The mountains on Norway’s Lofoten Islands are not high, but they are numerous, and their geology and shape make for many visual treats.
I had been up late the night prior to the sunrise shown here, hoping the aurora borealis spied at dusk would develop over Reine, where I was staying. Although it gave initially encouraging signs, it did not develop much. The next morning involved a drive to Krystad, and as well as feeling more tired than usual for a sunrise shoot, I had woken with some flu-like symptoms. In short, while the mind was willing, the spirit was definitely dragging its heels.
Even so, I set my camera up for what I hoped would be a fair shot, showing a fisherman’s hut in the foreground and, beyond the water’s edge, a range of mountains in the middle distance, with a further, more distant peak showing through a gap. The idea was that the rising sun would catch the mountains, and to my delight it first hit the peak in the background, providing the scene with both a far focal point and a corresponding sense of depth. The sun illuminated more as time passed, but this early shot, with its tightly focused sunlight (and vibrant colours), is, I believe, superior to those that followed. The fisherman’s cottage, with its pitched roof echoing the colour of the near mountains and (if I’m not stretching imagination too far) the apexes that surround it, seems complementary.
The morning’s experience proved restorative, at least to some degree. It banished the tiredness and lifted the spirits. It was not proof against those flu-like symptoms, but a prior flu vaccination mercifully minimised “time out” during the trip.
