Nature does not conform to timetables

Last night we had the biggest blizzard on the Lofoten islands (read Blizzard, not Lizzard!). It was so bad, that there was zero visibility on the roads and there were a few moments when I had to stop the car in the middle of the road, because I simply couldn't see where I was going.

Needless to say, my flight and the following three other ones got cancelled. I've been to Lofoten a few times now, always in Winter, and not had any cancellations, but even the locals were saying the weather conditions were something else last night.

So I'm stranded here in Norway until Thursday, and will be spending a lot of free time roaming around Bodo, which seems like a nice town (i've only ever seen it in the dead of night when coming in from Oslo en-route to Lofoten).

But if you're reading this and thinking 'sounds terrible', then you should also consider that the reason why the Lofoten is so amazing to photograph in winter, is precisely because of the dramatic shifts in the weather. If you want to shoot dramatic light, then you have to do it at the edge of a storm, and storms mean bad weather. They also mean unpredictable weather, and it's this unpredictability that you have to accept (and to some degree - hope for). Things won't always go according to plan and having an open mind to this, and the surprises it might give to your photography is a start, but you also have to consider you might not get home on time either.

So if you are considering going anywhere like Lofoten in winter time (maybe Alaska, or even the Scottish Highlands), it's always worth giving yourself plenty of contingency time to change flights if need be.

We've become too used to having things work on time, and in my own case, I've just been reminded that nature does not conform to timetables.

End of Lofoten Photo Safari

Today was the last day of my little photo-safari trip with a group of 4 to the Lofoten Islands.

These shots were made during last March and December's trips. March's trip had a lot of dramatic snow storms, while December's trip was calm and serene. This February was a mixture of both, and I felt that I captured a lot more scenes that weren't presented to me during my last two trips.

We had a terrific time, and the weather really played ball - ranging from still reflections in the Reinevågen fjord over a couple of mornings, to blizzards where we were still out shooting in the most veiled light. It seems, that just about any kind of light here, is good light.

I'd like to say a big thank you to Lilian at the guesthouse 'det gamle hotellet' in Reine for our stay. Lilian is an excellent host. Good company which I'm sure everyone on the trip will attest to, as well as a great cook too. Each day we had a really nice breakfast and found all our packed lunches for the day ready to go before we'd even got up from the table.

So I'd like to thank Celena from Australia, Mike from England, Peter from Switzerland and Steve from Canada for coming along on this trip - some of them made some pretty big journeys to join me here. They were very good company, and I had a really nice time too running the trip and showing them some of my favourite locations in Lofoten.

Aurora in Lofoten, Norway

I'm in Lofoten, Norway right now, with a small group, and we had a really great Aurora display last night. In the image below, you can see the aurora behind our little guesthouse that we are staying in, right in the center of Reine.

Thanks to Peter Boehi for letting me use this picture.

We're having the most beautiful light each day too. So the trip is going well and I'm really enjoying showing everyone around Lofoten.

Cold & Warm

Sometimes it's simply all about observing the quality of the light. Whilst in Lofoten last December, I remember standing on the frozen beach at Flakstad, and watching the mountain you see in the distance being illuminated in the twilight. The mountain had a ghostly effect to the upper ridges of it, which I feel, I haven't really managed to convey in this edit so far.

But I think one of the aspects about image making, is to not be too possessive of it. Let it be what it is. I don't consider images failures, just different personalities from the ones I'd hoped for. You can't force your children to be something they're not. I did however, find during the editing of this collection of images, that I seemed to go for a more uplifting, brighter feeling. I think this has a lot to do with how I felt on the days during the editing, and my general frame of mind. There was the occasional image though, that didn't really fit uplifting, and required a darker mood to it, to convey what I felt at the time - that of deep crimson tones in the sky and landscape, as you can see here in this photo of Oldstind mountain.

The edits are nice, and I'm happy with them. But comparing them to the images I shot last March is interesting. I've noticed that there is much more drama in the edits from last March, and that is down to the fact that the weather was completely wild back then. I was getting snow and sleet thrown at my lens and I often had to run for cover during the shoots. You can't force your images to be moody and dramatic if the subject wasn't. As much as I love the edit of Oldstind above, it's still a rather pleasing, calm photograph.

So I'll be back in Lofoten this week for a personal shoot, before I meet my clients for the trip I'm doing with them. I'm curious to see just how different the light will be.

As photographers, we respond, first and foremost to light, and that is purely dependent on the elements around us.

Near Leknes

Do you ever have those moments, when you see something from your car window and you go 'ooh, that looks good', but for some unknown reason, you decide against stopping?

I often find myself doing just that, and on the occasions when I force myself to stop, I very rarely actually carry out the entire motivation. There seems to be some form of weighing up the effort of stopping the car, walking back to the location that grabbed my eye, against the effortless motive to keep on going.....

I could perhaps turn this question around and ask - how many photos are made near the roadside? Should we not call landscape photography 'car boot photography' or 'lay by photography'?

The image above, taken just outside Leknes, in Lofoten was one of those occasions where I saw something, and thought it looked like a great photo, but passed on by. I did it several times, and each time I did it, I wondered why I did, and why I was also, each time, attracted to the location.

I have a theory. Some places are very magnetic. You can't stay away from them. They tend to be iconic, and require very little effort in recognising that there is something of value there. Other places, like my little photo above, are anonymous. They don't register in the same way that iconic places do. But they're beautiful in their own, understated way.

I loved the collection of little red buildings on the far left shore, and there was some minimalism evident to me in the space the sky and water provided. I needed to experience this for myself, and so I parked the car down a side road on a sheet of ice, walked precariously back onto the main road and set up my camera on a steep embankment overlooking the bay. I get myself out there by telling myself that it's beautiful to just sit and watch the landscape, even if there's no stunner of a photography behind the motivation.

And once I was there, I just grew into the moment.

Return to Norway

I'll be heading back to Norway - the Lofoten islands specifically, this coming Sunday for a two week trip. I'll be running my first photographic safari out there - that's right - a safari. Don't worry, I won't be wearing any khaki outfits, shorts, with a net to catch some wild hippos, I'll just be giving an excited group of four, a whirlwind tour of the parts I love to photograph in the Lofoten. I do however, have a week before the group arrive, in which to make my own images. I was in Lofoten last March and December and both yielded very different kinds of images. I'm told by my friends in Lofoten (who make up an unlikely bunch - Australian, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Russian), that each month the light there is so different. So I'm looking forward to that.

I'll also be visiting a polar centre, that specialises in tours around the Aurora. It would be great to finally see it in all it's glory, but well... that is down to the fate of the lucky stars I'm afraid.

Pointy Hat Mountain Mk2 & other stories

Of course, there's always another point of view, or interpretation of the same location. That mountain - Geitelva, across the water from Fredvang is quite a formidable character, and I was always looking for vantage points to photograph him.

Driving into Fredvang one evening, there was so little light, that I felt that I was always reaching for the area of the sky where the light was. It took me to a little outcrop, just across the water from Geitelva. You wouldn't know it, but right behind me, where I made this shot, was a fishing factory. I could hear the loud muffled blare of a radio playing Norwegian electronic dance music. The electronic dance music seemed to accompany me in my car throughout my week's stay in Lofoten - and it was the best radio I've heard in a long while. Still.... from looking at the shot, you wouldn't get the idea that there was a bit of a din going on behind me (even though I liked it, since it kept me company for this 20 minute exposure).

On a different day, the light levels were much more appealing. The cloud cover had gone and with it, the sunrise of 11am and sunset of 1pm didn't feel so short. The day was full of pink light wherever I went and I found it quite a challenge not to rush. I would be at a location, wondering if I should move on soon, because normally, this sort of light doesn't last long in Scotland. Half an hour, maybe 10 minutes.... but here in Lofoten, it was lasting for hours. This shot is of a large frozen bay up near Eggum.

There's a temptation to make everything dark and moody, but sometimes the scene demands a lighter touch, as in the case of this photo of perhaps my favourite mountain in the whole wold - Oldstind. The weather was unusually calm for most of my stay on Lofoten, which isn't what I tend to prefer. I like drama and mood, but I always remind myself there is beauty in everything, whether it's an overcast day, or a bright, almost colourless day like this one. It's really about me bending to the landscape, rather than it bending to me.

Pointy Hat Mountain

I'm slowly working my way through my images from Lofoten, shot this past December.

I love the process. Scanning images, allows me time to review what I shot on my light table. I take each sheet of film out and work on that, one at a time, and I don't race. I don't delve further down into the collection of films until I'm complete with the top sheet. It's a very relaxing way to work. The scanner whirs and clicks away in the back ground, and while it is busy scanning the currently chosen image, I study the ones that are currently grabbing my eye.

And every now than then, the collection of scanned and edited images are reviewed. I use LightRoom - just as a catalog preview machine. It's nice to load up all the images and rate them. Some make the grade more so than others. Take the image above of Geitelva, a mountain near Fredvang (fantastic name for a place, don't you think?). I'm not too sure about this one. I love the mountain, but I shot this under very unsatisfactory conditions. Fading light and a severe lack of colour. It does have a mood though, so It might get through to the last selection, but somehow, I don't think so.

This is the point really. I can't tell until the entire edit is done. Like a story being told, it can only be understood once all the characters in it have been presented and explained. As I add new images to the collection, it feels as though it begins to steer in a new direction. 'Ah, so it's going to be that kind of portfolio?' I'll hear myself exclaim. If the images are overly light, then I can see that the whole feel of the collection is going towards a more lighter mood, but then two days later, the images I'm working on are taking a more darker mood, and that seems to steer the collection in a new direction.... and then I find that some images work better than others.

I feel that making a collection of images work together is all about the collection being 'greater than the sum of its parts'. It should be cohesive, work together, and feel like it all belongs.

That's why I don't rush home to edit. It's also why I let the images sit for a few weeks after the edit, to see how I feel. Sometimes things I didn't see at the time of the edit start to grate. I may be aware that something feels 'on edge' about a particular image, and that's often the sign that it either doesn't fit the collection, or requires further adjustment.....

I'm off to take a break now.

Vågspollen & Uttakleiv, Lofoten

I'm just getting a chance to sit down and go over all the new images I've shot since December. For those of you who haven't been following me, I spent a while in Lofoten, Norway this December shooting, followed by a trip to Iceland. I've got around 70 rolls of film to go through. Here are som of the first I've looked at, and thought it would be nice to share a scene with you :-)

I think these are only preliminary edits. I don't think I've found my 'flow' yet. I sometimes find when it comes to getting back to editing work, it takes me a while to reach a space in my head where I'm at ease with what I'm doing, and I feel I'm building something that fits my mood of how I felt at the time I was on location. Sometimes the edits drive me, and other times I drive the editing. I'm sure it will all settle down in a day or so.

I've spent quite a while in the cold this past few months, and there are still a few more trips to come that will require me hanging around in the white, minus stuff for a while too. Vågspollen is a beautiful place and I had to climb down from the road to the waters edge to get this shot.

I've seen quite a few images mangled by using the Hasselblad - the film backs do not perform in the cold and tend to slip. I've learned the hard way that I need to check the film has wound on fully (it will still take the image, as it's like a clutch that is slipping), and simply give the winder a little help by moving on the film a little bit manually until it reaches the next counter position.

One has to ask - why does each piece of equipment have a 'gotcha' feature or in the case of the Hasselblad system 'gotcha feature set' built in? Only by using the stuff for long enough can you get familiar and overcome the quirks of a system.

I'll be back to show you some more images over the next few weeks I'm sure, as I continue to work my way through the backlog :-)

Moods and Light... Cont

I'm just back home from Norway, and I found it colder here in Edinburgh than I did in Lofoten. We had no storms while I was there, but that doesn't mean that Lofoten escaped some of the mad weather we've experienced lately. There is a lot of damage to the coast line, and some of the beautiful little red huts (Rorbu), have been damaged.

I'm glad I went to Lofoten this December. Each day was completely different in light levels, and this made a big impact on my mood each day. I know we respond to light in lots of ways, and we often express how we receive light by our own moods.

Some days were filled with gorgeous pink hues, that lit up the newly arrived snow. The locals told me that if it weren't for the recent snow, the days would be very dark indeed. The snow provides reflection of light and coupled with a cloudy sky, the light bounces around the landscape. I certainly noticed this, because the first few days there were so dark, miserable even, and I really felt as if was going to be a very long week in Lofoten. When the snow arrived, along with clearer skies, I found the day was so much brighter. But when I say brighter, it was still at the brightness level of dusk or dawn... yes, my eyes had become accustomed to experiencing low light, so any conditions where I saw colour or something that suggested 'white', gave me a heightened sense of contrast, but I knew that the new contrast levels I was experiencing each day were considerably lower than those I'd see normally.

By Wednesday, the sun was no long rising above the horizon, and therefore, it never set too. I had wondered how the light levels would be affected, and thought I would experience a constant twilight of extreme low light levels, but this too, did not happen.

In short, I felt this week was extremely productive and a great way to shoot the most beautiful parts of the day: Imagine a day where sunrise and sunset are separated by an hour or so, or in some cases, it seems that the entire day from 11am to 2pm is on constant long sunrise-set !

So I'm home for a week, but will be off to Iceland later this month, to catch up on some more shooting there.