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The black grouse lek is one of spring’s great wildlife spectacles. Time is often scarce in wildlife photography – but on a black grouse lek, the birds can stay for hours . That offers a rare opportunity to work with different angles and new image ideas. Here are some tips to capture the Black grouse lek with creativity. There is something special about spring in the forest of Norway. The landscape has been asleep for months. A layer of snow covers the ground vegetation, and o

By Marlene & Benedikt When we think of Svalbard, we picture endless ice, jagged mountains, and the chance to photograph some of the Arctic’s most iconic wildlife. In late April and early May 2025, we returned to this remarkable archipelago with Photo Tours Norway  and guide Floris Smeets , to experience the transition between the end of Arctic winter and the beginning of Arctic spring. It wasn’t our first trip with Floris. We had already joined him for the Musk Ox in Winter C

A Winter Journey Among Musk Oxen — By Claudiu Falub, August 2025 There are places where the world feels untouched by time. Where the wind doesn’t merely blow—it sculpts the land, carries whispers older than memory, and carves silence into the vastness. I’ve always been drawn to these places. Not for the sake of adventure, but for the stillness they offer. Nordic winters, with their cold light and infinite horizons, have long held a quiet pull on my imagination. “Mirrored Wave

Elusive, mystical and majestic – owls are high on many photographers wish lists for good reason. This summer, we brought five groups of photographers with us to experience and photograph the owls of the boreal forest. It is still dark outside. The high beams light up the forest road, and a light drizzle of rain hits the windshield softly. The crisp air of this early April morning wakes me up instantly as I step out of the car. The first day of scouting is always filled with e

Sony a7RV, Sony 400mm f2.8 @ 400mm, f5, ISO 800, 1/1250s Sony just announced the successor of the a7RIV, the a7RV. While it will still take some time until this camera will be available in the stores, Sony gave me the opportunity to test this camera out in the field for a week. During that week I used the camera to photograph a hazel grouse, a pygmy owl, musk-oxen and lots of wild reindeer. Here are my most important findings from using the camera purely for wildlife photogra

With mixed emotions I went through this year’s grouse lekking season. Due to the COVID-19 situation, all bookings for my black grouse and capercaillie hides were cancelled. Since the grouse season accounts for a large part of my yearly income, I was stressed out and was feeling quite down in the start of the season. Luckily, I decided to prepare the season just like any other year. I set up a few hides on the leks and placed camera traps on the capercaillie lek to keep track

One of my groups photographing northern light on Senja. Sony a7s, Sony 16-35mm f2.8 @ 16mm, f2.8, ISO 8000, 1.6s A few days ago I returned home after leading the last photo tour of this year's winter season. In total I led 7 photo tours for 7 different enthusiastic groups with participants from America, England, Shetland Islands, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Switzerland. It was great to welcome back some of my previous guests but also very warming to

At the moment I'm in the north of Norway on the island Senja for photographing landscapes and northern lights. We already had some great chances to photograph earlier today. But now the weather has changed and it really has no use to go out with the cameras at the moment. This gives me some time to write a trip report about the last "musk-oxen in winter conditions" tour of this winter season, which I guided earlier this week. A week prior the start of this tour, it has been

A bit delayed, but here is the trip report of the second "Frozen Lofoten" tour. I find nature photography so interesting because the nature is always changing, which provides new opportunities and possibilities continuously. Also now Mother Nature has shown us again how rapidly things can change. During the first Frozen Lofoten tour we had snowfall every day, heavy winds, temperatures down to -14 degrees Celsius and the sun almost never showed itself. But between returning t

Yesterday, the 3rd tour of the winter season came to an end. In a few hours we will pick up our next group, with who we will run the same tour again. I do not have much time to write this trip report, so it will be a short one again. "Frozen Lofoten" is an intensive photography workshop tour, focused on landscape, northern light and abstract photography. Together with Marijn Heuts, I run this tour every year in the end of February and the start of March. We only take small g