My best images of the Abisko season so Far…

I have been very naughty! I commissioned Chris Davies to build me a new website and I worked hard with him to get that ready and then I have done not much with it. So I thought I would re kickstart with a new blog. So I thought I would go for the easy subject and try to select my best images from the season so far.

It has been a bit of a crazy season here in Abisko working for Lights Over Lapland it has been far the worst weather I have ever known in 6 years of guiding 200km North of the arctic circle. I mean the weather really has been terrible. It has been so much warmer than in previous years. Hopefully, this is just a blip and next year the weather gets colder again. This hasn't been an Abisko thing it's been strange weather all over Europe. On the other side photographically I think it has been my strongest year yet and I have managed to fulfill some of my photographic dreams of the season!

The images I've selected here may not be everyone's favorites but they are mine!

This next image was actually an iPhone image from when I hiked up to Lapporten (see my previous blog for the full story). I hiked up with camping kit and a full photography load on my first autumn overnight hiking trip.

The next image is from the same hiking trip and without a doubt had to make it into this blog. This has been a dream image for me for years. To be camping at the Lapporten mountains with no wind and have the aurora go over the gates is like a dream come true. Sitting there on my own 13km from the village after midnight viewing this spectacle is a night I will never forget and still gives me goosebumps when I think about it! 

A pretty straight forward shot technically.

Canon 5Div camera, Sigma 14mm Art lens, Benro Mach 3 tripod and Induro 5 way head

Settings; ISO 3200 Aperture f/2.0 shutter speed 4 sec 

I was making the most of the autumn colours in September and on this morning walk I saw a number of reindeer. Of all the photographs I took with reindeer and autumn colours this one really jumped out at me.

Again a pretty straight forward shot technically.

Canon 5Div camera, Canon 100-400mm vr2 L lens

Settings; ISO 1600 Aperture f/5.6 shutter speed 1/320 sec 

Another shot that I've dreamt about is a view of Lapporten covered in snow whilst the mountain birch forest is in full autumn colours. This autumn that happened so I knew I had to head to the river delta to try for a reflection as there is one part of the lake which is cut off with a big sandbank where you can often get reflections. The day did not disappoint me!

Again a pretty straight forward shot technically.

Canon 5Div camera, Canon 100-400mm vr2 L lens Benro Mach 3 tripod and Induro 5 way head

Settings; ISO 200 Aperture f/9 shutter speed 1/500 sec 

The last of my autumn hikes took me into a high valley behind Tjåmuhas mountain (that's the mountain on the right in the image) and I climbed to the summit of Ballingbogičohkka (that's the mountain on the left). On my hike in to get to the ridge, I wanted to climb I had this view towards Storsteinsfjellet mountain in Norway. I loved the way that the mountains overlapped to create these strong lines in the composition.

On this trip, I went lighter as it was a lot of hiking and solo climbing so I had the Canon M5 camera with me and the kit 18-150mm kit lens.

Settings; ISO 800 Aperture f/10 shutter speed 1/640 sec 

It seems in October none of the images I took made it into the blog but I still remember it being a good month. In early November we had a very cold period with a few weeks of -20 to -28C and this created a lot of interesting ice. This small ice feature was only about approximately 8mm high. The feature was growing off a pebble on the shore of lake Torneträsk.

I had to stack the image and the one below is made up of 44 images to get the required depth of field.

Canon 5Div camera, Canon 100mm Macro IS L lens 

Settings; ISO 1600 Aperture f/10 shutter speed 1/125 sec 

During that same cold period, we had a few storms and I did quite a lot of photography trying to capture that right balance of wave action with a nice sky and Lapporten.  In this image, I used a slightly slower shutter speed to create that view of motion in the waves. Some of the waves on lake Torneträsk were well over 2 meters.

Canon 5Div camera, Canon 24-70mm vr2 L lens Benro Mach 3 tripod and Induro 5 way head

Settings; ISO 100 Aperture f/14 shutter speed 1/5 sec 

After the storm that was the above image, we had an abundance of fantastic scenes with a lot of the plants and rocks around lake Torneträsk covered in ice. This next image was one of the most impressive views I found. As soon as I saw I realised that I had to visit this site a number of times to get the best from it before the ice disappeared.

This shot was very technical as the sky was very bright and the ice had no light on it. It was also impossible to get the complete shot in focus in one photograph. So I had to take multiple bracketed exposures and also take multiple shots where I had moved the focal plane throughout the view.  

Canon 5Div camera, Canon 24-70mm vr2 L lens Benro Mach 3 tripod and Induro 5 way head

Settings; ISO 400 Aperture f/18 shutter speed 1/640 sec 

Unfortunately, the weather then went warm and a lot of the ice started to melt. It went from -28C to +5C in a few days and I realised I had a small window of opportunity to try and get another dream shot of aurora and with clear ice on the trees. Chris Hodgson and I went on a mission one night to try and get that shot. 

It involved me climbing up on wet ice above the lake with crashing waves below. It was a little sketchy but hopefully, the image was worth it :)

I had to be very careful with the focusing to get both the ice and the stars in focus.

Canon 5Div camera, Sigma 14mm Art lens, Benro Mach 3 tripod and Induro 5 way head

Settings; ISO 3200 Aperture f/3.5 shutter speed 15 sec 

This image I took in late December on the shore of lake Torneträsk. The lake had started to freeze but again another warm period with a storm has smashed the lake ice to pieces and pushed it to the west creating some fantastic views.

Canon 5Div camera, Canon 24-70mm vr2 L lens

Settings; ISO 1600 Aperture f/9 shutter speed 1/50 sec 

I had a fantastic night staying up at Kårsavagge Mountain Cabin and the following day had to ski back 14km from the mountains. I started the ski in. a whiteout and eventually the weather came good. But both sides of the weather provided a lot of great photographic opportunities. This was as the weather was just transitioning.

On this tour, I went lightweight again so I was using the Canon M5 and the 18-50mm kit lens. It really is a great piece of kit for these tours.

Settings; ISO 800 Aperture f/11 shutter speed 1/2000 sec 

Last week I was guiding for Lights Over Lapland and we had an amazing night of aurora. This site has a fantastic looking lone pine tree which makes a great focal point with aurora photography. Here I had bounced a headtorch light near my feet to provide some even lighting over the tree. 

I really pushed the ISO high to get as fast a shutter speed as possible.

Canon 5Div camera, Sigma 14mm Art lens, Benro Mach 3 tripod and Induro 5 way head

Settings; ISO 6400 Aperture f/1.8 shutter speed 1 sec 

Just yesterday I took a friend out to show him a few of my favourite landscape spots and for the first time this season I was able to crawl into one of the ice caves near Björkliden. Here I have my friend Claudio posing in the right spot to make this shot.

Again quite technical as I had to bracket for exposures and I had to stack it for the depth of field.

Canon 5Div camera, Canon 24-70mm vr2 L lens Benro Mach 3 tripod and Induro 5 way head

Settings; ISO 200 Aperture f/16 shutter speed 1/200 sec 

Well if you have got this far I hope you enjoyed the images!

Please feel free to share this blog if you know anyone who is interested in images of this area.

Any questions just let me know.

I do have some macro workshops coming up this summer I have only one place left on a one week tour I'm running with Greenwings which is here and I'm doing a one day workshop with Wild Arena in 18th of April and that one is here.

All the best, Oliver