Nordic Waterfalls
Expecting to be dazzled by the Northern Lights, I was charmed instead by waterfalls and rainbows
A few days ago I was on a Zoom call with more people. When asked, one of them who is a photographer said he was working in Lofoten at the time. He then added that it was cold, but so beautiful there. No sooner had the man ended saying this particular name than I began a tour down memory lane.
Lofoten is an archipelago in Norway I visited in 2016. It has a very dramatic landscape that looks like it has been teleported straight from another planet. Better yet, make that another dimension. I have not visited Iceland until now, but I imagine it to have the same otherworldly feel to it as this place.
I went there with great expectations: to see the Northern lights. Even though I witnessed the phenomenon a few times, the colours were always far from being as intense as in the pictures. The Aurora seemed more like a light milky green cloud or fog or foam of sorts. All this made me wonder if the shades we see in photos are not in fact ISO effects.
The vague shifty clouds made everything around seem eerie nonetheless. They made one expect trolls or other fantastic local creatures to lurk from the shadows at all times. I could not help but think that the borders between fact and fiction seemed rather blurred there.
I had bought a DSLR a few weeks before this trip and no matter how much I fumbled with it, I was not able to take any decent photo of the elusive lights. More than that, the camera from my phone was too bad back then to be able to capture anything in poor light.
Even though I was slightly disappointed with this particular Northern show, other things really impressed me there. There were waterfalls everywhere and I could see two or three amazing rainbows every single day.
My DSLR fell short when it came to capturing the beauty of water falling and flowing as well. Instead of wasting time being frustrated with this, I just considered it a nudge to be more present from a certain point on. To rather pay more attention to everything around me than constantly think about my next shot.
This must be one of the reasons why my memories from that trip are as vivid in my mind as if they happened yesterday. Thanks to not mastering my camera settings I ended up experiencing everything more intensely. All my senses were inebriated with everything I was taking in. This must be one of the reasons why the word Lofoten instantly surges my mind with nostalgia.
The sound of water finding its way through the cracks while birds were singing all around was really special. It was all soothing and it put my mind at rest. Photos could not have captured that, of course. They could not have immortalized the smell of moss and wet grass that was all around either.
Washing my hands in the cold water and feeling its splashes on my skin was priceless. This jolted me to the now time and again, reminding me to enjoy the moment.
As Heraclitus put it, we don’t step in the same rivers twice, so the Universe made sure I was fully there when I had the chance to cross these particular ones. Or to be more precise, when I was given the chance to get the icy touch of their waters on the skin of my hands. I might not have photos of them, but they sure were etched in my mind.
Many of the streams I saw looked like long locks of hair spread on the ground. From a distance, it seemed as if the gigantic local nymphs were having a competition. They were all displaying their silvery tresses on all the cliffs and hills. These were getting caught among rocks and bushes. Even though slightly disheveled, they were all gorgeous to look at.
By the end of the trip, I lost count of how many waterfalls I saw. They were around almost every corner. Even though I was slightly disappointed with the Northern Lights show on display, seeing all these waterfalls sure made up for it.
This article was written as part of the March challenge on waterfalls at Globetrotters.
Both Michele Maize and JoAnn Ryan wrote wonderful articles on the same theme:
