What makes northern Norway so unique, mystical and fairy-tale like? It is undeniably its mountains. ‘Fjellan’ means ‘the mountain’ or ‘the mountains’ in local dialect. I wanted to pay a tribute to some of the most iconic peaks of this part of the country.
You can find all types of mountains in northern Norway. While some are more like rolling hills, others are jaw-dropping, sharply triangular peaks that rise directly from the bottom of fjords. But what they all have in common is their ability to feed our imagination. People usually see many shapes and figures in them, including animals, soldiers, sleeping giants or even trolls!
This short film consists of a mixture of timelapse and real-time sequences taken over the past 3 years in the Troms area.
As the Sun disappears for several weeks in November and never to show up again before January, Arctic Norway prepares for the long polar nights. With them, the dramatic landscapes take on a very magical appearance as the arrival of cold and humid conditions clothes everything with ice crystals.
It seems, however, that the episodes of frost are becoming less and less numerous due to climate change and the strengthening of the Gulf stream bringing relentless mild temperatures, which in turn melt away the snow and the frost. This year has been particularly mild, but here and there, we were treated to a fleeting coat of sparkly white ice. Between pastel colors of fiery sunsets, the dance of the famous aurora borealis to glow from the night sky, the ice crystal shine and behave in a different way.
The main focus of this short film was obviously the recording of frost throughout the various landscape of northern Norway (Troms region). Unfortunately, the frost hasn’t been strong enough to show fully grown crystals, so the main interest was the thin layer of ice enveloping grass, twigs, branches, rocks, but also the small lakes beginning to freeze over. The out of focus / medium format macro techniques were used a lot in the film to amplify the diffraction of moonlight into ice crystals and reveal their twinkling. Camera motion along ramps also participated in getting this effect. Shooting macro at night is far from being the simplest, as lots of light is required to compensate for the very narrow aperture used to gain depth of field. Some sequences were shot at f/9-14 so moonlight was indispensable.
I hope you will enjoy this compilation of timelapse sequences, which are also available for licensing upon request (nightlightsfilms@gmail.com)
All was shot with the Sony a7s, a7rII and 2 Canon 6D astromodified, a variety of bright lenses ranging from 14mm to 50mm. For motion control I used the Syrp 3-axis Genie I system and also the Vixen Polarie. All post production was made in Lr with the special timelapse plus plugin, Sequence for mac, TLDF, and final production was made in FCPX. I hope you like the movie as much as I liked shooting and processing it and I thank everyone of you for your support. All content is of course copyrighted Night Lights Films (except sountrack licensed through Epidemic Music, see credits for authors and titles), and no footage can be used in any way without the author’s permission. Please share and comment if you liked the video and follow me for more videos like this one!
It is common belief that September is too early to view the Northern Lights within the Arctic circle. Truthfully, it is one of the best times to see them, especially if you don’t like the cold. September is my favorite month of the year for aurora, as you have a bit of both cold and warm worlds.
The still mild temperatures enable you to get the precious reflection of the auroral dance in the still water of lakes and fjords. All hikes are also very accessible as the snow hasn’t fallen in big and dangerous quantities yet. As a conclusion, you can literally enjoy the northern lights from anywhere. It opens up so many more opportunities than at the heart of the winter.
This year, we are just coming out of solar minimum. And it shows! The month of September alone has been extremely productive, with both coronal hole High Speed Streams and CMEs (stealthy). More precisely, the week of September 24th – October 1st has delivered insane nightly shows back to back!
I wanted to showcase these beautiful displays that I was able to capture in Northern Norway (Senja and Troms area), as the leaves were starting to turn into golden and orange hues. I will publish a more general ‘Fall-themed’ movie in the near future. Stay tuned!
All was shot with the Sony a7s, a7rII and 2 Canon 6D astromodified, a variety of bright lenses ranging from 14mm to 50mm. For motion control I used the Syrp 3-axis Genie I system and also the Vixen Polarie. All post production was made in Lr with the special timelapse plus plugin, Sequence for mac, TLDF, and final production was made in FCPX. I hope you like the movie as much as I liked shooting and processing it and I thank everyone of you for your support. All content is of course copyrighted Night Lights Films (except sountrack licensed through Epidemic Music, see credits for authors and titles), and no footage can be used in any way without the author’s permission. Please contact me for media and purchase inquiry. Please share and comment if you liked the video and follow me for more videos like this one! More at nightlightsfilms.com.
The Lyngen Alps are a mountain range in northeastern Troms og Finnmark county in Norway, east of the city of Tromsø. The mountain range runs through the municipalities of Lyngen, Balsfjord, and Storfjord. The mountains follow the western shore of the Lyngen fjord in a north-south direction.
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