The Arctic light

All this week I am going to post up beautiful videos plucked from the dross of the internet. First up, here is another masterpiece from the people who brought you ‘The Mountain’, filmed between 29th April and 10th May 2011 in the Arctic, on the archipelago Lofoten in Norway; this is also quite simply stunning. “My favourite natural phenomenon is one I do not even know the name of, even after talking to meteorologists and astrophysicists I am none the wiser.What I am talking about I have decided to call The Arctic Light and it is a natural phenomenon occurring 2-4 weeks before you can see the Midnight Sun.”

The Sunset and Sunrise are connected in one magnificent show of colour and light lasting from 8 to 12 hours. The sun is barely going below the horizon before coming up again. This is the most colorful light that I know, and the main reason I have been going up there for the last four years, at the exact same time of year, to photograph. Based on previous experience, I knew this was going to be a very difficult trip. Having lost a couple of cameras and some other equipment up there before, it was crucial to bring an extra set of everything. I also made sure I had plenty of time in case something went wrong.

If you can imagine roping down mountain cliffs, or jumping around on slippery rocks covered in seaweed with two tripods, a rail, a controller, camera, lenses, filters and rigging for four tofive hour long sequences at a time, and then having to calculate the rise and fall of the tides in order to capture the essence – it all proved bit of a challenge.

And almost as if planned, the trip would turn out to become very difficult indeed. I had numerous setbacks including the airline losing my luggage, struggling to swim ashore after falling into the Arctic sea (twice), breaking lenses, filters, tripod, computer, losing the whole dolly rig and controller into the sea, and even falling off a rather tall rock and ending up in the hospital. As much as I wanted to give up, the best way Out is always “Through”. I am glad I stuck it through though because there were some amazing sunrises waiting. At 1:06 you see a single scene from day to night to day which is from 9pm to 7am. Think about that for a minute.. 10 hours with light like that.

I asked the very talented Marika Takeuchi to specifically compose and perform a song for this movie, and what she came up with is absolutely remarkable. Thank you very much Marika!”