Description

80 Degrees North – Premium Limited Fine Art Photography Print of Svalbard’s Majestic Landscape

At 80 degrees north, at the northernmost corner of Spitsbergen the sun never sets from April to September. During the course of 24 hours it draws a low circle over the horizon. Even at midnight the sun is still high. It feels strange to us southerners when there is no distinction between day at night. I sometimes stayed up many hours during the night when the light is warmer and the sea calmer. It is hard to describe the feeling one experiences in a place so remote and so different from our normal surroundings. Here nature still rules – not humans!

Vast parts of Svalbard are covered under permanent ice. Gigantic glaciers have carved deep fjords into the mountains and are breaking off at the front when they advance, giving birth to icebergs of all shapes and sizes. For me Svalbard is one of the last unspoiled nature paradises on earth where the severe elements of nature have inhibited dense human population.

The island group is also a photographer’s dream, the weather changing from day to day offering a variety of moody landscapes for dramatic images. Svalbard is also one of the best places in the Arctic where one can see polar bears. The polar bear population in the Svalbard archipelago and Barents Sea is around 3,000, which exceeds the human population. In August 2015, a survey of the Norwegian subpopulation estimated almost 1000 polar bears. Of these a little less than 300 were located in Svalbard – most of them close to the ice edge.

80 Degrees North is part of my Svalbard photography art collection. Please check out some of the others: Arctic Dreams, Blue Ice