Landscape Photography in Arctic Norway — Part 1: Embracing the Rain
Updated: Aug 3
Watch on YouTube:
I'd been teasing this trip for a few videos, and here it finally is: two weeks in Norway. The plan was simple: give the entire first week to photography, chase whatever conditions the far north decided to hand me, and stop pretending I had any say over the weather. Spoiler: the weather had plans of its own...
Hitting the road in the rain
I landed, picked up a rental car, and pointed it north toward a remote stretch of Arctic Norway. For the first few days, the rain came down so hard the mountains simply weren't there — grey on grey, nothing to photograph. But somewhere along the road the rain eased just enough to pull over: flat light, almost no colour — exactly the kind of scene that asks to be made in black and white.
Buy a trip, not gear
Here's the one thing I think every landscape photographer should buy if they want to improve, and it isn't a lens. It's a trip.
Photographing the same familiar spots near home can quickly become too easy once you know all the good locations, or just uninspiring. Going somewhere new is what relights the creative spark. I'd rather travel often with an average camera than own the best gear and never put it in front of beautiful conditions. To prove the point, I'm shooting a Lumix G9 — the original — hardly the latest and greatest. I'd rather spend the money on being here!
The waterfall that stopped me in my tracks
Day three brought the first proper hike. I geared up completely — rain pants, big jacket, rubber boots — because in my experience the better prepared you are, the longer you're willing to stay out and wait for the light. Get cold and soaked and you give up early; stay dry and you keep shooting. Then the waterfall came into view, and it was far more dramatic than I thought. The challenge was timing the light so the sun caught the mountain but not the water itself — let it hit the falls and the highlights just blow out. An ND filter let me soften the flow a touch and made my first real frame of the trip: black and white, contrasty, exactly the mood I was chasing.
Coastal views
Later that day, the ocean became my subject: moody mountains, low tide leaving rocks scattered through the water. As the shutter ran, watching that long exposure resolve on the back of the camera, I thought again about my advice about buying yourself a trip — it gets you practising outside your comfort zone, and it's good for the creative juices.
This is only the start of the adventure. Part 2 is coming!
Comments