Lofoten Islands Autumn Photo Gallery

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Offersøykammen, Vestvågøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Sunset from Offersøykammen, Vestvågøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  October 2012

–CLICK HERE– To view Lofoten Islands Autumn 2012 gallery.  50 images.

As promised yesterday, I have a new gallery online from Autumn on the Lofoten Islands.  While I didn’t do any camping on this part of the trip, I did find myself waiting around for sunset from the tops of mountains on numerous occasions.  Often I wasn’t very successful and clouds rolled in, but I always find being in the mountains during the day’s last light to be a peaceful experience.   So even if my camera never comes out of the backpack, as longs as I’m not getting rained on, it’s worth the effort…

Of the three Autumns I’ve now traveled to Lofoten to photograph, this year was the most colorful and mildest.  Though this also meant the light was often quite flat, with the cloudy haze that I usually associate with summer occurring on many days.  It’s good weather for going out hiking, but not for brilliant photos.   Last year was also warm, but quite stormy, meaning most of the leaves were blown off the trees soon after my arrival on the islands.  But that stormy weather usually brings crisp, clear air, ideal conditions for Lofoten.  The Year 2009, my first Autumn on Lofoten, was cold and turbulent. The combination of snow covered peaks and the bright colors of Autumn was a amazing one, but weather conditions made photography quite difficult; this was when I came up with my ‘5 minute rule’ about shooting on Lofoten.

Overall I would say Autumn is my favorite season on Lofoten, as the islands really are amazing with so much color around.  For a rough Idea of dates, September 15 – October 10, are when the peak color usually occurs.  Though from my experience, many of the trees get blown leafless by the beginning of October as a big gale will usually have passed through by then.  I think this year I got quite lucky and had no strong winds.  The smaller foliage and grasses keep their color well into October, so even if the trees are gone, there is still some color about.

Himmeltinden lofoten islands norway

Photo: Dark skies over Flakstadoya from summit of Himmeltindan, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  October 2012

Lofoten Autumn Coming Soon

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blueberry bush in Autumn, Norway

Photo: Blue berries, red leaves, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  October 2012

Tomorrow (Monday) I should have a new gallery online from the two weeks of Autumn during this years Lofoten travels.  If it wasn’t for the color of the foliage, when compared to my images from Summer, one could easily think I had the two galleries reversed as I had far better weather during October than I did in August.  Lofoten’s version of an Indian Summer I guess.  Not that I’m complaining or anything!

I’m also putting the finishing touches on a couple more articles for 68north.com.  The first will probably be for Lofoten’s three best beaches (Horseid, Bunes, and Kvalvika – if you are new to my blog and haven’t seen many photos yet).  And then also sometime next week will come just a hiking/travel/getting there guide for Horseid beach.

Tent camping at Horseid beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Camping at Horseid Beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 2012

Kvalvika Beach Hiking Guide

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evening twilight at Kvalvika beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Late summer twilight, Kvalvika Beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 2012

Over at 68north.com I’ve written a new hiking and camping article for Kvalvika Beach -CLICK HERE-  to check it out.  I intend to put a fair amount of effort into 68north.com over the next few months.  I’ll still probably cross post some stuff here on this blog (otherwise I’d have nothing to post), but I hope things start to pick up a bit over there and I intend to make it the best English language guide for Lofoten photography and travel – if it is not already despite the fact that it gets no traffic.  I still have plans to write an eBook or two for Lofoten, but I’m sure as soon as I do someone will come out with something better anyhow as it seems Lofoten is starting to get on the radar of quite a few more photographers latelty.  Maybe it’s time to go buy a horse and wander around Kazakhstan for a couple years…

Kvalvika beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Group of Three, Kvalvika Beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 2012

Lofoten Islands Summer Photos

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Horseid beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Horseid beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 2012

–CLICK HERE– To view Lofoten Islands summer 2012 photo gallery.

I’ve uploaded the first 50 images to my archive from part 1 of my Lofoten travels this year – August/September.  Click on the above link to go to the gallery.  As seems to be normal for me with Lofoten, a majority of the images come from only a few different days at a couple locations.  Overall, it seemed to be a cool and somewhat stormy summer this year.  Lots of wind and clouds on most days, though still a few perfect calm days here and there as well. I think overall I managed a decent variety of images.  And when combined with what I shot earlier in the year in February and what I got in Autumn (I’ll post in a couple more weeks), it was a pretty good year on the islands.

I was happy to finally make it to Horseid beach, which may now be my new favorite place on Lofoten.  It is absolutely stunning out there, especially if you have to whole place to yourself.  Another highlight of the trip was a journey up Ryten for the views back down to Kvalvika beach.  Again, absolutely amazing and I’m not sure why it took me so long to get up there – though this being the first time I’ve been to Kvalvika when it actually wasn’t raining might have had something to do with it.

Ryten silhoutted against evening twilight at Kvalvika beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Summer twilight silhouette of Ryten from Kvalvika beach, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 2012

 

Stamsund, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Photo: Stormy sky over coast, Stamsund, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  August 2012

 

 

 

Lofoten Islands – Germany – Kungsleden Trail – 2012 Europe Travel Plans

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Summer twilight over mountains of Lofoten islands, Stamsund, Norway

Photo: Twilight over Lofoten Islands, Stamsund, Norway.  July 2010

I’ve finally finalized my travel plans for Europe for late summer and autumn.

First stop: Lofoten Islands.  I fly north of the arctic circle to Bodø, Norway on August 20th.  From Bodø I’ll catch the late night ferry to Moskenes, arriving to Lofoten in the early morning of the 21st for a 2 week trip to the islands.  I’m traveling a bit later than I had originally planned, but the summer has been pretty cold and wet so far, so I don’t think I’ve really been missing much.  Hopefully I’ll get a few days of decent weather so I can get up a few mountains and maybe a few nights camping on the coast.

In early September I leave Lofoten for a quick trip down to Germany to see a few bands play at the Festival-Mediaval in the small town of Selb, in northern Bavaria.  I was there in 2010 and had a good time.  I can already taste the Flamkuchen and Käsespätzle.  Should be good fun.

Next I’m flying back north of the arctic circle to Kiruna, Sweden for my second journey along the northern section of the Kungsleden trail.  Lasts there three years ago in 2009, I’m looking forward to another week wandering among the rugged mountains of the Swedish arctic.  Hopefully the weather is a bit warmer than my last trip; fingers crossed.  I was originally thinking of heading into Sarek national park, but I’m going to be a bit short on time, so that will have to wait till another year.

After a week or so on the Kungsleden, I’ll head back over to the Lofoten Islands for another 2 weeks to photograph the autumn color; again, weather dependent.

By mid October I’ll be looking to head south again.  Here things aren’t so planned out.  I love Stockholm in the autumn, so might head back there for a few days.  I also have Gotland on my mind as well.  I almost went there way back in 2001, so maybe it’s finally time.  Otherwise, and if the weather is cooperating, I might spend a week or so in the western fjords region of Norway, trying to get a bit more autumn color.  As usual, the best plan is no plan.  Will have to wait and see how the weather looks once the time gets a bit closer.

All and all, I’m excited.  I think it’s a bit strange for me always to head north during the time all the birds are heading south to warmer climes.  But ehh, bad weather makes good photos …sometimes.  Mostly it’s just bad weather and I get to complain about how much I don’t like the rain.

In the next weeks I’ll make a few post about the gear I’m taking.  I’ve changed things up a bit in the last year and will try a few new things all in the hopes of shedding a few more grams from my backpack weight.

Faun Festival Mediaval Germany

Photo: Faun live at Festival-Mediaval, Selb, Germany.  September 2010

 

Kungsleden trail, Lapland, Sweden

Photo: River flows through mountain valley, Kungsleden trail, Sweden.  September 2009

 

Dramatic light over mountains and coast, Maervoll, Lofoten islands, Norway

Photo: Stormy light, Maervoll, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Octover 2011

PDN Great Outdoors Photo Contest 2012 Winning Image

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2012 PDN great outdoors photo contest

Photo: 2012 PDN Great Outdoors photo contest

I’m proud to announce that for the second year in a row I have a winning image in the PDN Great Outdoors photography contest.

–CLICK HERE– to view the winners gallery

The photo is from the last night of a road trip though the desert southwest last year.  Taken in the Alabama hills, it is a 2 minute night photo of a lenticular cloud illuminated by moonlight as it hovers over the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.  I guess I’m glad I wasn’t lazy and off the bed once the sunset ended.

Ghostly lenticular cloud illuminated by full moon over Alabama Hills and Sierra Nevada mountains, California, USA

Photo: Lenticular cloud at night over Sierra Nevada Mountains, California.  April 2011

68 North V2.0

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68 North Lofoten Islands Photography

68 North – Lofoten Islands Photography

I’ve finally finished up the re-design of my 68north.com website, my Lofoten Islands photo gallery.  I wrote some 6,000+ words of new content and have expanded things out to include travel and hiking info.  It’s not 100% finished at the moment, but I’m pretty happy with how things turned out so far.  Over the next months I’ll keep adding info, and will go into more detail about photography on the Lofoten Islands.  Hopefully I’ll end up with detailed descriptions of my favorite photo locations and when is the best time to photograph at each place.

I’ll probably still share a fair bit of general Lofoten content with my blog here, but will likely add a bit more detail over there from now on.  So go check things out! And let me know what you think!

And the photos are way bigger over there!

68 North Lofoten Islands Photography

Summer Sun

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Summer sun shines over Kjerkfjord, Reine, Lofoten islands, Norway

Photo: Summer sun over Kjerkfjord, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  July 2010

Today is the beginning of nearly two months of the midnight sun on the Lofoten Islands.  While summer is still a few weeks away, starts wont shine in the sky again until August.

I’ve been a bit absent of late.  Partly because I haven’t done anything of interest in the past weeks and partly because I’m working on a big re-make of both this website and my Lofoten Islands gallery website: 68 North.  I’m starting with 68 North first, as it will be a simpler process.  I’ve written some 5,000 words of new content (a lot for me) and am in the final stages of working out some design bugs.  Hopefully I can get everything online and working by Monday, as I’ve put things off too long already. Probably won’t be perfect, but it will be a start and something I can build from.

I’ll probably get around to changing this website next month.  I’ll be incorporating the blog together with my website, which will probably result in the breaking of all my links here on the blog; another reason I’ve haven’t added much lately.  No point if it’s not going to work in another month.  If you read things by an RSS feed, you’ll probably need to re-subscribe.  I’ll make a final post a day or two before I change things over, sometime next month hopefully.

This and That

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Winter sun over VæroyPhoto: Winter sun over Værøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 2012

It seems that whenever I return to California my ideas for blog posts disappear down some black hole.  Half the problem is I get the stupid idea that I need to work on other projects, like an eBook on the Lofoten Islands that I’ve been unsuccessfully attempting to write for several years.  If someone else would go ahead and write one I would actually be thankful and finally give up.  Yet at this point in time no one has, so for some reason I feel the duty to.  Though I really am not good at writing.  I have the ideas in my head of what I want to say, they just never seem to make it to the keyboard in any coherent fashion.  I usually do better with good old fashioned pen and paper, yet I’m not even sure there’s any in the house here.

I also need up update my now 3 year old website to something a bit more current.  If I were more successful I would just pay someone, but I’m not, so I spend my afternoons trying to relearn CSS, HTML, PHP and all that other fun stuff.  I like the design part of it, just the coding is a bit of a pain and takes way to long for me to get anything done.

I don’t have anything planned other than sitting around Santa Barbara for the next months so hopefully I can make progress of a few things.  Though I’m sure summer will be here before I know it and I’ll be needing to go out at stretch my legs somewhere.  I’m trying to get the blog on some sort of regular schedule from now on, but I’ve also said this in the past and didn’t quite manage so no promises…

I ordered a few test prints for some new images a few days ago.  Hopefully they arrive in the next day or two and if they look good then I’ll add them to my print gallery.  Might also be time for a print sale 😉

 

San Felipe Baja 250 Time

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Kendall Norman Baja 250

Photo: Kendall Norman Honda 1x, San Felipe Baja 250.  March 2011

It’s that time of year to head down to San Felipe, Baja California for the 2012 Baja 250.  My brother is racing again so I’ll be helping out the team while pre-running and on race day.  By ‘helping out,’ I mostly mean sitting out somewhere in the desert in my truck, cooking in the hot sun while waiting for a rider to arrive, fill them up with gas, watch them ride off and their dust fade into the distance, drive to a new location and repeat.  Only a week out of Europe, even 10,000 spf sunblock wont help and I’m sure I’ll be lobster Honda red after a day or two.

I’m not really sure how many photos I’ll take this year.  There’s so many other photographers these days and I don’t really have an outlet for race photos so it’s not really worth much effort.   I’ll probably focus a bit more on behind the scenes stuff while pre-running and maybe a few sunrises and landscapes while I’m sitting around in the desert.  For me it’ll just be more of a fun trip this time around.  And there’s lots of cool stuff down there to explore.  The race is almost just an excuse for me to go down there.

(All photos on this post from last year (2011).  2012 Photos coming next week.)

UPDATE, March 12: –CLICK HERE– for gallery of 2012 San Felipe Baja 250 Images

 

Jesse James trophy truck arrives at finish of 2011 San Felipe Baja 250

Photo: Jesse James trophy truck arrives at finish, San Felipe Baja 250.  March 2011

Spectators await arrival of 1st trophy truck at finish of 2011 San Felipe Baja 250

Photo: Spectators await at finish for arrival of 1st trophy truck, San Felipe Baja 250.  March 2011

San Felipe Sea of Cortez

Photo: Calm waters of the Sea of Cortez, San Felipe.  March 2011

Sea of Cortez, Near San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico

Photo: Dawn over the Sea of Cortez, San Felipe.  March 2011