Aurora Borealis

The Rewinder

Awarded Landscape First Prize 🏆 at NEIL DANKOFF Photo competition. - Exhibited in Neil's Yorkdale Kandy Gallery in Toronto - Canada (April 2021) - FINALIST & BEST OF NATION (France) at WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY CUP 2022 in Category Nature. Selected in the France National Team by FFPMI (Equipe De France) - Awarded 2nd Place in Special Night Photography category - at ND Awards 2021 international photography contest. 🥈 -TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FOTO AWARDS 2021 SILVER WINNER in Fine Art Landscape 🥈 - Awarded BRONZE Winner 🥉 in category Pro Fine Art Landscape At Prix de la Photographie de Paris 2021 Senja - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed : Orientation - 
WEST Aurora Intensity - MODERATE Moon - FULL We can find windy roads in many places in Northern Norway, but finding the right angle to photograph them can be another story. Catching this incredible aurora into the narrow valleys of Senja took me good 2 hours of waiting under -10 degrees C, in a particularly awkward position perched on a sharp rock edge. I had studied and found this place using maps. I could see the potential before going there but I had never seen anyone taking a photo of it this way. The big work is to be able to anticipate the editing process once I am on spot. I knew roughly where to stand to have the right angle but it was not easy to access as the place is covered with big boulders fallen from the cliff edges. Taking a photo is something I love, but working hard beforehand to plan the photo is something I live for.

Higher Prediction

Selected in the 2021 NORTHERN LIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Collection by ''CaptureTheAtlas" Exhibited at " Exhibition Of The Arts Of Aurora 2021" in the Hong Kong Culture Centre in April 2021. Organized by AuroraAssociation. Co-organized by UNESCO (H.K. Association) The Arctic hosts some of the most beautiful and dramatic sights you can find in Europe and is complemented with the lady aurora dancing in the sky. This night was strong intensities of lights planned in Northern Norway (up to KP7). The activity we got far North was not the strongest but enough to send you in green dreamy land. By venturing along the water line, I could find frozen shapes and play around with some reflecting aurora light in the ice. Signaldalen - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation -
 NORTH - NORTH WEST Aurora Intensity - MODERATE Moon - NEW

The Conditions

Lakselvbukt - Northern Norway

The Fog Rolls In

Lakselvbukt - Northern Norway

The 2022 Unique Aurora Shot #2

Series Photograph 2/3 Shooting such images in these conditions brings an incredible feeling of satisfaction, especially after spending such a long time waiting for this exact right moment.






 After days and days of planing, waiting for the perfect weather window, looking forward to having all the elements lining up and being able to gather the equipments needed, we were able to document the whole project without knowing how many attempts it would take us.
 Many people who see my work call me ‘’lucky’’ on social media when they realise what I see, but they don’t try to understand the work behind my photographs.
 Many people who follow my work then comprehend how much effort, passion and love I put into planing a powerful photo I have in mind. 

 The most interesting part is the story behind the capture, what did we go through to grab that precious moment in time. This is about showing all the effort and the struggle that goes until you reach the shot. The Conditions Needed : Orientation - 
NORTH Aurora Intensity - STRONG Moon - NEW Tromsø - Northern Norway

Towering Ice

Scoresby Sund - Greenland The Conditions Needed: Orientation - South East Aurora Intensity - LOW - MODERATE Moon - FULL
 On high latitude such as 71 degrees North, here on the Eastern side of Greenland, the oval of aurora varies and slightly leans down. It brings stronger aurora activity on more southern latitude due to the magnetic North being tilted.
 
 We are here under a predicted KP 2/3, facing South East on an evening where the aurora would have probably appeared toward the north or the sides on a location such as Tromsø in Northern Norway on 69 degrees North. We had in mind to place an iceberg in front of the aurora dancing so we carefully started to position ourselves toward south East. East being the first darkest place into the sky as the sun sets on the other side and keeps on casting twilight until late hours.

Back Stage

Split The Atom

A cold night under the full moon in Northern Norway. Laksvatn - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
NORTH - NORTH EAST Aurora Intensity - LOW Moon - FULL The river beds become frozen under the cold temperatures of Northern Norway. This offers amazing opportunities to find shapes and textures of ice, as thin as glass. I use these natural shapes to lead the eye from the bubbly detailed foreground, up to the dancing green sky hugging the mountain. This textured ice in the foreground enhances great dimension and perspective into the frame. It is going from front to back, but also from surface to depth under the ice. We become curious, as we are tempted to have a look at what's hiding under these fragments of thin crystal. This image is focused stacked to be able to capture the whole scene into sharp details and relief.

Beyond The Pier

Ringvassøya - Northern Norway - By cumulating experience as an outdoor guide and night photographer, I have the chance to bring people from around the world close to the Aurora Borealis. Working as a guide has now brought me to the Arctic where I can develop my photography skills, get off the beaten track to find a place never shot before, and bring tourists to it. I have spent many nights on this spot waiting to catch the right moment. And here it is! The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
WEST Aurora Intensity - MODERATE Moon - NEW

The 2022 Unique Aurora Shot

Series Photograph 1 / 3 The temperature was -27 degrees C this night. It took us 2 hours skiing up 750 meters elevation to reach the location. A first attempt was made on February 2nd 2022 to capture this image but did not succeed. On the second attempt, I finally bring home this unique moment, spending a total of 6.5 hours outside. We had studied this place for a long time and got the idea one and half year ago. Florian Ledoux, my best friends here, had spent many hours and many ski tours up to that mountain, and kept on bringing me some really nice phone photos which gave me this insane idea. Why don’t we try to get you out there, with some dancing aurora behind you, Tromsø city lights, and our tent lit up. It sounded like a dream shot. To be able to capture the aurora correctly, we had to understand what direction we were facing to be able to calculate what intensity of light we needed. After studying the exact spot where I wanted to take the photo from, I then calculated that I would be facing toward East - South East. That brought us to a conclusion that we would need a KP index of 3 or 4 out of 9. 
Once this is decided, we would have to keep a constant eye open on the aurora previsions during the upcoming weeks, so we could plan the night and decide when we want to lunch the mission. We would also need to time it perfectly with the weather forecast. After all this incredible time spent planning and doubting, it is with full satisfaction that I introduce this photograph. Tromsø - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed : Orientation - 
SOUTH EAST Aurora Intensity - STRONG Moon - NEW

Fight The Weather

These last days of January 2022, the weather has been so complicated. We started the evening under the snow from Tromsø and looked for these openings in the sky the whole night. My mood is shifting up and down all the time, the same way as the weather does it here, driving through a snow storm, and having a bright open clear sky few minuts later. Chasing the aurora is an art, and it makes me live these incredible moments. This photo is a vertical panorama of three shots in F2.0 and just a few seconds long of exposition to be able to keep a constant movement of aurora from top to bottom and being able to stitch the images efficiently. It means that the three images have been shot within 30 seconds to capture the exact moment. The fact of using this technique allows to preserve a great perspective from top to bottom of the frame, as if I shoot this with a really wide angle on portrait shape, the wide angle brings too much distortion at the bottom of the frame, and stretches the little person too much, making it really unrealistic. Takvatnet - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
EAST Aurora Intensity - MODERATE Moon - NEW

End Of Afternoon

Awarded HONORABLE MENTION in Landscape category in APA - ANNUAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS 2020 Lyngen Alps - Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
SOUTH EAST - SOUTH Aurora Intensity - STRONG Moon - NEW After an afternoon spent in the Norwegian Alps, hiking and exploring the area. The aurora here is shot at 4.30PM to my biggest surprise. I was walking down that tiny river path, when I looked back and realised that the sky was dancing. Lucky the ground was quite frozen, so my footsteps did not affect the foreground. It is often really hard to capture lights showing toward South East above the Lyngen Alps Mountain range, but this day was full of luck. We can see this fainted brighter light on the left behind the mountains which is the low moon reflecting on the clouds giving pumping contrast with the diamond shape river in the foreground. The best thing about this capture is that the aurora is not the main subject into the frame, but brings the wow effect on top of this amazing landscape.

The Eye Of The River

I often go and explore new places thinking of one particular shot in mind. This is a perfect example. This night, I took some of my guests to a place where I had never been before, and where no one goes; This is what makes the difference between photos we see every day on social media and the ones that are unexpected. It pushes me to be really creative as some of these moments are really not expected and are fully improvised. It feels like a huge rush of adrenaline I am just thinking at the moment: "This aurora shape is amazing so let's enhance it with some really good composition. This is a focus-stacked and exposure blend to be able to gather detailed snowy foreground and sharp, smooth movements of the lady aurora. Kvaløya - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - NORTH EAST - EAST Aurora Intensity - LOW - MODERATE Moon - FULL

The 2022 Unique Aurora Shot #3

Series - Photograph 3 / 3 The first few photos of our project were panoramas taken with the auroras dancing in the North. Throughout out the night, The cold was really affecting my photography, as I was all the time switching lenses, to be able to mix wide angle shots and also some close up photos. According to how the aurora was moving, I kept on switching lenses. I believe I did this process maybe 17 or 18 times during the evening, loosing feeling of my fingers every single time and gathered some unwanted scratches on both of my lenses. I had some moments when I could not even press the shutter to capture the image as I had absolutely no feeling of my finger tips in both hands. Tromsø - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed : Orientation - 
NORTH Aurora Intensity - STRONG Moon - NEW

Discover Tamok

Tamokdalen, is a valley with incredible mountain shapes located in the inland part. The microclimate out there is quite interesting and offer huge plunge of temperatures compared to the Norvegian coastline. This night it was -14°c, the aurora prediction were quite low, so I chose to go to this spot where I would have a great backdrop on "Lille Russetinden", facing North. When the Aurora prediction are predicted to be low, I choose to face toward North west, North, or North East, as this is most likely the first place I would see the aurora starting to shape. I walked up the river to start with, not knowing what I would find on my way. We were hiking through open and dense forest, looking for an opening, deeper in the valley so I could have the view on this mountain shape.. Around midnight, I found this epic spot, quite open, giving me a clean foreground and then, the aurora started dancing. Adding a person here brings a great sense of scale and a vibe of exploration to the image which I particularly love. Photographed with the Sony A7C Thanks Sony-France for making me try this body camera. Tamokdalen - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
NORTH Aurora Intensity - LOW Moon - NEW

The Last Vision

Awarded Honorable Mention in the category Fine Art - Landscape in 2020 TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FOTO AWARDS Awarded HONORABLE MENTION in Landscape category in APA - ANNUAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS 2020 Tromsø - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
NORTH Aurora Intensity - LOW - MODERATE Moon - NEW Last week of October 2021, I went hiking up to that lake edge, a place I scouted during the day to find these great reflections and organize our light orientation for the aurora night shoot. I waited up there for 3 hours, cameras on tripods, composition ready to shoot, the battery in the pocket to save power. After a long game of waiting, I decided to pack my bags, mentally ready to hike back down, when suddenly.. at the last sight behind me, that dance happened in the sky.

The Shark Fin

Going off the beaten track is something that brings so much value to a photo. It builds an incredible story behind it. On this overnight trip to the Northern tip of the Lyngen Alps, I came along with 3 Norwegian girls friends to find the tiny hytta located on this coastline. We only knew about the GPS coordinates and got ourselves onto a mission to find it. We brought our own wood supply, food, and water, and stayed overnight. A few meters behind it, and to my biggest surprise, we found a stunning rock formation. Is this whole shot actually real? It is. The auroras are here, the high clouds in the sky are dancing, and I am up here hanging on the side on the shark fin. The only thing distorted is the scale of the little climber as this rock formation is five meters high above the snow line and not fifteen meters as it appears. Northern Lyngen Alps - Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
SOUTH WEST Aurora Intensity: - STRONG Moon - FULL

The Welcoming Night

Feet in the water, I found this amazing colour palette on my way back to Reykjavik. I could see on the back of my camera screen how the city light of Reykjavik brought warm tones on the left of the rock. It was so interesting to see how the aurora punched the colour balance on the right-hand side. In my foreground, the Eastern full moon created that amazing rim of brilliance on the outer line of the rocks. It helped to underline the blue tones of the shadows and the darker rocky areas. Iceland - Kleifarvatn The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
NORTH Aurora Intensity: - LOW Moon - NEW

Øvre Dividalen

After 5 tries, I finally capture the dancing lights above that mountain in Dividalen. It is located about 140km south East of Tromsø toward the Swedish boarder, at the entrance of the national park Øvre Dividalen. This place is home to brown bears and wolverines, especially numerous in this area. I had been to this exact spot many times and found numerous different conditions; cloudy sky, not enough snow, or with full moon, which was not good because it brought too much distraction with the shadows of the trees in the canyon. I also found this place with clear sky but no aurora activity. Finally, this night, it paid off under -13°c, waiting for it during two hours until it appeared at the right spot. This is a vertical panorama shot on 2.0, ISO 1000 opening for 10 seconds. It is really interesting to get this composition. I managed to build this flow into the image just by standing to one exact spot. One meter too much on the right, and the mountain is not in line with the canyon, one meter too much on the left, and the rocks in the canyon cut the river flow that leads your eye toward the backdrop. Dividalen - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
WEST Aurora Intensity -
 MODERATE Moon - NEW

Lyngen Frost

An evening under full moon on the eastern side of the Lyngen Alps. I had seen this location a few times on social medias. I eventually found it after studying some maps the reliefs of the mountain. I wanted to place this special pointy mountain right in the middle of the frame, and build a composition that would crown it and bring your eye into it. This night, I hosted a private your and I brought my guests to this incredible location in order to grab that amazing moment around 18h. Lyngen Alps - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
WEST Aurora Intensity - MODERATE Moon - FULL

The Travel Bent

A long exposure under the northern lights of Northern Norway. This night, the red colors showed up above our greens. We see many times oversaturated and over-edited aurora colors on social media, and this one has a pure sky, not touched, not edited. Cameras are more powerful than our eyes, and reds are rarely perceived with our own eyes. I drove by this hill top many times and finally managed to capture that technical long exposure with this car light passing by the windy road. Grøtfjord - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
WEST - NORTH WEST Aurora Intensity - LOW -MODERATE Moon - NEW

The Older Coast

I used to love having half a moon in the sky to light up my foreground. The more it goes, and the more I realize that with a new moon / no moon, we can find the right light in a really particular way. For this, I will be patient, and after finding the right composition, I will wait for the strong aurora to cast its light on the foreground and bring this homogeneous balance of light and uniform tones of colors. Oldervik - Tromsø Area - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
EAST Aurora Intensity - MODERATE - STRONG Moon - HALF

Light Season

Awarded HONORABLE MENTION WINNER in Landscape Category at APA - ANNUAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS 2019 Haifoss - Iceland - The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
NORTH - NORTH EAST Aurora Intensity - LOW - MODERATE Moon - NEW A banger from September 2nd early season, in front of this amazing wonder of Iceland. Such a beautiful show nature gave us, with incredible fast movements. A great way to start the northern light season

Criss Crossing

I took some of my guests on an Aurora chase, to look for some of the best spots on the coastline of Kvaløya. Of course the forecast plays a lot on where to go and how to pick a spot. This night, clouds were coming from the south, so the strategy was to get to the coast as soon as we could, to capture the clear sky toward the west before they cover it completely. We see them coming slowly on the left side of this shot, and it helps us understand how timing is so important. Rekvik - Northern Norway The Conditions Needed:

 Orientation - 
WEST Aurora Intensity -
 MODERATE - LOW Moon - FULL