Senja - Hidden Norway

Norway’s sec­ond biggest island is approx­i­mate­ly 450 kilo­me­tres fur­ther north into the Arc­tic Cir­cle and is affec­tion­ate­ly known as Nor­way in minia­ture. The south­ern part of the island and the areas sur­round­ing Stong­land­sei­det, Vester­f­jell and Vangsvik boast low lying gen­tle hills inter­spersed with long fjords pop­u­lat­ed by small fish­ing set­tle­ments and vil­lages. As you ven­ture fur­ther north in Sen­ja the land­scape changes dra­mat­i­cal­ly and it is this area where we will focus our atten­tion dur­ing this incred­i­bly excit­ing win­ter workshop.

Dur­ing this pho­tog­ra­phy work­shop, we will be based in the ancient fish­ing vil­lage of Hamn, and from here we will explore no less than nine penin­su­las that exist tight­ly togeth­er, accessed only by moun­tain pass­es and a series of tun­nels. Around each bend, and through each tun­nel you expe­ri­ence a dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ment con­sist­ing of stun­ning fjord views with jagged moun­tains that rise out of the sea, and often nes­tled at the base of the moun­tains are tra­di­tion­al Nor­we­gian ham­lets with old red wood­en huts and jet­ties from which small fish­ing boats are launched.

Dur­ing our work­shop we will vis­it Ska­land with its views over to the mighty moun­tains of Bergsoy­an, Stien­fjord and Ers­ford­stran­da with its open beach that offers a per­fect van­tage point to pho­to­graph the dis­tant moun­tains. No trip to Sen­ja would be com­plete with­out explor­ing the plateaus of rock at Tun­ge­ne­set, where in the dis­tance we will see the omi­nous crag­gy spires of Oksen, Staven and Ram­nen as they jut-out of Eris­fjor­den, com­mon­ly known as ​“The Dev­ils Teeth”. Anoth­er ​‘must-see’ is the view above Bergs­botn from the switch­backs of the steep moun­tain pass. Here you can walk out onto the 44 metre view­ing plat­form that shows the vast scale of this island and its inter­lock­ing fjords.

Fur­ther south we take the road from Hamn across the high open plateau and over the moun­tain pass above Grylle­fjord where the almost ver­ti­cal sides of Sturen and Bukketinden drop abrupt­ly into the waters below. To the north our jour­ney will take us through the small town of Sen­ja­hopen and the tiny road that hugs the side of Mefjor­den end­ing at Mefjord­vaer. As we con­tin­ue north we explore the old fish­ing ham­let of Husoy where all its inhab­i­tants are perched on this tiny island with an array of dif­fer­ent coloured hous­es and breath tak­ing views north and south of Oyfjor­dan towards the grandeur of the Ytste Kon­gen and Skultran.

Along with the high moun­tain views and intri­cate series of fjords, the oth­er qual­i­ty that makes Sen­ja so dif­fer­ent from Lofoten is the vast swathes of stunt­ed and weath­ered trees that occu­py the south­ern flanks of the moun­tains. High in these moun­tains, snow is often pris­tine, and these trees offer count­less oppor­tu­ni­ties to explore min­i­mal­ist pho­tog­ra­phy in a land­scape that is not dis­sim­i­lar from Hokkai­do in Japan.

The aim of this work­shop is to expe­ri­ence the very essence of an Arc­tic win­ter with all is splen­dours but also seek out how you as an indi­vid­ual pho­tog­ra­ph­er reacts and ​‘sees’ this won­der­ful land­scape. Of course there will be many clas­sic shots to be cel­e­brat­ed, but there will plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to go beyond this and we want to help you devel­op you own indi­vid­ual expres­sion from being here.

If you have vis­it­ed Lofoten and want to explore a land­scape that we believe is as equal­ly awe-inspir­ing, deep­er into the arc­tic regions, and in the grip of a beau­ti­ful win­ter, then Sen­ja will not disappoint.