Creating a portfolio Northern Lights image from a remote mountain section in the Lofoten Islands
The midnight sun has returned to the Lofoten Islands. After a long and dark winter, it feels great to have long and bright days again. Though, the never-ending light means there’s a lack of sleep!
While the well-known locations are popular for a reason, I've been more drawn towards the no-name landscapes and dramatic atmosphere that describes the island. In this miniseries, the mysterious atmosphere is exactly what I've focused on.
I can’t believe that another year is over. Just like that. It felt like 2018 passed by in a blink. This has been a very exciting year for me where I’ve been able to keep expanding my business CaptureLandscapes, meeting new like-minded people, explore new terretories and spend a big portion of the year guiding photography groups around some of the most scenic places our planet has to offer.
Two weeks ago we had a spectacular night, better than any I have ever seen here in the east. The lights where dansing above is and we even got a touch of purple Aurora in the sky. To make the night even better, there was no wind, giving beautiful reflections in the lakes.
Being creative is one of the hardest parts with photography. Humans in general are really good at finding excuses not to do something, and photographers are no exception. Both you and me have used the bad weather as an excuse not to go out more than one time. If it’s raining or in general bad weather, I often use this as an excuse and stay inside working on pictures rather than going out taking them.
Reflecting upon my resent journey around North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina, on location often cross my mind. Two weeks of visiting beautiful locations, yet one seems to pop into my mind more often. Botany Bay. The more I think about it, the greater it gets. The most unique beach, an incredible road and thrilling wildlife. Could it be any better?
A couple weeks ago, a friend and myself decided to go photograph a rather unique mountain in our "local" area. We had been there the week before to do some scouting, exploring different angles and figuring out the angles of the sun. Since we were aiming to shoot both sunset and sunrise, we chose to camp up in the mountain rather than taking the steep hike in the middle of the night.
Cloudland Canyon was one of those places I stumbled across coincidentally while doing research for my trip, and was also mentioned to me a couple times after this. I wasn't sure it would be the most spectacular place for sunset, especially since I now was spoiled with the beauty of the Smoky Mountains. However I had read about a waterfall hike, and the images I saw convinced me that this was worth the drive alone. I should probably mention that it wasn't a bad spot for sunset after all.
It's very rare that I aim to get a "classic shot" that has been taken thousands of times before me. I prefer to explore a place and try to show what I see, without copying what has been done before me. This time it was different. I have always loved those sunrises or sunsets of Smoky Mountains where you get layer upon layer, and ideally some nice light in between them too.
The weather on Iceland changes quickly and is often hard to predict. Most people experience rain, snow, hail, strong winds, fog, clear skies and heavy clouds during their visit. We got all of this in one morning.
We started driving into the mountains a couple hours before sunrise, to ensure that we would find the best spots to view the rising sun. As our scouting trip a couple days earlier was ended before we even reached the lake, due to extreme wind and snowfall and no visibility of the road, we had not yet had the chance to explore the area. However I had some ideas of where we could go after studying this place on maps and reading online.
After spending the morning photographing the areas around Kleifarvatn on Iceland, it was time to head back to Reykjavik where we were meeting family. Even tho it's hard to get lost on these roads, as there are very few exits, I decided to plot the address into our GPS. After less then 10 minutes driving, the GPS told me to make a right turn. I was certain that this was wrong, as it made no sense at all to turn this early, when I knew the main road was at least another 15 minutes away. However we decided to take this road and see where it would take us. We didn't come far before we met a roadblock and had to turn around.
