Journey 03 · Norway
The Light Comes Back
Lofoten in late January
Published 13 Feb 2026 · Travelled 18–26 Jan 2026
- 8 moments
- 9 days
- 25 km
- Winter
- Norway
- 24-70mm at 70mm · f/4 · 1/250 · ISO 400
- 67.9070° N, 13.0250° E
- Approaching Moskenes
- 10:40
- -3°C, grey, low light
The ferry from Bodø takes three and a half hours and for most of it there is nothing to see because there is no light to see it by. Then about twenty minutes out the islands start coming up out of the water, black, with snow on them, and every person on that deck stopped talking at the same time.
- 24-70mm at 35mm · f/11 · 1/125 · ISO 64
- 67.9430° N, 13.1350° E
- Hamnoy
- 10:35
- -6°C, clear, no wind
In late January the sun does not clear the ridge here at all, but for a short time in the middle of the morning the light comes over the top and lands on the mountains behind the village. It lasted eleven minutes by my watch. I had been standing on that bridge since half past eight.
- 24-70mm at 50mm · f/2.8 · 1/60 · ISO 800
- 67.8800° N, 12.9770° E
- Å i Lofoten
- 09:15
There is one bakery, it is over two hundred years old, and it opens before there is any daylight. I bought a cinnamon bun and a cardamom bun because I could not decide, ate both standing at the counter, and asked what time the light would come. The woman said "eleven-ish" without looking up.
kanelbolle 45, kardemommebolle 45, no argument
- 24-70mm at 24mm · f/9 · 1/200 · ISO 100
- 67.8873° N, 12.9930° E
- 24-70mm at 24mm · f/9 · 1/200 · ISO 100
- 67.8873° N, 12.9930° E
- Sørvågen
- 12:05
- -5°C, flat cloud
They hang the cod on wooden frames in February and leave it until June, and the frames stand all winter waiting, which is the part nobody photographs. Empty they look like something structural and abandoned. I shot the whole hillside of them first and then went and put the lens a metre from one, and I prefer the second.
05 · The light table, written on the cabin wall
- 24-70mm at 40mm · f/8 · 1/320 · ISO 100
- 67.9370° N, 13.1000° E
- Sakrisøy
- 11:10
- -9°C, clear and very cold
Every other village here is red. Sakrisøy is ochre, for no reason anyone would explain to me, and against a metre of fresh snow it looks like somebody turned the saturation up on one building and left the rest alone. I walked out over the causeway at first light and had it entirely to myself.
- 24-70mm at 24mm · f/11 · 1/250 · ISO 100
- 67.9330° N, 13.0900° E
- Reinebringen
- 12:40
- -11°C, clear, brutal wind at the top
Sherpa-built stone steps straight up the side of the mountain, all of them iced, and I went up with the tripod strapped to my back like an idiot. Two hours. At the top there is a small flat place and the entire archipelago underneath you, and I sat down and did not take a picture for ten minutes.
- Reine
- 10:50
- -8°C, clear both ends of the day
- Last frame
In the morning it went the colour of the inside of a shell for about a quarter of an hour. In the afternoon, which here starts at two, the village put its lights on and the water held every one of them. Two pictures of the same fifty metres of coastline, four hours apart, and neither one is the place.
- 24-70mm at 50mm · f/8 · 1/125 · ISO 64
- 67.9310° N, 13.0870° E
The route
8 stops
Journey completed
Nine days, nine stories
- Distance walked
- 51 km
- Frames exposed
- 1490
- Hours of civil daylight per day
- about 5
- Coldest morning
- −14°C
- Batteries kept inside the jacket
- 4
- Favourite moment
- The whole of Reine going pink for eleven minutes at half past ten in the morning
- Best food
- A kanelbolle the size of my hand from the bakery at Å, eaten before it cooled
