landscape

Senja and Lofoten, part 8: The most incredible place

When you read 'Lofoten Islands in winter', what do you think of? Mountains? Snow? Ice? Fjords? Small fishing villages? I thought of all of those, and more. To actually be there was a dream come true. On the third day in Lofoten, I drove southwards toward the end of the islands. The weather had calmed considerably from the days before. And even though there was a bit of cloud on the sky, it was that nice sort of cloud that just looks great. Even though my drive southward was only about 1 hour long, it took me about three times that.

Behind the red shed, the little outcrop, was where I took the sunset image you can see in the previous post.

And in the other direction, my trusty, thirsty steed. Wherever you look around these parts, there is a pointy mountain.

I mean, come on!

So yeah, I stopped along the way. A lot. But can you really blame me? I just do not have the words to describe my feelings on this day. I was in paradise. Lofoten is unlike any place I've ever been in, and to be able to see and experience it during a day like this was just... incredible. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Crystal clear.

Bridges to Fredvang.

After many, many stops I finally got to Hamnøy for the scouting. It didn't take me long to find the location I was looking for.

Either this...

...or this. I'd choose the final one next morning.

While I was here, I took the opportunity to walk around to see if there were other shots to be had. I knew where I'd have to be the next morning, but there might still be some hidden gems somewhere. 

This guy had the right idea. But what is he taking a photo of?

Ah, yes.

View south-west.

View south-east towards the mainland. This actually gave me an idea that bore fruit the next morning.

Locals.

I wandered around for an hour or so, watching the sea, boats and birds, and just enjoying the views. I was getting hungry though, so it was time for another delicious Outdoor Deluxe Meal. The location this time was Djupfjorden, that has a convenient parking spot built on a scenic position. I took a photo of the small fjord itself, and then settled down for my lunch. The eagles the day before were on my mind, so before I did anything with the portable stove, I strapped on my birding setup. Just in case.

Small and cozy. I'd love to take a photo that would show the scale of the place, but there just is no way to do it from this vantage point.

I sat on the ledge that you can see above, looking out towards the sea (behind me in this shot). I had the bag of food in my left hand and a spoon in my right. And on my right side, hanging from my shoulder harness, my tele lens with the correct settings dialed in. Mid-chew, I looked to my left, put the bag of food down beside me, lifted my camera, and fired of a full burst. Afterwards I put down the camera, picked up my food and continued eating.

It was time to head back. I had a plan to get to a particular beach for sunset, Skagsanden beach. On the way I couldn't resist, and stopped at the same location I was at earlier. The sun had shifted a bit, shining nice side light on the mountains so that I could do nice panoramas that I'll put on my wall at some point. 

The beach was absolutely packed. I stopped counting at a hundred photographers, it was simply mental. I was a bit late, again, so didn't really have a good pick of compositions. I tried my best, but my heart wasn't really in it. It had been a long day, and I was really tired. And happy about all the photos I had already gotten that day. I also knew I had an early start the next day; there was no chance I'd miss sunrise at Hamnøy.

It had been a crazy, long day. Writing this, I know I should try more to describe what I felt, but mostly I was just overwhelmed. And that's really not that strange. Now, I just look at the images, and smile.

After sunset when most of the photogs had left. I should've put more effort in, such as focus stacking the image. But I was already half asleep.

Sunset at Skagsanden. Would've been great, were it not for the footsteps of some idiot.

Senja and Lofoten, part 3: The real trip begins

As I mentioned earlier, I only had two nights reserved in Tromso. This was mostly because it would have taken too long to drive directly to Senja, but I also wanted to see Tromso and the landscapes around it. That done, I checked out of the hotel, packed my car and headed toward the first "real" destination, the island of Senja.

This day I also saw the first eagle of the trip; while I was driving out of Tromso, it just landed right next to the road to contest the catch of a few seagulls. It was less than 30 meters from me, and there was nothing I could do. Oh well, that turned out OK in the end, there were some on Lofoten too :)

The drive wasn't that long, but boy, was it pretty. Especially the first third. As you can see above, there's a lot of mountains on the way, and I do like me some mountains :) The issue is the typical; the roads are not built with photographers in mind (I know, right??) and the rest stops are few and far between. I did manage to get some photos along the road though, but not a lot of timelapse footage as I was a doofus and forgot to charge the GoPro during the night and had to do it while driving instead. 

The roads get much smaller when you get to the actual island, and the traffic pretty much stopped as well. I was a bit nervous before my trip if I'd manage to drive on the smaller country roads, but there wasn't really any issue. The locals keep the roads in good condition; after all, they need to use them daily themselves.

View from one of the few rest stops along the highway.

Of course I wasn't the only tourist here :)

Look back towards Tromso, the road follows the fjord to the right.

That fox lives in a pretty place.

Mountain detail.

I had plenty of time to drive so I decided to do a quick recon of the sunset location I had chosen. This one was pretty easy; it was a location I got from Thomas Heatons video I talked about earlier. The sunset was going to be at a slightly more awkward angle then when he did his trip, but it would still hit the mountain sides in the fjord. I drove up there, took a look around to make sure everything was good, enjoyed the views, and headed back to the place where I was going to stay. After a quick chat with the host and a shopping trip, I was ready for sunset.

The drive up to the location was ... interesting the first time. Basically, it is a hill climb. It has an 8% rise, with twisty turns, and the surface was partly covered in ice. I was slightly worried my car wouldn't make it, actually. This was the first proper test for my winter driving, and it went completely fine. no problems whatsoever. This second time I took a time lapse of it. I also took a time lapse of me photographing the sunset. They turned out OK:

The location itself is one of the few structures on the trip that seems to be built with photography in mind. It's called Bergsbotn utsiktsplattform (Bergsbotn viewing platform), and it's built on the side of a hill, at a corner of the serpentine road. The views, as you'd expect, are spectacular. Unfortunately it was very cold and windy, so I couldn't enjoy the location fully as I was freezing my butt off. I still got a few nice images, and as a bonus, I met a Finnish pair who happened to stop at the same location on their way. Small world, and all that.

15 minutes to go. This was taken with an 8 stop ND filter; I guess I need to get a 10 stop.

View back towards the pass and tunnel. It's tricky to capture the scale of mountains when you are so close, but these weren't small.

Last rays of the sun, and last photo of the day. Or so I thought.

I was quite cold and hungry at this point, so I headed to my cabin for some food and warmth. Although I was a bit tired, the clock wasn't more than 8 in the evening after I'd finally managed to get some food in me. Also, I couldn't stop thinking about a certain thing. During my chat with the host earlier, he had asked me if I'm interested in auroras. Very much so, I told him. He said that the auroras are visible most nights if it's clear, and which direction they would be visible at. And although the forecast didn't promise any fireworks, I was tense. I've seen auroras before, but never 'properly'; they always been low on the horizon or hidden behind light pollution from cities. Out here, there were no cities, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. And I wasn't sure I'd have the technical skills to capture them even if I saw them. 

At around 9pm, as I was trying to look out of the windows, I finally gave up, and started putting on clothes. I decided to take a short walk along the beach the host said offered the best views. It was pitch black, very cold, and very windy, but I just had to. After a few minutes my eyes adjusted to the dark, and I looked up. And there it was. A faint green mist, covering the stars. It didn't have a specific form, it was just.. everywhere. I just stood there and waited, and the aurora grew stronger. Now I could see streaks forming and the color getting more intense. I almost ran back to the cabin to put on even more clothes, and get my gear. When I got back and got my stuff set up, I took this:

Calibration shot for finding the settings. It's slightly off, but not too bad.

When the camera showed me the first picture in the back, I just burst out laughing. All the tenseness just vanished, and I was ecstatic. There would be no issue with the camera, I knew right there and then that this was going to be awesome.

I spent almost two hours out in the cold, watching, shooting and moving. The northern lights are almost never static; they move around and shift in intensity. You need to decide what kind of photo you want, and you might not get the aurora in the correct position even though you wait the whole night. This particular evening, I just shot everything. It was a test run mostly; I tested different settings, compositions, and controlling the camera in the dark. I wanted to be ready for the next time; after all, these auroras were not very strong (the camera actually sees more than the naked eye, the color was less intense for me when I looked at the lights). 

After the aurora faded around 11pm, I walked back to the cabin. I had nearly a hundred photos. Some were exposed completely wrong, and many were out of focus. But there was one I was quite happy with. Even though this was only the first night of shooting auroras, I was happy. 

If this was a level 2 aurora, what will a level 5 look like?

Turns out, the northern lights had more in store for me.

Senja and Lofoten, part 2: quick tour around Tromso

The drive to Norway is pretty long. The first leg was to Kemi, on the border to Sweden. The drive that day, honestly, was pretty boring. Finland is nice and all, but the roads are proper, flat, and partly covered in snow. The second day was definitely more interesting. The road up from Kemi through the highlands of Finnish Lapland is partly quite horrid, but the views are great. There's not a lot of mountains, instead the landscape is rolling hills and low bush as far as the eye can see.

As a fun detail, you can clearly see where the border to Norway is while you drive. Obviously, there are signs and cameras, but the landscape changes quite fast after the border. On the Finnish side its all rolling large hills, and the valleys are quite shallow. On the Norwegian side, the hills become suddenly quite steep, and you are driving between actual mountains. The best bit was definitely the last few hours, driving through the fjords and ending up in Tromso. It's a beautiful drive, made more awesome by the setting sun hitting the mountain peaks.

I didn't stop to take any photos as it was a long drive, but I did take quite a bit of time lapse footage while driving. I'll embed the raw version below, but I'm planning on producing a cut together video of the whole trip. It will be my first produced video so it will probably take a while :D

As the drive was long, I ended up in Tromso after sunset, so didn't have time for a photograph that evening. Instead, I decided to get a good meal and rest after the drive so that I could be up bright and early for sunrise, which was at 06:47. I already showed you the scouting for this location in the last post, but as a reminder, the plan was a S-shaped stream that leads up to a mountain range, with the early rays of the sun just hitting the peaks.

The plan came together perfectly. I woke up at 05:00, early enough for the 40 minute drive, scouting time, and setting up on location. It wasn't easy, mostly because I'm really, really not a morning person. But I knew I'd regret it if I didn't get the shot, and there was no clouds on the horizon, so I got into my car and started driving. The place was easy to find, and conveniently there was a parking space right next to the bridge I wanted to take the shot from. Since I had time (about 30 minutes) I walked around the beach to make sure I had the best vantage point. On the beach, I looked towards sunrise and thought that image was quite nice as well.

It's nice, but there isn't really a clear subject. Sets the mood quite nicely though, I liked the mist forming in the cold winter morning :)

As sunrise was approaching, I took my gear and set up on the edge of the bridge. The bridge itself was very narrow, enough for a single vehicle and someone walking on the side. Good thing that it was very early, so there wasn't much traffic. No one honked their horn at me at least, which was nice. Sunrise hit, and exactly as planned, the peaks lit up with the faint morning light. I kept shooting as the light increased, just to make sure I got the best light; it's easy when you have a tripod and shoot on semi-auto with a cable release. I ended up selecting one of the earlier ones that had most pink in it. It's a color you don't really get at sunset.

I couldn't really have asked for a better start for the trip. Even though it was really, really cold (my car showed -17 degrees Celsius), I was super happy. I stayed until the nice light was gone, around 20-30 minutes after sunrise, and then packed up and headed back to the hotel for a well deserved breakfast. 

After some bacon and eggs, I packed my stuff into the car again and started on the drive for today. The plan was to drive around the local neighborhood to scout for locations before sunset, where I had a few potential spots. I had plenty of time during the day to check both, and then I could choose the better one for my only evening in this part of the journey.

The island of Kvaløya looked like it had most potential. I decided to drive around the whole island, starting from the north part through the valley. The views are nice, with the clear blue waters and partly snow-covered mountains. 

The northern part of the drive is definitely nicer than the southern one. That might also be because the brisk wind was coming from the southwest, hitting the south coast head on, as well as the sun being on that side. So even as there are mountains towards the south, they don't make for a good photo from this particular road. There was a nice rest stop though, and I decided to have a late lunch. I had a bag full of boil-in-bag lunches and a traditional gas cooker with me, exactly for this purpose. Boil up some water, pour in bag, shake and wait. Easy and no need to clean the cookware. And probably cheaper than finding a restaurant, to be honest :)

Not a bad view for a spot of lunch.

I decided on the village of Ersfjordbotn for sunset. The village is located at the end of a steep fjord, and the right side was in a prime location for sunset. I headed that way with plenty of time for setting up. Unsurprisingly, there aren't dedicated parking spots for photographers in good locations, so you have to improvise. I never park in anyones personal driveway, so sometimes parking takes some doing. In any case, I found a spot and took a walk around, finding a small beach between the houses where a small stream flowed out to the fjord. The stream was mostly frozen, but the shore provided some nice foreground for the mountain, so I set up my gear and waited. 

Is nice!

The tide was low, luckily for me. I found the trail of an otter in the snow too :)

Last rays of the day.

The sun set, I took my photos, and headed back to the hotel for some dinner. The next day was going to be driving again, this time to my first actual stay on the island of Senja. More mountains and some auroras to come in the next post :)