It’s #TravelTuesday and I, Dave Williams, am here as always. This week it’s really me, I promise, not AI Dave from last week! I’m reporting to you from Finnish Lapland where I arrived just two days ago, over 2,000 miles from where I set off in the UK for my 80 day mission in the Arctic. Here’s what’s happened so far: –
After driving from the UK through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark all in one go to get to Hirtshals (where I chilled on the beach) I caught a ferry over to Larvik, Norway. I arrived at about 2am in the middle of a storm that carried it’s own weather warning. My windshield was hammered by a wet snow that instantly froze on contact, leaving a layer of ice and blocking my view. It wasn’t fun and I found somewhere to stop for the night as soon as I could before heading through to Sweden the following morning. The frozen forests of internal Sweden were beautiful but my goal was to get to the E4, the highway that runs up Sweden’s east coast and into Finland. I arrived into Finland, crossed the Arctic Circle and went into Lapland where I found an unnecessarily large reindeer statue.
My plan is to hang around here for a few days to rest from all the driving and hang out with some friends. Last night it all got real and this happened: –
This is an iPhone shot, edited in Adobe Lightroom Mobile, and the reason I wanted to show you this particular shot is because it demonstrates the power of mobile photography, but also because I want you to see behind the scenes of what I’m up to as well as the curated version. In front of my van is my main still camera, Nikon Z 6 with a 14-24mm f2.8, on a 3 Legged Thing Jay.
For this trip I made contact with a few other brands to let them know what I’m up to and I’ll be testing and showcasing some other cameras and lenses, which I’m sure you’ll be interested to see. The reviews will appear in Photoshop User as well as in my blog and YouTube channel. Sigma have given me their FP L camera and 20mm f1.4, as well as the same lens for my Sony A7Siii (and a 150-600mm), and Insta360 have given me the Insta360 One RS 1-inch 360 edition to see if it can be used to capture the aurora in 360˚ video. I’ll keep you posted right here as well as on my own channels!
So this post today is more of an update. You can follow along on my socials as always and I think it’s only fitting to sign of with these words: –
Once in a lifetime as often as you can.
Much love
Dave
