Lofoten Islands Photo Tours



Our amazing accommodation on Lofoten.
Lofoten Islands Photo Tours

I am just back from my first Lofoten photo tour of 2019, and what a tour it was. I'd been to the Lofoten Islands on three other occasions, all with sublime light and conditions but this trip really took the biscuit.

My clients and myself traveled from Dublin to Bodø via Oslo, got our bus at Bodø airport and onto the ferry for the last leg of our journey to Moskenes. After some 18 hours of travel we arrived to Lofoten with just a short 20 minute drive to our accommodation, the famous red cabins of Hamnøy. To me, staying in these, neat, cosy cabins is a must while running a tour here, the cabin we had was a three bedroom, two story cabin which was good and spacious, warm with the best views of all Hamnøy.

Golden light at Hamnøy in 2018

We arrived at base camp around 7.30am, as sunrise was at 10.30am we decided to drop the bags and head out shooting pretty much straight away. With sunrise at 10.30am and sunset, 2pm, days were short, but not as short as you may think. Because of the angle of the sun below the horizon, we had blue hour, two hours before sunrise and after sunset everyday. Even better, as the sun only goes 2 or 3 degrees above the horizon this time of the year, it means, if the weather allows, endless golden light when the sun comes up.

Hamnøy winter wonderland
Its amazing to see how the conditions vary on Lofoten  with all the snow, but also looking back at our tour in November 18' where we had no snow, but in November 17' we had a shed load, even comparing these snowy scenes from January, just one week before we arrived it was horrendous with rain and wind and not a drop of snow to be found. Nothing beats that feeling of seeing and hearing the reactions of clients when they see the aurora light up the sky, seeing it on camera is one thing, seeing it with your eyes is next level stuff and that was the case for the shot above, this location is literally 30m from our cabins.

Easily my favourite image of 2018

When I was on Lofoten back in November, I took my favourite shot of 2018, the scene, from the harbour of Hamnøy village with beautiful rippled reflections, a lovely yellow and white boat and the amazing pointy mountain, Olstinden in the background (Seen above). My hope for this trip was to get that same shot, except this time with snow (See below)!!! It didn't take long for this shot to line up as the mountains had an amazing amount of snow and those rippled reflections were mighty, and we were still on day one.

Repeating the shot in the snow, our cabin is just across the harbour

We decided to stay local on the first morning, its crazy because "local"means having  7 or 8 of the best places to shoot on the Lofoten Islands and lucky for us there was bucket loads of snow all around us, by the time we would leave Lofoten six days later we would have 3ft of snow in places. The first shot up was the classic view of the red cabins from the Hamnøy bridge with snow covered mountain in the background. We had beautiful conditions, firstly lovely blue hour shots with some of the cabins having lights on to give the foreground a bit of pop. As the sun came up and the scene got brighter, it was amazing to watch the mood change with the ever changing cloud, which left us with picture postcard conditions, as seen below. We would end up shooting this scene a few times over the week with arguably the best light coming on the very last day just as the sun was going down it lit the mountain and cabins up in the most spectacular golden colour I've probably ever seen. The highlight of this particular composition was probably the first night as the skies clear briefly, everyone had headed of to bed after a long first day. I was just about to head to bed but decided to take one last shot out the window and BOOM!! The sky was green, a loud roar in the cabin of AURORA, making sure it woke the group, it did!

Moonlit Aurora over Hamnøy

I have never seen so much panic in people putting on boots in my life, lol. It was grab the bags and tripods and GO, the cabins are only a two minute walk from the Hamnøy bridge. When we arrived, the 80% moon was lighting the scene perfectly, this was great because we could shoot at f5.6 and iso 200. Although its great to get green all over the sky, its also nice when shooting a scene like this that its not so intense, I think this little flicker of light really suits this snowy scene. Compare it to the shot below from a tour back in November 2018 when we had a full sky of green, which I think suits the scene more when shooting in landscape mode.



A sky of green in November 2018


Probably the best aurora display I've ever seen to the naked eye in November 2018

Another place high on the list of places to bring my clients was the spectacular Uttakleiv beach, home of the famous dragons eye. Uttakleiv is so special, not just because of the dragons eye, but also for the amazing beach and rocks, foreground and background interest, but when it gets dark, if you have clear skies, theres a good chance you will see the northern lights! On our first photo tour to Lofoten in 2017 we had the pleasure of witnessing a night of non stop aurora, it went on and on, until eventually it was morning.  The shot below, was my first ever shot of the aurora on Lofoten.

My first glimpse of aurora on the Lofoten Islands

The night just got better

The highlight of this beach is without doubt the dragons eye, basically a hole in the rock with a blood red boulder sitting at the bottom, hence the term "dragons eye", the rocks are so vibrant. It really is an incredible place to shoot, but you have to watch out for the sneaky waves and be prepared to get the feet wet. This particular evening, the sky was filled with lenticular clouds, it was crazy and dramatic. To get maximum punch from shooting the dragons eye, I would definitely recommend focus stacking.


The dragons eye

Lofoten isn't just about Hamnøy village, another amazing village is the fishing village of Nusfjord, similar to Hamnøy, it has these iconic red cabins. There are many compositions to shoot, both higher and lower perspectives. People were very excited to visit here, the real highlight of Nusfjord is, after shooting sunrise, going to one of the local shops/cafes where they serve the most amazing waffles, cream and jam with the best cafe views around.

Cafe views at Nusfjord

Nusfjord at its finest

My favourite beach after Uttakleiv, is Flagstad, every time you visit its always different. With the amazing foreground interest rocks, amazing patterns in the sand and beautiful mountain reflections on the beach, theres always something to shoot, and at both sunrise, sunset and for aurora. I have always loved the foreground rocks at this beach, although it was a struggle to get to the waters edge due to the depth of the snow and holes everywhere, it was definitely worth it. We were there for sunset, its hard to beat pastel colours with snow.


Flagstad sunset motion

If I was to show and tell everything there is and what we did on these trips to Lofoten, I'd be here for the rest of 2019. But I couldn't finish up without this simple, yet famous red cabin.

Simplicity at its best
This cabin is famous amongst landscape photographers purely for its simplicity, especially in snow. When snow covered a long exposure works so well to give that smoothness throughout the shot. Naturally the snow, once untouched is very smooth and gives a softness to the foreground, add a long exposure (anything from 30 seconds to a few minutes), and you get that smooth water and moving cloud which helps make the red cabin pop even more.

Thinking of it, I have one more image to share and its from our last morning, on our January 19' trip. The view point over Reine was quite busy, still loads of room for us all but I wasn't satisfied. I knew there was a way down to the waters edge but I also knew it would be tough getting down given the snow was at least a metre deep with big boulders underfoot. Luckily the crew were a hardy bunch and a few of us headed for the bottom, knowing if we made it, we'd be the only ones down there but also the lower we got, the better the reflections of the mountains became. By god was it worth it!!! Once we made it down, a few more soon followed, but we had our compositions, all we had to do was wait for the light, and did it deliver... Check the shot below, not a bad start to our last day on Lofoten.


Last day light at Reine
Now I think thats finally it, below I will share a few more images from the trips, it really is easy to see why this place is paradise for landscape and astro photographers, it has it all.


 


I really hope you enjoyed this read, Lofoten is an amazing place full of adventure, epic locations and with like minded people the potential to be the trip of a lifetime... and not forgetting the Northern Lights.

If you would like to join us on our November 2019 Lofoten Islands Photo Tour, we have two places remaining. Just copy and paste the link below to your internet browser for all info and booking.

https://www.bglandscapetours.ie/Home/tourDetails?tourID=95

Take care folks and thanks for taking the time to read my latest Blog...













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