In a couple of days, @kibela and I are going on a short trip for 9-10 days to the north of Russia, to the Murmansk region. This is planned as a photo trip in the hunt for the Northern Lights and snow-covered spruces. Last year in March we already visited these places, where we are going now in February. And that's why we decided to go there again: in the vicinity of the town of Kandalaksha there are several small mountains, overgrown with spruces, which look amazing in winter — all covered in snow, such large figured snowdrifts with the shape of a tree under them, often bent into an arc.
But last year we didn’t catch them, as you can see in the photos below — a week before our arrival, firstly, the weather got warmer, and secondly, it was windy and all the snowdrifts fell off the trees, leaving only lightly powdered snow branches.
Only the lowest of them remained in the snowdrifts, but they had completely lost their resemblance to trees and became just hillocks of snow. It was still a pretty sight, but we would like to see them in all their glory. Therefore, this year we decided to come a month earlier in order to be more likely to catch the views we wanted.
And at the same time, we would like to try to see the Northern Lights over these landscapes. Mountains, spruces, the White Sea on the horizon... A winter fairy tale! This is the trip we're going to take soon.
Well, in addition to the mountains above Kandalaksha, we added another place to the upcoming trip, where last year we were only one day, but we liked it so much that this time we will live there for three nights. I'll talk about it later :)
However, the plans are good, but so far the weather does not please us at all: the weather forecasters promise cloud cover and snow all day long in both places throughout the trip. We won’t be able to see the Northern Lights, or shoot bright sunsets and sunrises... Most likely, everything will look like the view in the photo below, plus continuously falling snow. Eh.
Maybe the weather will change at least a little? I hope for the best :) For three nights we will live on the top of the mountain Volosyanaya (all the photos of the post were done there) in this red house (it is called DoublDom Kandalaksha) and walk among the snow-covered trees. And two more nights we will live nearby, at the foot of another small mountain. Wish us good luck and good weather, we need them both!
It's better to watch the photo in high resolution.
OLYMPUS E-M1 Mark II
Exposure time: 60 sec
Aperture: F 5.6
Sensitivity: ISO 64
Focal length: 13 mm
35 mm equivalent: 26 mm
You can also see my photos in my blog LJ and in my profile on NatGeo. You can read a short interview with me here.
