Arctic Light: The Winter Transition 

This gallery contains images made from mid-February to mid-March in 2020 in the high Arctic Norwegian archipelago, Svalbard, Northernmost Norway, located some 700 miles from the North Pole.  The objective of the project was to capture the light as it transitions from the end of the dark Polar Winter into what is called the Sunny Winter.  This project stems from interests in learning more about the properties of light and this location at that time of year is effectively on the edge of it.  This “edge of light” location allows for the subtleties to reveal the basic ingredients in light that are lost when the sun is more prominent.  In retrospect, being in this location at this time of year is similar to those few moments of twilight we experience in more normal latitudes, yet in the Arctic this special light could extend much of the day. What was unexpected is the importance or influence the extreme cold temperatures have on the atmosphere and on the light that passes through the frozen particles.

This transitional light period can be described as that time when the sun begins its return above the horizon, after over three months being below that plunges the high Arctic into darkness. On February 16 each year, a sliver of sun appears over the horizon for a brief few minutes and each subsequent day it rises higher to add about 30 minutes of light each day. When it arrives at the beginning of the Sunny Winter in early March, it is fully above the horizon for what we might consider a normal daylight day.  Within a few weeks following that, it achieves the point when it no longer sets or goes below the horizon for 24 hours, this being the Midnight Sun period starting in mid-April and lasting through the Summer into mid-August.  Technically Svalbard has three seasons, Polar Winter, Sunny Winter, and Summer.  What mainlander Norwegians and the rest of the world consider to be spring months are still very cold in Svalbard; spring is does not exist at 78-degrees north.

Svalbard is the most northerly inhabited place on earth, boasting some 2,500 residents and roughly as many polar bears.  While having seen images and read about it, but not having experienced this remote place or its light, I was expecting the period between the Polar Winter and the Sunny winter to be this slow reveal of light in an otherwise dark day and night.  While I was correct in some ways and to some degree, I could not be prepared for the qualities the atmosphere contributed to the light from the hesitant sun.  The largely constant sub-zero temperatures combined with the frozen moisture in the atmosphere resulted in this soft light, which for the most part created little contrast due to light be refracted and reflected all around.  At times it was like being inside a light bulb or source light.  Adding to the interest or even mystery, the sun did not rise in the east and set in the west, it was always in the south, and due to the mountainous terrain of the islands it was not until the end of my time there in mid-March, that it was high enough in the sky for me to see it directly.