When my alarm bell rang at 4:30 am, I ignored it. I tried to sleep well into the morning, but only managed a few hours at a time before waking up again. Late in the morning I made breakfast and loaded up the photos from yesterday, eagle first. When I noticed they were all blurry, I was devastated. How could I have been such a numpty?
Looking at the aurora shots next, the only thing I could think of was how I missed the best action completely. And although I had a slightly better foreground, I wasn't happy with the compositions either. All in all, it wasn't a very good morning. Still, I soldiered on; I only had so much time here.
I had two days left on Senja, and the plan as to explore the northern part of the island. There was a nice-looking rest area / picnic spot slightly north of the viewing platform I'd been to before that I wanted to check out. The place is called Tungeneset, and it's basically a smaller outcrop between two larger outcrops of mountain. A very nice place to spend a few hours, which I did. The sea was calm and the sun was out again after the clouds the day before.
Popular place, evidently.
I walked around, trying different compositions, knowing that I'd be back for sunset. After another outdoor lunch, I headed further north along the road to see what I could find.
Cormorants chilling in the shadow of a mountain.
The village of Mefjordvær doesn't get any sun during winter.
The peaks on the north side do, however. Low tide brings out a lot of great detail on a beach, it's a shame we don't really get tides in Finland.
I didn't cover up the viewfinder when I took this shot, apparently. Light leaked in through the back and produced the magenta cast in the middle of the image. Bothers me quite a bit that; I should've realized while I was taking the shot.
I spent a bit too long at the location above; suddenly I realized that the light was fading fast. This was mostly because there was some clouds on the horizon that were dimming the sun way earlier than sunset. I quickly returned to my car and drove back to the picnic area, which fortunately wasn't that far. I wasn't alone, of course; there were maybe a dozen other photographers out on the rocks already, so I had to pick from the spots that were free. The first few compositions I did I wasn't really happy with; I rushed and it showed. Third time was the charm, though, and I was pretty happy with what I got.
One last one. Composition isn't the best, but hey ho :)
As the light faded, I was mostly thinking of a single thing. Photographing the aurora, and doing it right. The forecast hadn't changed, but this night, I'd be ready. A quick dinner later, I loaded the gear and drove to a place I'd been at before. During the morning, I'd realized that it should provide the perfect vantage point, with better views of the sky and mountains. Tonight, I'd be ready. And boy, did I get a show.
Starting out exactly where I wanted them...
Then exploding over the mountain on the left..
This is only a 3 second exposure. Absolutely epic.
...and doing the grand finale back where I wanted it.
I could scarcely believe it. I've never, ever seen anything like it. And this was level 3 activity; the scale goes to 6. Finally happy with what I had gotten, I turned in for the night.