With the filters, you can take much longer exposures than you normally can, which is quite fun at the coast – you can blur out the movement of the water.

Of course I also had to get some photos of my favourite cabin I did use the filter here, but the sky was still too bright relative to the foreground. Another trick you can use then, is to take several images with different exposures and combine them into one image later. For the images below, I used 4 exposures to get one image.

As you can see, there’s hardly any snow left! But I’m not complaining, we’ve had about 10 days with beautiful clear weather now, which is really nice

I had never skated on sea ice before, it’s a bit more challenging as the surface is not very smooth. We had a lot of fun though. We skated about 8 km, and got quite sore feet… we obviously need a bit more practice

My new SLR camera can also take videos at very high resolution, something I hadn’t actually tried yet. We shot a few videos, and Paul edited them together to this nice movie:

What a nice day! The skating season is very short here, as once the snow comes you won’t be able to skate anymore. We’ve had a few snowfalls this winter, but we keep having periods with very mild temperatures which melts it all away. And what didn’t melt, will blow away in the strong winds we’re having. Oh well, by the end of April I’ll be cursing the snow, so I shouldn’t complain

Eelke en Roy soon joined us, and we sat up a nice tea party on some deserted parking place in a valley not far from Tromsø. It was really dark there, and we impatiently waited for the lights to come back. And we waited… and waited… and waited… and we got very cold feet. We started taking silly photos to entertain ourselves…

After 2 hours of hopefully watching the vague green glow on the horizon, we decided to give up and go home. After about 10 minutes of driving, the sky was suddenly filled with auroras again We quickly stopped at a nearby beach and gazed in amazement at the aurora dancing and moving and twirling very brightly, all over the sky. So impressive!

There were a few clouds around, sometimes obscuring the northern lights, but I think they also add some depth to the images.

We spent about an hour on the beach. On the way back, the northern lights kept dancing around, and we had another quick photostop at Telegrafbukta for some final photos.

After so many nights with very little sleep, I’m happy the northern lights are taking a break. But even if they were disco-dancing in all the colours of the rainbow, I would stay at home tonight. Or would I?

(For best viewing, choose HD and watch fullscreen!)

At the same time, Paul was on his way to the top of Tromsdalstinden, the mountain in the picture above. Look at the beautiful views that he had along the way…

He dug out the guestbook from the completely frozen cairn, and was pleased to find out that he was the first visitor in 2012. OR the first visitor who bothered to dig out the guestbook of course

That’s all for now, we’re having a very busy week at the Tromsø filmfestival. We’re also having a visitor this weekend, who was very keen to see the northern lights. She completely lucked out, as last night the northern lights were active all night. We came home at 03:45 in the morning and they were still going strong… wow! I lent her my tripod, so I didn’t get any photos myself, but you can see two of her photos here and here. We might go out tonight again

The views were beautiful all day… One reason I like snowshoeing so much is that it’s easier to take photos, so I had brought my SLR. I’m glad I did!

It was a beautiful day, cold – but hardly any wind – and a perfect blue sky. The photo on the right (below) is taken by Eelke.

Up, up, up! Our aim was a top at 525 m. There were quite a few others with the same idea

Time for another panorama…

After about 2 hours, we reached our goal. We had a nice lunch break on the top.

Including a chocolate orange

And then it was time to return. I was worried I would take a lot longer to come down than the skiers, as I have to walk down while they can ski. When I started to walk, this Norwegian skier passed me by and disappeared out of view within minutes

However, Paul, Eelke and Roy were still faffing with their ski’s while I already started my way down – and in the end I was only about 5 minutes slower getting to the car! It was really fun as well, and I’m looking forward to join some more of their toppturs this winter

It finally cleared up after days of cloudy, snowy weather, and the webcam showed beautiful northern lights. Just before midnight, I drove to the same place where I took the sunset photos in the last post. It’s very close to the airport (with all its lights) but you can walk far enough onto the beach to get away from the lights. I was standing in puddles trying to get photos of the reflections in the water My shoes are waterproof, but this is still a guaranteed method to get very cold feet!

I was very happy with the photos I got, and when the lights became weaker I decided to head home. When I was almost back at the car, I noticed this beautiful old hut near the beach. I just had to get a photo, even though the northern lights were very weak at that point. The lights from the road were lighting the foreground nicely, and while I was taking a few photos I suddenly noticed some very bright northern lights appearing. Soon the sky was full of them…

They were getting brighter, and I had to adjust the exposure times with every photo I took. At some point they were the brightest lights I have ever seen! I just sat down in the snow next to my tripod and looked up at the sky, and couldn’t believe my eyes. And my luck, since I would have driven home if I didn’t find that hut at the very last moment!

What a way to end 2011!! I still have to watch the fireworks tonight, but I know they won’t compare to this light show

And with this last post of the year, I would like to wish everybody a very happy 2012!!

And thank you for reading my blog, and for all the kind comments and emails

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

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

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!

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

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 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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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.