My last photographic trip was to Botswana in November 2005, the average temperature was around 44c. My trip to Norway in February this year was at best -5c getting as low as -28c. I was met at Trondheim airport by my good friend Odd Larsen, leaving my home town Bury at 3.30am flying from Manchester airport via Amsterdam to Trondheim, it was very noticeable the drop in temperature. Home for Odd is some 20km north of Trondheim. After 3days of acclimatising myself to the much colder weather I managed to take some very nice images of the local wildlife, and landscapes. One of the main reasons for the trip was not only to meet up with Odd and Eli, who made me most welcome. Our objective was to photograph Golden Eagles, Sea Eagles plus other birds and animals. To do this we had a 3hour drive to meet up with a man called Ole Martin Dahle. Ole's knowledge of birds and animals is amazing, he is the owner of several hides in the area, and for the next 6 days we hired them, these being in various locations. The days meant very early starts like 4.45am we had to be in the hides whilst it was still dark and would stay in them for up to 8 hours at a time. The major problem staying in the hides for these long periods was keeping warm. The hardest task was keeping our feet warm, once these go really cold then you are in trouble. During our stay we had a mixed bag of weather, gale force winds and rain which effectively put an end to any photography during those days. It wasn't all doom and gloom we did get some decent weather, and that in it's self made our 8 hour stay in the hides worth while. The sighting and photographing of the Golden Eagle was all too brief, I managed only image of this most beautiful of birds. Therefore I still have some unfinished objectives to achieve, I intend to return to this lovely part of Norway and photograph the Golden Eagle again with better luck. Please take a look at my images below and you will see how the weather changed from day to day. My special thanks to my pal Odd and Eli for looking after me so well during my 2 week stay, and to Ole Martin Dahle for his help and hospitality. Norway is a beautiful country in the winter, however I will visit her in the Summer one day when she has her summer dress on.
All the images were taken with a Canon EOS1D MARK 11 and a range of Canon lenses. All images were down loaded in RawShooter then into Photoshop CS2.
