Northern Lights in Norway

I was travelling on my own, but part of a group of 18 booked with Exodus and lead by photographer Paul Goldstein with whom I'd done my polar bear adventure. It was nice to see a few familiar faces from that previous trip a few years prior and meet some new people. It was a lovely group of eager amateur photographers or enthusiasts, some, like me, hoping for their first sighting of the northern lights and a few returning for more. It was a long day travelling north just to reach our location - the Andoy Friluftssenter in the Vesteralen Islands, south of Tromso. I left home at 5.30am and after taking two flights (via Oslo and Harstad/Narvik) we had a two and a half hour bus transfer to the lodge. We'd be arriving at about 8.30pm and our host Nigel called ahead to let us know dinner would be ready and waiting for us.

As we were travelling towards our accommodation my phone app was indicating Kp 3 for our present location! A few of us had even been chatting about how good it would be to see the lights on our first night. I didn't dare hope! I never imagined we'd actually see if from the bus! My face was plastered to the window, with the curtain pulled across behind me to block out the interior light. It was unmistakable! A stream of dull green light rose up in the distance, beyond the silhouetted mountains, and extended across the sky above us. It was amazing to have a relatively calm moment to enjoy it, unable to take photos as there were no plans to stop. The spectacle continued whilst we were caged in the bus and the further north we travelled the greater the tension became. We were all so eager to photograph the phenomenon and anxious because it might all be over by the time we reached our destination. Even Paul, who's seen it many times, was just as frustrated as us. What he did warn us about, was that if there was activity on our first night, we wouldn't be stopping for dinner or unpacking, we'd quite literally get out with our cameras and start photographing immediately. He wasn't joking. I knew him well enough to take him at his word.

I used the time on the bus to get the camera settings ready for the night photography. He'd already given us some tips earlier on the journey. If you want to capture some good images, you must have a tripod, should use a cable release and take long exposures, usually anywhere between 5 and 25 seconds, depending on the intensity and movement of the light. Upon our arrival, we were at least given the keys to our cabins. Thankfully, I'd been organised and had packed all the warm layers at the top of my suitcase. They were needed as it was -15°C outside! I put my head torch on over the top of my cosy fleece hat and got my tripod ready. This meant attaching my camera to it whilst still indoors, so I could see what I was doing. I was ready for action!

Looking back on it now, it was quite amusing how chaotic things were on that first night. With so many people trying to get set up in the dark, some not having mastered how to use their tripod yet, torches were going on and off intermittently, much to the annoyance of others. Any local ambient light, whether it's from house lights, torches and cars will affect the image. 'Get those lights off!' was yelled out on more than one occasion (by Paul)!

We began the evening at the lodge and down on the beach just by the fjord, then we were driven down the road to the dam where we could get good reflections of the light in the ice and water. That was when I got this photo (left). It was one of those happy accidents. The exposure was only supposed to be about 20s but it ended up being 44s by accident. I was only standing on the wall for half that time, which is why I look like a hologram. Once I realised the potential, later in the week I had some fun getting creative (below).

There was lots of experimenting with the length of exposure, which was all quite fun, at the same time as trying to find interesting foreground. The good thing about using a tripod and cable release is you don't have to have your eye fixed to the view finder in the camera, so you can actually enjoy watching the lights with the naked eye at the same time. Whilst the long exposures are what you need to see the bright glow of green that you so commonly see in Northern Lights photos, I was amazed by how easily you could actually see the light and how it moved. It just wasn't as bright. Time flew by that night! I couldn't believe it was 11pm when we finally returned to the lodge. I said to Nigel, our host, "I guess we've missed dinner then!" I was wrong! Our delicious dinner was still waiting for us! Needless to say, we were late to bed that night.

The pressure was off once we saw the lights on our first night! The fact we saw the lights on all four nights was incredibly lucky, not to mention remarkable! What a blessing. We really were spoilt! On the second night we sat around in the comfy sofas of the reception, near the warm fire, chatting as we waited for any signs of Aurora activity, this time having eaten our dinner early in preparation. There was some light that evening but not for as long, or as impressive. You can't be amazing every time!

The best night was the third night! From between about 9pm and midnight, we were out taking photographs. Paul got some of us to crawl on the edge of the frozen lake to try some more interesting shots with the natural ice sculptures in the foreground. I was very nervous about doing this and was sliding about on my bum! Periodically hearing the noise of the ice as it eerily creaked was incredibly unnerving! Thankfully, there were no cracks, no falls and no one fell into the freezing water!

That night I was really spellbound by the beauty of the northern lights. At one point, I didn't know in which direction to look. There was so much activity and it was all so amazing. So, I just had to tilt the camera skywards to try and capture the magnitude of the movement above us (right - using a fisheye lens). It was truly magical and an unforgettable experience.

When the light show had vanished I returned to my cabin with my cabin mates who went off to bed quickly. I knew I wouldn't get to sleep straight away, so I uploaded photos to my computer. At 12.45pm I was finally ready to go to bed, I had one last peak out of the window, just in case there was any activity outside...and there was! I called out to the others, "I hate to tell you guys, but there's activity outside and it's pretty good!"

I got my coat back on and picked up my gear quickly and was out the door in no time. The others had to get dressed again. Outside I was met by Paul who'd just appeared from his cabin with the same idea. Not everyone ventured out. I suspect many were fast asleep or just too cold and tired to get out of bed! But, those of us that had made the effort were driven back down to the dam. We spent another hour photographing the lights. I kept finding new perspectives and the light kept changing giving us so much variety. I was so glad I went back out as I got some fabulous shots and one of my favourites from the week (right). The rays of light mightn't be dynamic or creating pretty shapes, but I love how they disect the frame and create a certain symmetry with the road that leads your eye into the shot.

I didn't get to bed that night until about 2am!

By the fourth night I wouldn't say we were blasé about it all, but there was definitely a calmer air amongst the group. Everyone was polite about where they were positioned, not wanting to be in someone's shot. Many would check with others first before putting on their torch lights. Since we had already bagged loads of great photos it gave us the chance to be really adventurous and try different things. We didn't snap away every minute of the whole light display. There was time to soak it up and digest the experience and really be in the moment...and there were so many moments! I never dreamed it would be so good, so varied and so amazing. There aren't enough superlatives to describe the wonder of it all!

The trip wasn't all about the northern lights as we had plenty of time to explore during the daytime and had a few organised outings providing inspiration for landscape photography. In fact, I particularly enjoyed just going out for a relaxing wander with no agenda photographing whatever inspired me. It's wonderful having time to really notice everything around you. That's when I'm the happiest. Since the sun never got that high in the sky, the light was pretty good all day. I barely saw a cloud all week. One time we had a fabulous excursion to a frozen lake. Some people attempted ice fishing, which didn't appeal to me. I was in my element taking photos of the beautiful scenery. We all came together after for some lunch sitting around a fire. On our return to the lodge, a small group of us were dropped off part of the way back so we could walk the last stretch. One person in the group had a lensball for us to experiment with, wich was fun. We'd also used it when we visited a beach on the northern end of one of the islands. I'd brought some neutral density filters with me so I could experiment with slow shutter speeds as the tide lapped the sandy beach.