I’m a swim film festival fan, and I love this short video, The Arctic Light captured by TSO Photography. It’s a little off-topic, but, if you’re like me and always gravitate to water, you’ll appreciate it.
If you have an interesting or beautiful swimming-related video, please submit to Gold Medal Mel Stewart at swimswam to be featured. We appreciate all points of view on pools, lakes, rivers and oceans. Please include a little background on why you captured the video and the equipment you used (cameras, lens, editing software, etc.). Feel free to add your own story as well.
FROM TSO PHOTOGRAPHY: This was filmed between 29th April and 10th May 2011 in the Arctic, on
the archipelago Lofoten in Norway.
My favorite natural phenomenon is one I do not even know the name of, even after talking to meteorologists and astrophysicists I am none the wiser.What I am talking about I have decided to call The Arctic Light and it is a natural phenomenon occurring 2-4 weeks before you can see the Midnight Sun.
The Sunset and Sunrise are connected in one magnificent show of color and light lasting from 8 to 12 hours. The sun is barely going below the horizon before coming up again. This is the most colorful light that I know, and the main reason I have been going up there for the last 4 years, at the exact
same time of year, to photograph. Based on previous experience, I knew this was going to be a very
difficult trip. Having lost a couple of cameras and some other equipment up there before, it was crucial to bring an extra set of everything. I also
made sure I had plenty of time in case something went wrong.
If you can imagine roping down mountain cliffs, or jumping around on slippery rocks covered in seaweed with 2 tripods, a rail, a controller,
camera, lenses, filters and rigging for 4-5 hour long sequences at a time, and then
having to calculate the rise and fall of the tides in order to capture the essence – it all proved bit of a challenge.
And almost as if planned, the trip would turn out to become very
difficult indeed. I had numerous setbacks including: airline lost my
luggage, struggling to swim ashore after falling into the Arctic sea: twice, breaking lenses, filters, tripod, computer, losing the whole dolly rig and controller into the sea, and even falling off a rather tall rock and ending
up in the hospital. As much as I wanted to give up, the best way Out is
always “Through”. I am glad I stuck it through though because there were some amazing sunrises waiting. At 1:06 you see a single scene from day to night to day which is from 9pm to 7am. Think about that for a minute.. 10 hours with light like that.
I asked the very talented Marika Takeuchi to specifically compose and
perform a song for this movie, and what she came up with is absolutely remarkable. Thank you very much Marika!
Available in Digital Cinema 4k
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Music: “The Arctic Light” by Marika Takeuchi
on.fb.me/kOezbO
Buy it on iTunes
itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-arctic-light/id445751308?i=445751313
huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/01/arctic-light-time-lapse-video_n_869054.html
Thank you to my sponsors:
canon.com/
dynamicperception.com/
g-technology.eu/
fstopgear.com/
and to my friend Geir Nøtnes for all the help.
