quite short. Here, a waxing gibbous moon is just about to pass over Skolmen mountain in the distance.

Opposite of the midnight sun, there is the midday moon during winter here in Lofoten. Whereas in ’normal’ latitudes, a full moon will rise opposite of sunset. When sunset doesn’t occur, and the sun is below the horizon in the south, the moon can be above the horizon at noon towards the north – 180˚ opposite the sun.

Camera Info:
Nikon Z7 II
Nikon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6
330mm
ISO 200
f 5.3
1/40 Second
WB Daylight