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Author: Hanneke

I started my first blog when I left the Netherlands (my home country) for an internship in Alaska in 2004, to keep my friends and family updated on my adventures over there. Little did I know it would be more than 13 years before I'd move back to the Netherlands! I spent a year in Toulouse (France) before starting a PhD in meteorology at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK) in 2005. That's when I started this current blog, first in Dutch but I soon switched to English. I really enjoyed life in the UK, and was actually planning to stay there after my PhD, but "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" and I ended up moving to Tromsø in Northern Norway in 2009. Tromsø is a photographer's dream, surrounded by spectacular mountains, with the light ever changing from the midnight sun in summer to the dark days compensated by aurora-filled nights in winter. I learnt Norwegian and got a job as a weather forecaster - I got thrown in at the deep end, doing radio interviews and speaking with fishermen with way-too-strong dialects straight from the beginning, before I was anywhere near fluent in Norwegian :D I survived though, and slowly started to do some research on the side. I got more and more involved in research projects and in August 2015 I moved 2000 km south, to Oslo where I started working 100% as a researcher. A year after moving to Oslo, I met Michiel at a music festival in Brussels :) and we started to travel very frequently between Oslo and Rotterdam, where he lives. You can't do that forever though, and I soon realized I found the perfect "excuse" to finally move back home, something I had been considering many times before. So since July 2017, I'm living in Rotterdam! I'm actually taking some time off before finding a new job, and I'm looking forward to lots of adventures in the near future - so stay tuned!
En deilig søndag

En deilig søndag

We’re deep into “mørketid” now, the time when the sun doesn’t come above the horizon. This year I find it harder than previous years, I am struggling to get up in the morning and feel chronically tired. This weekend the weather was beautiful, cold and calm winter weather. So I decided to go out and take photos, and make the most of the (twi)light we do get. I drove to Håkøya, and stopped a few times along the way.

These photos are taken on Tromsø island, where these skeletons of Tromsø Palms (giant hogweed) make for a nice foreground 🙂

Tromsø Palms (giant hogweed) along the coast The light is so blue at this time of year!

At Håkøya the fjord was really calm, which made beautiful reflections. I love this house by the water with its own jetty 🙂

View towards Eidkjosen, in the background Store Blåmann I love this house with its own jetty and boat :)

I took my macro lens and tried to get some photos of the ice crystals. It’s not easy, but I managed to get a few – it’s fascinating to see all the different shapes they have!

Ice crystals Ice crystals Ice crystals

In the mean time it was getting darker. Very pretty sky!

Beautiful sky reflected in the calm fjord

While driving back, I noticed the sky had turned a deep red and I stopped near the airport to take some photos from the beach. It was so beautiful… at some point I was standing ankle deep in the rising water on the beach, but I just didn’t care 🙂

I guess we technically don't have a sunset, but the colours can be just as beautiful! I took several photos to make up a panorama, but then found out my wide angle lens could capture it all :) This photos is made up of three different exposures so the foreground doesn't get too dark

I got home at 14:15, and by then it was almost dark. We only have about 4 hours of usable daylight, and usually I spend these hours at work, in an office with no view. It was great to get out and enjoy the day properly!

Northern lights at Håkøya

Northern lights at Håkøya

Last night skies cleared up just in time for a beautiful aurora show. We were getting a bit bored of taking photos from the same jetty every time 😉 so we decided to drive to Håkøya, a small island (reachable by bridge) which is only a 25 minutes drive. Eelke and Roy decided to join us too 🙂 The northern lights were bright and active in all directions when we just got there, and as a bonus they were also reflected in the fjord – beautiful!

Northern lights dancing over the bridge to Håkøya Aurora Borealis combined with Aurora Urbanis as Roy calls it... it's the city lights of Tromsø reflected on a cloud

Northern lights and Christmas trees :) The aliens in this photo are some reflections from the bright lights on the bridge

After a while they weakened, but we kept taking photos on the beach where they were reflected in all the pools of water. The tide was coming up fast though, if you weren’t careful suddenly your tripod was standing in the water 😀

Northern lights reflected in the rock pools Northern lights seen from Håkøya - what a show!

We stayed out until 01:30, chatting and drinking hot chocolate. There wasn’t much activity anymore, so we decided to go home. Looks like we should have stayed a little longer, as a while later some red aurora showed up. Oh well, you can’t have everything and it’s also good to catch some sleep. I’m sure there’s more to come 🙂

Winter is here

Winter is here

Autumn has been unusually warm this year, with lots of rain. Last week temperatures finally dropped and we got almost 15 cm of snow. It only lasted a day though, then we were back to +8 degrees Celsius and rain. A few days later it got colder again, and we had a thin layer of snow followed by a weekend with beautiful crisp and cold weather. So nice! This afternoon we went for a walk around Prestvannet, the lake on top of Tromsø island. We were not alone, it seemed that half of Tromsø was hoping to take a last picture of the sun 😀 Officially, the sun stays below the horizon from the 27th of November, but it’s already hiding behind the mountains from the 22th. Tomorrow is going to be cloudy, so it’s very likely that this was the last glimpse of the sun for a while!

Tromsdalstinden and Prestvannet on a beautiful winter's day Frozen Prestvannet

Paul bought some skates and is keen to use them, so he measured the ice thickness. Not quite enough yet… unless you’re an otter 😉

The ice thickness... not quite enough to go skating! This otter crossed the entire lake and walked up to a group of people standing on a jetty... must have been a very nice photo opportunity!

And there it was, the sun! It was up for 3 hours today 🙂

Goodbye Sun! Frozen grass

You can tell that the children have been waiting for snow for a long time, they are all very keen to go skiing and sledding now, even if there is only just about enough snow for that. Building a snowman is also going to be a challenge, but here someone made 2 miniature ones… cute! 🙂

Two miniature snowmen, so cute!

Unfortunately it looks like the pattern is repeating itself, temperatures are rising tomorrow and on Tuesday we’re expecting +7 degrees and rain 🙁 I hope the snow comes back soon! It makes the dark time a lot lighter by reflecting the little light that we do get.