Sat
19 Jan
2019

After a win­ter- and christ­mas peri­od in our sou­thern home, we return to our nor­t­hern home: back to Lon­gye­ar­by­en! We spend a few days in Nor­way on the way up, visi­ting good fri­ends, befo­re we board the pla­ne in Oslo.

The flight lea­ves from Oslo Gar­de­r­moen in the mor­ning and arri­ves in Lon­gye­ar­by­en mid-day. We fly away from the sun­light and into the dark­ness. While clim­bing up the lad­der to the pla­ne, we enjoy a few last moments of sun­light. They will be the last ones for seve­ral week.

Gal­lery flight to Lon­gye­ar­by­en

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

The magic of the polar night is wai­ting for us!

The moon is waxing – that is not a secret, that is the same ever­y­whe­re on Earth at the same time. But here, it is more important than else­whe­re. Not only becau­se far abo­ve the polar cir­cle the moon is hard­ly seen during the sum­mer, becau­se then it remains lar­ge­ly below the hori­zon unless it is new moon, when you don’t see it any­way. But now, in win­ter, the moon is stun­ning. And it is a very important light source, much more than in lati­tu­des whe­re the sun is more relia­ble in win­ter­ti­me.

Advent­da­len in the polar night (I): the moon is shi­ning over Ope­raf­jel­let.

The appearance of the coun­try is magi­cal. The moon is cas­ting sil­ver-blue light over the land­scape which is cover­ed with a thin lay­er of snow and ice. On pho­tos, the moon appears very bright so you might even think it is the sun.

Pho­to­gra­phing this kind of beau­ty is a chall­enge. Most pho­to­graphs are are far too bright. Of cour­se you can expo­se your pho­to until they look as if taken on a sun­ny day. The results will be beau­tiful but they don’t have much to do with rea­li­ty. Rea­li­ty IS haun­tingly beau­tiful, and it is, well … rea­li­ty! It doesn’t get much bet­ter than that, but it is hard to cap­tu­re in an image. The beau­ty that the eye which is accus­to­med to dark­ness per­cei­ves may just appear as dark­ness on a reason­ab­ly rea­li­stic image. And that can also be rea­li­stic, but may­be not quite the rea­li­ty, if that makes sen­se.

Advent­da­len in the polar night (II): a bit dar­ker, a bit more rea­li­stic
(? depen­ding on how well your eyes are accus­to­med to dark­ness when you are out in the field).

I am try­ing to find a com­pro­mi­se which is clo­se to rea­li­ty and deli­vers the real beau­ty of the polar night at the same time.

Last but not least for this first ent­ry of my arc­tic blog 2019 an impres­si­on from Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the polar night. A per­spec­ti­ve that, I am sure, many of you will know, but pos­si­bly in very dif­fe­rent light con­di­ti­ons.

High noon in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in polar night. The sun­di­al does curr­ent­ly have some tech­ni­cal pro­blems 😉

Final­ly, let me men­ti­on that I have made a new pho­to book, focus­sing on aeri­al pho­to­gra­phy and thus show­ing the Arc­tic from a very unsu­al per­spec­ti­ve. In theo­ry, the book is in Ger­man, but in prac­ti­ce, it does hard­ly have text. 134 out of 137 pages do just have stun­ning pho­tos, pla­cen­a­mes and a litt­le map.
Nor­we­gens ark­ti­scher Nor­den (2) – Aeri­al Arc­tic shows Jan May­en and Sval­bard from the air.

Rolf’s new pho­to book Nor­we­gens ark­ti­scher Nor­den (2) – Aeri­al Arc­tic shows Jan May­en and Spits­ber­gen from a new and stun­ning per­spec­ti­ve.