Ode to Lofoten

I was inspired by a quote that Gustav Vigeland, a famous Norwegian sculptor, attributed to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a Nobel Laureate, in his book: "One has not seen real nature before one has been to northern Norway, and the most beautiful of all is Lofoten.”

Inspired by Bjørnson’s quote I traveled north the very next day to Lofoten’s beautiful and wild nature, where I wanted to capture the magic atmosphere under the midnight sun’s glowing light. The dramatic mountains in Lofoten have distinctive pinnacles and there are bedrocks that are over 2 billion years old, some of the oldest in Norway. Lofoten also has the world’s largest deep water coral reef, and the waters are abundant with marine life that people have been harvesting cod from for over a thousand years. My husband called it the arctic Hawaii, as the archipelago is truly an arctic paradise.

Last year the north was calling me again, and I embarked on another trip to Lofoten with my husband and my Russian friend Elena. Upon arrival we did not hesitate to start location scouting and shooting the spectacular landscape and towns that are dotted around the islands that reach out to the North Sea. 
We went to bed around 2:30 am the first night we arrived, and so it went on for a week of shooting all day and late into the night, since it does not get properly dark in summer time. Everyday we kept discovering new places to shoot. I felt as if I was eating, dreaming, breathing the dramatic nature of Lofoten, and becoming intertwined with the elements of the environment. I wanted to climb every mountain peak and inhale and harvest the breathtaking vistas and long views, framed by the sun’s rays writing glittering poems over bodies of water. I wanted to document every step I took over this ancient land. The sun and the moon were visibly present day and night, and time was no longer linear, it felt eternal. This is what Jung would call: “The reconciliation of opposites.” I was in a constant, perpetual cycle of endless days with eternal light that illuminated every forgotten corner, dark spot and cold stone. It felt like I had arrived at the end of the road where the the sky and the water become one, where the afternoon light is painted with every shade of blue and rose, and the waves crush upon you and makes your heart skip a beat.

How could I capture all this with my camera…?

The result is a series of images that was both inspired by fairytales from my childhood and the discovery of places along the way in Lofoten. The one link that carried the story through was the white vintage dresses, and I even put one on myself for an image. Can you spot me? This is my ode to Lofoten, a very special place in my heart, that I hope you enjoy.