Covered in ice

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We had a storm right after Christmas. Driven by the strong wind the waves crashed hard against the coast. Everything got very wet. Fortunately for me the temperature was below the freezing point and the water froze on rocks and plants covering everything with ice within a few meters from the sea. A strange fantasy landscape was created.

© Ove Lillas

I took my oldest daughter (or maybe she took me, I really don't know which) for a photo shoot, capturing the scenery the day after the storm. The coastline looked surreal with all the ice. Walking was a challenge. But the photos turned out quite nice I think. I haven't seen her photos yet but it's hard not to get interesting pictures from a landscape such as this.

The fantasy landscape. © Ove Lillas

Right now it's the darkest time of the year. The sun rose slowly as we walked around with our cameras. As a matter of fact sunrise lasts for like a couple of hours and then we have two hours of sunset. The sun is moving almost horizontally and barely makes it above the treetops. The light is beautiful as long as the sun isn't covered in clouds.

The sun at noon. © Ove Lillas

The photographers: Me and my daughter Nora.

Aurora Borealis

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The Aurora Borealis is like a sunset in one sense—it never looks the same twice. These photos were taken on September 7 2015 in Nykarleby, Finland.

Here people often make the mistake of thinking that the Aurora Borealis can only be seen in the winter when it's really cold. The reason for this being that our summers are so light even at night that it's impossible to see the Aurora Borealis. And in the winter, when it's dark not only at night but most of the day too, you can only see it when it's cold. That's because it's not that cold when it's cloudy, and the clouds cover the Aurora Borealis too.

Well, anyway you can see it whenever it's dark enough. I use to check the Aurora activity on a few websites, such as this one, and then wait until it's dark before I take a look at the sky. This particular evening I knew the possibility was hight. To be honest it turned out to be one of the biggest Aurora Borealis shows I've ever seen. You could see it in any direction and it more or less covered the whole sky. It was pure fantastic! It lit up the road on the pier with its green light so I didn't even have to use my flash light.

I placed the camera on a tripod, turned the ISO upp to 1000 and shot it at 20 seconds with f-stop 6.3. I also took a few pictures of myself holding a flash light that I lit for maybe one second and then trying not to move too much for the rest of the exposure time.

After about half an hour the Aurora Borealis started to fade and I decided to go back home.

View to the west.

Looking straight up.

Looking north.

North-east view.

One chance only

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In September 1995 I studied to become a photographer (which I did in 1997). One morning the whole class of photography students went to the beach where we walked around capturing surprisingly different things on film. Yes, this was before digital.

I had just bought a second hand Yashica-Mat from 1957. It was a true pleasure to take photos with that camera. I still have it in my office. It's beautiful to look at but also a competent camera to use.
As expected the sun rose over the horizon and created a light that would last only for a couple of minutes. The light coming from a horizontal angle revealed the forms of the sand dunes and made the lines that the sea had cut out glow.

For years I claimed this to be my best photo ever. I still consider it one of my favourite photos. (I honestly don't know if it's the best.)

Since that day I have visited this same beach (Storsand, Monäs, Nykarleby) many times at sunrise trying to get that same photo again. I never managed to do that.

Lesson learned: You only have one chance. Take it or it will be lost. Don't think you can save it for later.

Some react by saying: “How did you get that high to take the photo?” But it's not that big, less than one meter.