Throwback Thursday: I’m back …

… from northern Norway again. During the last 12 days we tried to meet the Green Lady again, but the overall outcome is quite disappointing considering the current peak of solar activity which is the cause of the Aurora.

At first, we had 2 days in and around Tromsø with snowy and rainy weather, but no Aurora. Next 4 days on Senja: snowstorms, thick clouds, and partly rain 😲 to melt the snow, and such even prevented nice winter images.

Thus, after checking the weather forecast for the greater region, we left 1 day early, canceled the next location, and postponed another one. Instead, we escaped to Sweden, which was proposing the best conditions for the next few days.

It was a horrible 320km drive to Sweden crossing a mountain pass: towards darkness during a snowstorm on such a steep and small road is quite a challenge, even with spikes. At first, we lost an hour because the pass was closed for rescuing a truck stuck in the snow. Snow chains were an absolute necessity for trucks. The bad sight demanded further delays because of the quite slow speed for driving. Driving convoy was also necessary to make sure to not lose sight of the car in front of us. 

After dinner on the arriving day, we noticed a greenish glow above the town. So, two of us (me included 😁 of course) decided to give it a try. Despite being quite late (in comparison to their usual schedule), she popped out and danced for us. We were back at the hotel at about 2 a.m., tired, but with happy smiles on our faces. My companion even wanted to stay way longer. The first meeting with the Aurora for this trip. The others were too tired from the drive. 

Unfortunately, the next two days she was shy again and didn’t show us more than a weak glow between the clouds, that already arrived there, too, although the weather forecast said differently. 

After 3 nights in Sweden, we headed back to Norway for the remaining 3 nights.

When we arrived at our last location, we struggled again with bad weather. One day and night got lost to another snowstorm, but we also got two crisp clear nights, but she didn’t pop up. While we got at least a short and weak Aurora in one of these two nights, the other one was completely Aurora-free. At least we got some wonderful sunny winter days.

Overall, this year’s trip for seeing the Aurora was quite disappointing although the conditions are extremely good this year. Solar activity is at or near its maximum. Surprisingly, a green Aurora was visible even in the middle of Germany but not in northern Norway. I guess, because of the high level of solar activity, the center moved south so that we couldn’t see Auroras north of the polar circle in Norway as expected.

The green lights are at about 40km high, while the reds are up to 100km high. Thus, middle Europe usually sees the red lights of an aurora, when a strong Aurora happens. But green lights are extremely rare at these latitudes.

On the other hand, this was again a nice winter trip with nice company and quite well-prepared (although it seemed a bit chaotic sometimes). 

Surprisingly, I have more the half of my images already developed and even started creating an ebook with some of my monochrome images taken during this trip. So, even the days with bad weather delivered. During the last third of the trip, I definitely had the best weather. So, be prepared to see some of the images in the future. 

For today I have one Aurora image for you (how could it be otherwise). You might have already seen it on Instagram.

Second, an image taken while coping with the bad conditions on the pass. Coincidentally at that time, the shuffle function of my audio collection decided to play „May it be“ by Enya from the first Lord of the Rings movie where it is underscoring how the fellows hiked upwards the Caradhras pass.

The third image is one of the last images, taken near sunset on our last day. 

One of the other highlights of the trip was our visit to the Ice Hotel in Kiruna. You can rent a room for a night made of ice. Sleep in a sleeping bag on a bed made of ice covered with reindeer furs set up in a room made completely of ice. They offer three different kinds of such rooms. First, they have the standard rooms, where you feel like standing in a room of the gigantic crystalline fortress made by the green crystal thrown by Clark Kent (the later Men of Steel) in the Canadian Arctic. Other rooms were more individually decorated, like the one in the image below. All of these are supposed to melt as soon as spring starts and return their water to the lake beside the hotel. In a separate huge hall, there are individually designed rooms by some ice artists. I suppose those rooms are not for rent. According to the website, “the room holds a temperature of -5 to -8 degrees Celsius. The bed is covered with reindeer hides and you sleep in a thermal sleeping bag. Instead of doors, the hotel rooms have curtains that you draw to give you and your company privacy.“ So, I wish you a good night and sleep well 😁

 

In this room, the lights are changing colors constantly but slowly. An amazing show. Look carefully to recognize the details.

The entrance fee for seeing these rooms is quite high but definitely worth the money. While I was expecting only a bar made of ice set up in a room made of ice and equipped with chairs and tables made of ice, I was visiting an art gallery where not only the rooms were made of ice, but also the pieces of art itself. Btw. they also have the bar 😁.

The final image for today is one of the monochrome images taken at a beach in the greater Tromsø area.

Here, the different layers work best in monochrome. The foreground is made of gray rocks, the middle ground is made of dark rocks and the background is formed by the mountains. All of them are well parted by the moving water of the fjord and the white splashes stand out well from the dark rocks while the shoreline leads the eye from the lower left right to the splashes and thus makes them the main subject. The color version is on Instagram for comparison. 

So, my advice for photographing on a trip. Don’t stick to the ideas you have on your bucket list. Instead, try always to get the best from the situation you’re in. There is always something for you to take. Use your time well and the location will pay back. When sticking to the ideas from your bucket list, remember that you will never be in the same situation, in the same conditions, and probably in the same place as the photographer whose picture you saw. But, it will limit your ability to see the scene with your own eyes and capture the beauty laying in front of you. Be a creator and not a copycat.

Take care!

 

Throwback Thursday: My first encounter with the dancing Green Lady

Back in February 2016, I traveled far north to meet the Green Lady and see her dance.

Take care!

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 223: “Flights of Fancy”

John invites us today, to imagine the unthinkable and go behind the border of imagination for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. He writes:

“According to Dictionary.com, the idiom “flight of fancy” refers to “an unrealistic idea or fantastic notion, a pipe dream. For example, ‘She engaged in flights of fancy, such as owning a million-dollar house.’ This idiom uses flight in the sense of ‘a soaring of the imagination,’ a usage dating from the mid-1600s.”

and

“For this week’s challenge, consider sharing images of interesting or unusual subjects that represent notions or ideas that seem incredible even today or seemed. “

So, the jump point is set.

The French Brothers Montgolfiere used to have a dream, an incredible dream! And, in fact, they were able to realize it. On June, 4th of 1783, they presented their self-constructed vehicle to the amazed audience: the Montgolfière, the ancestor of today’s hot-air balloons. Their courage has opened up a new world for mankind.

This image is taken a few minutes before sunrise during my second flight looking east

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The people of the North are used to this incredible glowing in the dark during the long and cold winter nights: Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. But, unlike us nowadays, they did not have an exclamation for the moving lights above them. The old Vikings found a saga to explain it: At night the valkyries ride along the battlefields to collect all the past heroes and lead them to Odin’s table in Walhalla. The rays of moonlight were reflected by their arms and shields which are supposed to result in the amazing lights.

 

My third image is to honor the genius Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí. In the past, I already donated a few posts to him and his absolutely incredible work. He was able to think outside the box when planning buildings and was able to make heave stone seem to be light plant parts. All the shapes were derived from nature, just like this hall of forest trees forming the main ship of the cathedral La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. I got aware of parts of his work first when I was in my 7th or 8th class at secondary school. I’m so happy, to have been there a couple of years ago and I hope to revisit when the cathedral is once finished.

 

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to John’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with the tag LENS-ARTIST, so we can find it.

Take care!

Throwback Thursday: Aurora

4 years ago at this time, I was in northern Norway. Seeing an Aurora Borealis dancing in the sky with your bare eyes is a wonderful experience. I quite envy for those living in such a northern area and being able to see it quite often.

Take care!

 

Throwback Thursday: Aurora above the fjord

Take care!

Throwback Thursday: World of Wonders

 

Two years ago at this time, I was in northern Norway hunting the Aurora Borealis.

Standing at night outside in the cold looking in the starry sky. Admiring the countless bright spots on the dark surface. Than, slowly but sometimes all of a sudden, like someone has switched it on, it appears: the Aurora.

Bright, mostly green, light dances in front of the stars. It turns the scene in a mysterious ambience. Even the white snow turns greenish. What an experience. Sometimes it lasts only for a couple of quarters of an hour, sometimes it lasts nearly the whole night.

Sometimes it feels, like a painter has painted an abstract piece of art on the dark surface, while sometimes the changing rate of the light structures is enormously hight and builds new structures every few seconds. Sometimes it looks like the painting of light stands still in one place, and sometimes it moves rashly over the sky. Sometimes it looks like curtains and the next time you can see columns. Amazing!

Take care!

I’m back …..

…. from the polar circle. During the last 2 weeks I was way up in the North: about 300 km north of the polar circle in northern Norway. You might ask, why does one goes up north during winter voluntarily. That’s easy to answer: for seeing the northern light or polar light or aurora borealis.

This special light is only visible during the dark winter nights around the polar circle. That’s during November – March in the North or June – September in Antarctica. In the polar regions it isn’t visible either.

Eruptive material from the sun flows through the outer space. This is called solar wind. The ozone layer in the upper atmosphere saves us from these dangerous rays and the magnetic field directs the rays around our planet. But, in the region around the magnetic north pole and the magnetic south pole the rays are able to come down inside the atmosphere and stimulates the atoms to shine. It’s a fantastic sight and an amazing experience.

The natural cycle of the solar activity has a run time of about 14 years. The last maximum was reached in fall 2013. Thus, we are in the waning part of the last cycle and the next waxing period is expected to arrive in about 10 years.

I got the opportunity, to join a small group to see the polar lights and it was fantastic. Kind of a one-in-a-lifetime experience. Beside the fantastic winterly landscapes in northern Norway. There was less snow than I have had expected to see and it was warmer than expected: from -9 to +4°C. That’s similar to the conditions in my home region during winter. (Expect the amazing landscapes 🙂 ).

During the two weeks we have had 7 viewings in quite good conditions and 2 bad ones, where the sky wasn’t clear but covered with translucent clouds, where the aurora was able to shine through like light coming through fog. The other nights the sky was completely covered by clouds. So, summing all of this up this is a very good result in my opinion. Putting the waning cycle also in account (where we have had to expect only quite weak auroras), the results are very fantastic (especially for me as a freshman).

Photographing an Aurora is very hard. You have to have a camera, that is able to work well in high ISO (> 3200) without or at least with low noise. You need a sturdy tripod because of the long exposure times and fast wide-angle lenses (f2.8 or faster – the faster, the better). And, you have to be able to control your camera blind in complete dark. But, the most complicated thing is focussing! Especially with the modern auto-focus lenses. They don’t have a fix infinity point anymore.

In the gallery below, you can see a few impressions from both landscapes and auroras.

Enjoy!

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