‘Rain, rain and more rain!’ That’s been the state of play in the British weather for the past few weeks – or so my friends tell me. Since the week before Christmas I’ve been over in Norway and with several feet of snow combined with freezing temperatures to contend with, fishing has been off the agenda. Every year I take a winter break to recharge my batteries and this year my break looks to have been well timed with very poor fishing conditions.

Yesterday was a great day here in Norway. In the morning I took a trip out with my girlfriend’s dad to look for moose. Ironically, they call Jakob ‘the moose’ – he’s six and a half feet tall, most of it legs and he used to work in the mountains logging timber. In the morning we set out on the snow scooter for the mountains and then into the forest on foot to try and track one of Norway’s most fascinating wild animals. Walking behind Jakob, uphill, through the forest, thigh deep in snow was an ordeal my leg muscles will never forget but just on dusk, when our hopes were beginning to fade, we eventually came across a moose, a big bull, in a clearing in the trees. Until you see them up close and intimate it is difficult to imagine just how big these animals are – the hind quarters are above head height and it came as no surprise to learn that one kick from those powerful legs can kill a man! The moose simply stood there looking at us for a few seconds, sniffed the air and turned tail and ran! Just as well really… Sadly, the light was too poor to get a decent photograph.

The night came clear, crisp and cold. Minus ten was the average temperature and with the clouds having cleared away and plenty of snow to play in, we enjoyed a couple of hours sledging and snowboarding before dinner.

Around nine-thirty we took another trip to the mountains to photograph star rails and the Northern lights. As a photographer I have become increasingly fascinated by the night sky and the challenges of capturing the beauty of the darkness. To be successful at night time photography you need to appreciate that there is still light present but that it is at a much lower level. To capture night scenes you need to possess a camera that allows you to make long exposures – these can vary from as little as ten seconds to as much as several hours. To make these extra-long exposures, your camera should possess a ‘bulb’ exposure setting and you need to learn how to use it. The camera, of course, should be mounted on a tripod because hand holding the camera for exposures longer than one-twentieth of a second will result in camera shake and blurring of the image.

Our trip to the mountains was success. With no moon and very little artificial light in this area, the night sky was simply stunning and filled with stars – perfect conditions for photographing star rails. Star rails are created by pointing the camera at the night sky and leaving the shutter open for around an hour. Because the earth spins, the stars appear as streaks of light. Pointing the lens almost vertically results in the best star rails because the stars appear to ‘spin.’ Including an object to give a sense of place and perspective is always useful and I chose a fir tree, pointing a wide angle lens at a dense cluster of stars with the focus set to ‘infinity.’ For the camera buffs among you, the exposure was iso 100 for one hour at f5.6.

Just when we had finished photographing the star rails we noticed a feignt green glow in the sky just above some distant mountains. Since we were facing North it didn’t take a genius to work out that we might be experiencing the Aurora Borealis (Northern lights). I have been looking out for the aurora every night for almost a month and I have also been scanning the internet daily for aurora forecasts. Apart from a brief display, aptly enough, at midnight on New Year’s eve, auroral activity has been weak and though we are quite far North here, cloudy conditions most nights have killed chances of seeing and photographing auroras.

For those of you who are interested, take a look at www.northern-lights.no This is a fantastic website with lots of information about the aurora and where you can see it. It alo has some great photographs of the lights.

Briefly, the Northern lights are caused by high speed solar winds disturbing the earth’s magnetic field around both poles (there are Northern and Southern lights). These winds are a direct result of sunspot activity and auroral displays can therefore be predicted. The resulting lights are spectacular, forming hanging curtains that literally race and pulse across the night sky. Predominant rays of colour are fluorescent green but there are blue, red and yellow rays too.

Last night was not predicted to be a strong auroral activity but clear conditions gave us a good view of a brief but quite spectacular display between midnight and one o’clock. With the camera set at ISO 400 to increase shutter speeds, I took a variety of exposure varying between ten and thirty seconds. The results were moderately successful spoilt only by some low cloud drifting around the mountain Range behind which the display was taking place.

In two days time, weather permitting, I am heading back for good old blighty on the ferry. Sounds like it could be a rough crossing – the weather forecast is for 80 mph winds!

Both images shot with Canon 1DS Mk2. These are obviously low res images but the originals are 90 mb files.

Star rails shot was iso 100 with a 1 hour exposure at f5.6 using a 16-35mm lens at 17mm, focus set to infinity

Aurora photograph shot as iso 400, 23 second exposure with a 28-70mm lens set to 35mm, f4, focus to infinity.