The Arctic Light: Terje Sørgjerd’s Lofoten Spring Time-Lapse

In late spring the sun over Lofoten barely sets. It slips just below the horizon and climbs back up, and for hours the sky over the mountains and fjords glows orange, pink and violet. Photographer Terje Sørgjerd spent twelve days filming that light for The Arctic Light, one of the most admired time-lapse films of the early 2010s.

Terje Sørgjerd and The Arctic Light

Sørgjerd, who works as TSO Photography, shot the film in the Lofoten archipelago between 29 April and 10 May 2011 and released it at the end of that May. He described the subject as a natural phenomenon that appears two to four weeks before the midnight sun: sunset and sunrise merge into one continuous show of colour lasting from eight to twelve hours.

The shoot was not easy. Sørgjerd, who had been working in the area for four years, listed lost luggage, falls into the sea, broken lenses and filters, and a fall from a rock that ended with a hospital visit. Composer Marika Takeuchi wrote and performed the music for the film.

Watch for the day–night–day scene at 1:06

The highlight comes at around one minute and six seconds, when a single shot moves from day to night and back to day again. Time-lapse compresses many hours into seconds, so the slow wheel of the sun along the horizon becomes visible as one smooth movement. The steep peaks and still water stay fixed while the colour flows around them, and the reflections double every shift in the sky.

The colour here is sunlight, not the aurora. Lofoten is famous for northern lights too, but those belong to the dark months. By late April the nights are already bright, and the show is all about the low sun.

The Lofoten Islands at a glance

Lofoten lies off the coast of Nordland county in northern Norway, at about 68°N, well above the Arctic Circle. The main islands are Austvågøya, Vestvågøya, Flakstadøya and Moskenesøya, with the smaller Værøy and Røst further out. Around 24,500 people live on about 1,227 km² of land, and the main towns are Svolvær and Leknes.

• Mountains: the highest peak is Higravstinden on Austvågøya, 1,161 m, rising almost straight from the sea.
• Climate: the Norwegian Sea keeps winters far milder than the latitude suggests, though late autumn and winter bring strong winds, snow and sleet.
• Midnight sun: in Svolvær the sun stays up from 25 May to 17 July; in winter it does not rise from 4 December to 7 January.
• Fishing: Lofoten has been one of Europe’s great cod fisheries for more than a thousand years, with the cod arriving to spawn in winter.

How to get to Lofoten and when to go

The E10 road links the larger islands by bridges and undersea tunnels and, since the Lofast connection opened in December 2007, runs all the way to the mainland. Leknes and Svolvær have airports, ferries sail from Bodø to Moskenes, Værøy and Røst, and a fast boat connects Bodø with Svolvær. The Hurtigruten coastal ships call at Stamsund and Svolvær. There is no railway; the nearest train stations are in Bodø and Narvik.

For the light in Sørgjerd’s film, aim for late April and May. June and July bring the midnight sun and the busiest roads, while the dark season from late autumn to early spring is the time for northern lights over the same peaks.

Related reading

• Richard Gottardo’s Aurora Photographs and Jasper Time-Lapse
• Shawn Reeder’s Yosemite Range of Light
• Aurora from Norway, Alaska and Orbit
• Snowboarding and Freestyle in Finnish Lapland
• Ten Iceland Experiences: Waterfalls, Glaciers, Hot Springs and City Life
• Bon and Montant’s Wing-Assisted Eiger Descent
• Don’t Panic: A Snowboard Film Excerpt
• The Khumbu Icefall through Theodore Fairhurst’s Helmet Camera

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