tromso — The Blog — TM Photography

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 :)

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.

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

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 :)

Ever since I went on my first trip to Norway I've been waiting to go back. And as a bonus, I wanted more. Mountains! Norther lights! Ice and snow! The question was only when and where to go, as there are a lot of options.

I'm sure many of you have seen multiple images with the aurora in them; I had too. The auroras are best visible way up north, past the polar circle. A big part of Northern Finland gets auroras, but... I had also read this post about shooting eagles on the Lofoten islands. Can't really beat that combination. Lofoten it was.

The next question was when to go. During winter, obviously, but when can you see Northern Lights? Turns out they are visible for most of winter, from November to March. What is more important than the month is the weather, so I looked at the historical weather information for the region. As most of Norway, the Lofoten islands are at the mercy of Northern Atlantic weather, meaning lots and lots of wind and rain. Typically, November and December are not very good for aurora spotting because of cloud cover. January is better, but still a bit random. February and March are best, because the weather typically clears towards the end of winter and there is a much greater chance of having clear skies. Of those two, I chose March, because the longer day duration (6 hours early February vs 8 hours in the beginning of March) and the fact that Scandinavian schools have long vacations in February.

I had the location and the time of year. But I didn't really have any idea where to go. So, I spent a few months on google, 500px and flickr looking at pictures and geography, planning possible locations. As the plan solidified, I decided to split my trip between three locations; Tromso, Senja and Lofoten. The reason was that I wanted to see Tromso and it was practically on the way. Also, Thomas Heaton had done a travel vlog from Senja a year ago, and I wanted to see that location. I also had a few replies on a photography forum that said Senja was a great location for northern lights. And then there was Lofoten itself. It was going to be a very long trip, but I felt confident.

Turku to Tromso. Long, but doable in two days.

Leknes on Lofoten, Finnsæter on Senja, and Tromso. Lots and lots of mountains and fjords.

When planning locations, I typically use Google maps and the Photograher's Ephemeris to get a sense on how the location looks. I was looking for vantage points for sunrise and sunset; the rest of the day has worse light and I'd be driving around the areas anyway, finding photos organically. Having a bunch of pre-validated locations meant that I didn't need to stress about those key shots, just choose a spot to drive to. As an example, I had two sunrises while staying in Tromso. Weather permitting, that's two photos; but where?

The sunrise hits these mountains in a nice angle when viewed from the south bank.

The satellite images in Google maps allow me to find mountains with clear lines to sunrise or sunset. Then, I can look at street view to get an idea of how the view looks like; however, since those images are taken with fisheye lenses they don't represent the view exactly. But, for the mountains above, I saw that the south bank of the fjord looked good. There's a clear view to the mountains, and I even found a foreground on the satellite images.

In the end, I did this for around fifteen locations. Some worked in real life, some didn't. If google maps has actual photos in addition to the street view, that typically gives you a better idea of the location, since those typically aren't taken with super wide angles. In any case, all this is a lot of work. I have a document full of links, screenshots and coordinates, which came in very handy during the trip.

The last question was the gear. I already have all the gear I need for almost every situation. The trouble was the 'almost'; the only place where my gear doesn't excel is the night sky. And since I wanted aurora pictures, I had to do something about that. Luckily, I have a friend who graciously loaned me his full frame Nikon kit (thanks Henrik!), and I went out and bought a new wide angle for it based on recommendations from pro aurora photogs. In all, I took quite a lot of stuff with me, but I ended up using everything except my last-ditch reserve lens, so it wasn't that bad. And since I was traveling the whole way by car, the weight wasn't an issue either.

So, umm, yeah. It's fine. From top left; Nikon charger, cable releases, filters and adapter rings, Tamron 15-30, Nikon 200-500 on my Nikon D7100, Nikon D750, Neweer travel charger. Tamron 70-200, Nikon 18-200, Nikon 10-24, Nikon 35, Nikon 50, Manfrotto tripod and head, and a GoPro 3. Plenty of batteries and memory cards too. Also, lots of clothes. And I used all of it.

So, 5223 kilometers in the car, 355 liters of fuel and 14 days later, was it worth it? Absolutely. I've said this before, but it's even more true now; I love Norway. The area is breathtakingly beautiful. Rugged, impassable, dangerous, extreme, lonely and serene. It's a landscape photographers paradise. The weather was everything from brutal to beautiful, chilling to balmy. On the same day I drove through one of the worst blizzards I've ever seen, and blue skies. I had to wade through knee-high snow to get the picture, or stop at a parking lot to get one of similar beauty.

And on top of all those experiences, I got some nice images. I'll show them in the coming posts, but here is a brief teaser. I hope I can do Lofoten justice in my own little way; I think it's simply not possible to convey the full sense of the place by simple images alone.

Senja and Lofoten, part 2: quick tour around Tromso

Senja and Lofoten, part 1: Planning the longest trip yet