Arctic Norway in January.
I'm sitting down by the log fire after two weeks of shooting in the far north. I have a folder with 1TB of RAW files to rummage through. Might take a while :)
This image was taken in Grovfjord, a real hidden gem that sits half way between Senja and Lofoten. Most people think of January as one of the dark winter months, but there is just enough light to bring the colours too :)
I love the combination of winter cold and clear skies. Indeed the coldest days are the clearest up here.
Blue skies, a fjord freezing over with ice, and just a hint of sun even though it's still below the horizon at this time of year.
Sometimes when I sit and watch the fire, I can almost imagine what the sun is like. The fluidity. The motion. The flux and chaos.
Our little planet is so calm and gentle in comparison to most of the known universe.
I'm often asked what lenses to pack for travel in the Arctic, and while I lament the chore of lugging about a telephoto there are the occasional moments when punching in to a mountain ridge is exactly the creative direction I want to take.
This is a popular walk with locals in the Grovfjord area. My idea of a walk however usually ends in hotdogs or cinnamon scrolls :)
#EwenInNorway #Photography #Norway #Lumix #LumixS1RII #LumixS1R2
Stepped out this morning when I saw the light hitting nearby peaks. It started off pink but turned a little peach by the time I got out there with a lens :)
#EwenInNorway #Norway #Photography #Lumix #LumixS1R2 #LumixS1RII
Every so often I remember to try a panorama of the location where I am. Am rarely disappointed. Something about the compression plus wide aspect feels lovely compared to just shooting with a super wide lens.
Anyhoo, will start sharing pics outside of Grovfjord soon. Still working my way through the backlog of RAW files. This was taken yesterday when the light was peachy.
#Photography #Norway #Lumix #LumixS1RII #LumixS1R2 #Grovfjord
Early January in Tromsø is a great time to catch some Nacreous Clouds. We saw a heap of these over the course of a week. They don't photograph very well though, as a lack of structure/texture is their nature.
These kinds of clouds are caused by sunlight over the horizon hitting high altitude clouds.
There are loads of really cool mountains around Narvik.
Most folks think of Tromsø or Lofoten or Senja. Narkiv and points south are pretty special as well. Can recommend.
Hoping to get a nice timelapse out of this scene today. Clear skies are such a treat in the middle of winter.
#Norway #Photography #LumixS1R2 #LumixS1RII #EwenInNorway #VisitNarvik
Quick and dirty TL from last night. Gentle activity and a little extra colour before the high clouds claimed the night.
#Norway #Aurora #Photography #Nordlys #EwenInNorway #LumixS9
Time lapse from Grovfjord, with the midday sun clipping the horizon and so very very nearly popping through to greet the village.
Let the sun shine in.
Today we had lots of lovely sunshine kissing the cheeks. I love the combination of sunny and cold.
I did leave the comfort of my log fire last night, and the clouds did clear away in time for a little aurora activity around midnight.
This planet is just such a remarkable place to live. It's worth preserving.
#Photography #Norway #Aurora #Nordlys #Lumix #LumixS1RII #LumixS1R2
Two things I wanna point out about the techy stuff.
Firstly, the scene always always looks brighter on screen in the night than it actually captures. In this case I ended up adding another 2 stops of exposure in post, which is very naughty. Pushing an underexposed file at high ISO is a great way to maximise noise!
Second, my preference is to edit as little as possible, and dial down the saturation. The defaults are too intense for me, and very misleading.
Today was lovely.
Am very lucky to share so much of my life with people who show me a path to being my best self.
This evening we got a little aurora dancing before dinner.
Am starting to get a better knack for reading the satellite data. I still tend to be overly optimistic about how quickly the space weather will arrive on earth, but at least I was ready and waiting when the nordlys began their thing.
It's a foxy morning here in Norway. Little paw prints leaving a trail in the snow, and purple hues filling the fjord.
Today just keeps getting better. A hint of sunlight across the salt lake, and time stands still.
This time of year we very excited to see the sun. It reaches out across the frozen lakes, painting in the snow and ice with golden tones. I love it.
From two nights ago. We had clear skies last night but pretty close to zero solar wind. Plenty of stars but no aurora.
Some nights it's on fire, some nights it's asleep :)
#Nordlys #EwenInNorway #Photography #Norway #Aurora #TimeLapse #LumixS1RII #LumixS1R2
Textures and a mood.
These two images are from several weeks ago when we visited a Sami family and got a chance to say hello to a few of their herd.
If you know nothing about the Sami people, then it's worth seeking those who wish to share their stories. These are the people who inhabited the Arctic long before the crowns made it up north. There is great diversity in culture and language across the Sami, and a deep connection to the reindeer.
I wish more people could see the beauty in our world. The things that make this planet remarkable. The little details. The grandeur of its complexity. The harmony of nature. The preciousness of our very existence.
I wish every human on the planet could experience the beauty I've seen, and not just from the photos.
#EwenInNorway #Photography #IceAndAuroras #Norway #Nordlys #Lumix #LumixS1RII #LumixS1R2
Current mood.
A hint of colour in the clouds from a trip to Senja a few weeks back. The sun wasn't yet brave enough to peak over the horizon, but was throwing a few rays for the clouds to catch.
Flashback to a couple of weeks ago, our first night arriving into Senja. Had a lot of aurora activity through the night, and a beautiful location to enjoy the photography.
Today it's still 5°C outside and rainy, and most of the snow is long gone. These heat bubbles in the Arctic look like a permanent feature of winter now. That makes life much harder for chasing auroras in the night.
The snow came home today!
OMG the change in mood to look out the windows and see a foot of fluffy white stuff in every direction.
Some folks get sad in winter from a lack of sunlight. I get sad from a lack of snow. Climate Change is wrecking the party in Arctic Norway, and we've had weeks of rain instead of snow. But today is a good day. Today is lovely.
Was a bit slow of the mark to notice we had clear skies tonight, and when I stepped outside to check the nordlys were already dancing.
Was a lovely show. The moon is super full tonight and lighting up everything. Hence the intense colours. Regardless, this moment of aurora was good enough to compete with the street light just behind the house :)
Ended up with more clear skies tonight, despite the forecast. Was testing out the S&Q video mode on the new camera today and it happened to be rolling when the aurora spiked in the early evening.
I love a little moonlight with aurora photography, even a full moon.
Here's a lowres version so I don't fill up the hard drive space on our mastodon instance :)
#Norway #Nordlys #EwenInNorway #Auroras #Grovfjord #Photography #TimeLapse
This morning we had a hint of light getting underneath the snow clouds. Enough to make us smile.
I'm using a 60-600mm telephoto by Sigma for this scene. It's a big lens that I usually don't make an effort to take off the shelf. This winter I've really loved having it with me for chasing birds and snow capped peaks.
#Grovfjord #Norway #Mountains #ArcticLove #EwenInNorway #Lumix #LumixS1RII #LumixS1R2 #SigmaPhoto
Last shot of the night.
Clouds were rolling in and hiding the aurora activity. A few embers left at the camp fire. One of those night were a bunch of things lined up at the same time.
Full moon rising high enough over the mountain to paint across this part of the valley. Fresh powder snow the last few days, but not too deep than I can't walk through it. Warm conditions the week before so the creek was running, and hadn't frozen over yet.
This is what kept me awake all night though.
#EwenInNorway #Nordlys #Grovfjord #Aurora #Photography #Lumix #SigmaPhoto #LuckyToBeHere
Have been digging deep into DxO PhotoLab for my aurora photos and have been amazed just how much better the results are when pushing lenses to the limit.
It handles noise much better than Capture One, while still holding onto detail. And the lens optimisation for my Sigma 14-24mm is just amazing. Never seen such clarity in my night shots before.
Can't believe the software can make such an impact.
That image was taken with the Lumix S9 + Sigma 14-24mm F2.8, and edited in DxO PhotoLab 6.
I am several years behind in my version of PhotoLab, I think the current version is 8 and there's a new one due soon. No need to subscribe either. Pay once.
What is great about DxO is the software downloads whatever lens and camera modules as required. You don't need to buy a new update just to use your new camera.
The interface is nice enough. Simple and effective.
@ewen I may look into DxO. I'm all about buying and not renting software.
Exposure X7 is becoming more and more outdated, with only one minor update released last year. I loved the program, but it appears to be abandonware at this stage.
@analogfusion @ewen I’ve used DxO for years for images from “lesser” cameras (noise) and lesser lenses and old files. But then I started either only using nearly flawless modern lenses or charmingly flawed older lenses
I almost never use DxO anymore, as my aesthetic has moved away from the “crunchier” look I got out of DxO. I look at some of those old prints and cringe a bit, though they are good in a style.
Get it about Adobe, but the newest Camera Raw stuff is IMO so much better than DxO
@johnlehet @ewen No doubt Adobe is top of the line for the industry. When they started pushing cloud based stuff is when I lost interest in using their products.
I also really hated the whole LR catalog business. X7 uses sidecar files that live in a subdirectory of the images folder. It's much tidier and easier to manage, IMO.
I was apoplectic when they pushed the cloud model.
It turns out though that I pay far less, since I used to buy the upgrade for both Photoshop and LR every single upgrade cycle.
I was afraid they would rest on their laurels, have us as captives, and not do any work, but they are still working hard.
The small incremental upgrades though make a sort of shifting sand, where sometimes things just change out from under.
@analogfusion @ewen One really bad thing is that there is constant ongoing glitch in color management/profiling somewhere between Adobe ->Apple->Epson. Epson’s driver software is ancient and often neglected, so they may be a likely suspect. Nobody knows where in the API handshaking it's failing, but you can see it a lot if you search forums. Wasted a lot of my time and money.
I switched to Qimage One for printing, and it's much better, though the ugliest UI I've ever used.
@johnlehet @ewen I wasn't so concerned about stagnation as I am strongly opposed to letting a third party manage my data.
I think local storage is still possible with LR Classic. But l oppose the trend of big companies pushing users toward cloud storage. Microsoft is one of the worst offenders.
I don't care that they pitch it as convenient. I want to keep my data where I can organize, search and access it. I use Backblaze for offsite backups; everything else is backed up locally.
@analogfusion @ewen It's all on my disks, never in Adobe's cloud. “Lightroom Classic" is the one that keeps it on your disk, and it's very very good at what it does.
I like LR a lot because I can make virtual copies of a raw file and play around with crops, black and white, color treatment, tonal treatment without altering the original image, and then keyword, rate, etc to find things. I also like Jeffrey Friedle’s plug ins to export collections, which is my workflow for web.
Photo Ewen 📷
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