This Lofoten winter photography workshop is seven nights in Norway's Lofoten Islands, February 25 to March 3, 2028, led by me with local guides who live and work in the islands. If you shoot landscapes and you've wanted snow on the mountains, the sea and the northern lights in one week, it's built for you, because late February is when Lofoten has deep winter snow, longer days than January and long dark nights for the aurora.
It's a small group of six to ten photographers and costs $6,900. Here's what this page covers: how the week runs, what the Lofoten Islands look like in late winter, how I teach the northern lights and the landscape, what's included in the price, and what to bring.
The Workshop
$6,900 per person, shared room
A $1,725 deposit reserves your spot
Dates
February 25 to March 3, 2028, seven nights
Group
Six to ten photographers
Single Room
$7,400 with a $1,850 deposit
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The Week
This is the same route I ran in October 2025, all of it in Lofoten. The actual plan shifts day to day with the weather, the light and the tides, but these are the anchor stops the week rotates through: Reine, Hamnøy and Sakrisøy in the south, the beaches at Uttakleiv and Skagsanden, and fjords like Mærvoll and Solbjørn on Vestvågøy.
Arrival, February 24, 2028:Fly into Harstad/Narvik Evenes Airport (EVE) the day before the workshop starts and book your own room in Narvik that night. The journey out to the islands starts the next morning.
February 25 to March 3:Seven nights in fishermen's cabins and hotels across the Lofoten Islands, with each day planned around the weather and the light.
Departure, March 4, 2028:Fly home from Evenes (EVE).
The Lofoten Islands in Winter
The Lofoten archipelago sits off the coast of Northern Norway, well above the Arctic Circle, and they're about as close to a photographer's paradise as I've found outside of Alaska. The mountains rise almost straight out of the sea, so you get towering mountains, rugged coastlines and dramatic seascapes in the same frame, and in winter all of it has snow on it. We'll work the fjords too, where the water is calm enough for reflections of the peaks, and a lot of the week is about being in the right location when the light shows up. If you've photographed Iceland in winter, Lofoten has a lot of the same feel, with the mountains packed much closer to the sea.
Lofoten's best-known winter locations are the traditional fishing villages and the beaches. Reine and Hamnøy are the villages most people picture, with red fishermen's cabins sitting on the water under the peaks and Olstind reflecting in Reinefjord, and Sakrisøy, between them, has the ochre and yellow cabins. Nusfjord is one of the oldest fishing villages in the islands. On the outer coast, beaches like Skagsanden beach, Uttakleiv and Haukland have golden sand running straight into the Arctic Ocean, and in winter the waves, the snow on the sand and the reflections in the wet beach give you a lot to work with. Which of these we shoot, and when, depends on the weather and on what we're seeing that morning, and there are a few favorite places along the way that most visitors never find.
What makes the light here different is the latitude. In late winter the sun stays low in the sky all day, so the golden hour and the blue hour stretch out much longer than you're used to at home, and the light on the snow and the mountains can stay good for hours instead of minutes. Storms and rain roll through and clear skies follow, and some of the most amazing light of the week comes right as a storm is breaking up, so every change in the weather is another photographic opportunity.
Northern Lights in Lofoten
The aurora borealis is the other reason people come to Lofoten in winter. The auroral oval is the ring around the top of the earth where the aurora is most active, and the Lofoten Islands sit at about the 68th parallel, which puts them under it instead of south of it. That matters, because when the aurora is active here it can be right overhead and not just a glow low on the northern horizon. It also means a low Kp number doesn't rule out a good night. I get asked about Kp on every aurora trip I run in Alaska, and at this latitude it just isn't the number to watch. Clear skies are what matter, and a lot of our night planning is chasing clear sky, the same way I do it at home in Alaska.
I can't promise the aurora on any given night, and nobody honestly can. What I can tell you is that late February and early March give you long nights under the oval, we go out when it's clear, and we know which spots have open sky to the north.
Snow changes how you photograph the aurora. A bright display lights the foreground on its own, and the snow reflects that light back, so the mountains and the beach hold detail even without the moon. If the moon is up, it lights the whole landscape and lets you shoot shorter exposures at a lower ISO, and if it's down, faint displays stand out more against a dark sky. I'll show you how to use both.
How I Teach in the Field
Most of the teaching happens on location, with my camera set down next to yours, and we also sit down for classroom sessions indoors when the weather shuts us down or between shoots, so the field work and the classroom work build on each other. For the aurora I start people at ISO 1600 to 3200 with a wide-open aperture and long exposure times somewhere around 5 to 25 seconds, and then we adjust shutter speed to how fast the aurora is moving, because a fast display needs a shorter exposure to keep its shape. You need a camera with manual control, because the camera settings are on you, and I'll go over manual focus at night too, since autofocus can't lock on anything in the dark.
During the day the work is composition and exposure in conditions that change fast. A snowy beach with bright sky and dark rock is a hard exposure, and moving water at the shoreline gives you a choice between freezing a wave and letting it blur, so a lot of what I teach is picking the shutter speed for the picture you want. Participants learn to adapt to the weather instead of fighting it, and with six to ten photographers there's always someone close by when the light is good, so everyone builds real knowledge in the field instead of just a card full of shots.
Who This Workshop Is For
This Lofoten winter photography workshop is for intermediate and advanced landscape photographers who know their camera and want to work on winter landscapes and the northern lights in one of the best places in the world to do it. It isn't a travel photography trip where you grab what you can from a bus window. It's a week built around being out in the wild, in the right light, with people who share the same passion for it. You should be able to change settings without looking at your camera, and I'll help you with the rest.
Physically it's easy, but you'll be standing on snow and ice in the wind for a while at a time, so how you dress matters more than how fit you are.
Camera Gear and What to Bring
You don't need a particular camera, but plan on bringing the following gear. You need a DSLR or mirrorless body with manual control. A wide-angle lens does most of the work here, something in the 16-35mm or 14-24mm range, and a fast wide lens helps a lot for the aurora. A mid-range zoom or a short telephoto is worth bringing for picking out details in the mountains and any sea birds we come across along the coast.
A sturdy tripod is essential, because it's windy on the coast and a light tripod will shake through a long exposure. Bring extra batteries, more than you think you'll need, because cold drains them fast and night photography eats them. A remote shutter release, a headlamp with a red light, and lens cloths for spray and snow round out the camera bag.
For yourself, layering clothing is what keeps you warm in Arctic conditions. You'll want a warm base layer, an insulated middle layer and a windproof, waterproof shell on top, plus warm gloves you can work a camera in. Waterproof boots matter for shooting along the shoreline, where the snow and the waves meet, and traction spikes help on icy rock. A complete packing list will be sent after you register.
About Michael
I'm a lifelong Alaskan and a professional photographer, and I've spent more than two decades photographing Alaska, including a lot of nights under the aurora. Photographing the aurora has been a big part of my life in Alaska, and it's still where a lot of my inspiration comes from. Face The Outdoors has been featured in National Geographic. I've already led a group through these same islands, so I know how the week runs and where the frames are, and you come home with the frame and a week you won't forget. You can read about our last trip in my Lofoten Islands trip report, and my Lofoten Islands photography guide has more on the locations.
