Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

Last night the aurora was out again – and I was keen to get some photos. The midnight sun is creeping up on us, and soon it will be too light to see the northern lights – so better make the most of it now! The aurora wasn’t that bright last night, and had to compete with the brightening moon too. At Sydspissen (the south tip of Tromsø island) I found this nice boat house, and now there was finally enough moon light to include it in the photo. The sky wasn’t as bright as I was hoping, there were some high clouds – but that did result in a pretty (partial) moon halo!

We had a very clear night yesterday, and I was keen to get some aurora pictures. I went to Sydspissen, the south tip of Tromsø island. It’s a very calm and sheltered place, and last night there was no wind at all. The water of the fjord was like a mirror, and the reflections were fantastic 🙂 Such a magic night!

I’ve finally gotten around to using lightroom to edit the raw images instead of the jpg’s – really impressed how much difference it makes! And now I have to run, I have a workshop in drop-photography tonight. Very excited, hope to share some results soon 🙂

The northern lights were very active this week, and last Wednesday I decided to go aurora hunting with my colleague Gunnar. It was the last day with nice weather, and a front (with clouds) was moving in from the southwest. We decided to drive northeast and hope we could beat the clouds – when we left it was already overcast in Tromsø. Just after passing Ramfjorden, the skies were clearing and suddenly aurora was dancing all over the sky. We found a place to stop and quickly got our tripods out…

It was a pretty place, and the moonlight was brightening up the landscape nicely. We were right next to the road however, and every now and then passing cars would put their full beams on, spoiling our photos 😉 The clouds were also catching up, so after about 15 minutes we decided to move on and find a better place to take photos.

We drove to Lakselvdalen, a beautiful valley surrounded by impressive mountains. It was the perfect foreground for aurora pictures, and there was no traffic at all, so we just stopped and stood in the middle of the road to take photos. We hardly managed to get one good picture though, as suddenly the aurora disappeared. We waited for a while, but it didn’t come back.

We drove on, and stopped at the end of the valley, where were hoping to have a good view over the fjord. We had to pass a house, and dogs started barking and people yelling… but they turned out to be very friendly and chatty, and they let us pass through their land to get to the shore. They even asked if we wanted the little cabin by the water heated so we could sit in comfort 😀

It was a pretty place, and I can only imagine how nice it is to use the hot tub while watching the aurora… but the aurora itself did not come back. We took some photos of the Lyngen Alps across the fjord before calling it a night.

It was a nice trip, even if the aurora didn’t cooperate as much as we hoped 🙂 A day later, I was on the night shift and saw the most incredible aurora at 4 in the morning. It was all over the sky and moved around very fast, I had never seen it quite like that. Pity I couldn’t take any photos. Since that night, it’s been way too cloudy to see anything, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to improve anytime soon…