Ethereum

The Dragon's Eye

Collection

Hugo Korhonen Editions

Creator

Hugo Korhonen

Description

In 2019, I visited Norway for the first time with my dad when I was 16 years old. It was my first photography trip abroad. I couldn't wait to shoot during the midnight sun and I had tons of different spots in my mind. Lofoten is known for many things - one of them being the ever changing weather. The forecast for this one certain night wasn't looking that promising. It predicted heavy rain. After some time, we started seeing the rain in the horizon - but on the other direction - it wasn't raining - so we headed there. Surprisingly - the conditions were fantastic on this beach. There were a lot of people - especially considering it was over midnight by now. Everyone had come to witness this beautiful… sun during midnight - can’t call it sunset or rise. :D It was fun seeing people gather up and take this beautiful moment in together. It was like none of us actually believed this could be happening. I knew I wanted to come to this spot, which had this rock and a pool that looked like a Dragon’s eye. I had dreamt of photographing this for years. But I thought it'd be occupied with photographers... but there was nobody. Heck, I thought I could find it easily just by seeing where most people are at. I guess this wasn't as popular spot as I had imagined. Other photographers were on different spots - very far away from me. The spot is very hard to find amongst the huge rocky beach. There was no sign of course that “hey it’s here!!” I was nervous would I get into the spot whilst we had the gorgeous light. I was struggling to find the spot - and even asked a fellow photographer for help for the first time in English - I was super nervous but he understood me - but he had no idea what spot I was meaning - but eventually, I found it myself - in time. I put my wellies on - and went into the water pool carefully which was quite similar to the pool in the photograph, trying not to slip - once I nearly did. I was standing there with my tripod, filters and the camera. Just me, nature, and this dragon. :D My dad had dropped me off whilst he went to look for a parking place. He’d soon arrive with me. would soon arrive there with me. The conditions were perfect - the best conditions we ended up getting during this whole trip. And on that night - it was supposed to be the worst conditions of the trip. Photographing this wasn’t the easiest thing in the world as (1) you had to be careful not to slip, (2) you had to own certain filters in order to get the shot which otherwise wouldn’t be possible, (3) I was shooting into the sun and one could easily get sun flares into the image. Why did I make this piece you might wonder? I wanted to showcase this rare kind of sight in nature to the world - and to my own audience overall. I wanted to make my own interpretation of the shot. And I found it funny how the pool in the foreground looks like a dragon’s eye lol. - After some time, couple other photographers arrived - thankfully I had got the shot before their arrival and then I moved away to give them a chance to make their own interpretation of the scene in front of them. For the rest of the time, I just admired the scene… until my dad said “Hugo, it’s over 3 AM - we have a long way back - we should go”. :D We had booked a place in Svolvær, which wasn’t super close to the spots I wanted to visit - around an 1-2.5h drive away. After arriving home, we had driven over 4100km/2547 miles. It took us 15h one way to drive from my hometown Kuopio, Finland to Svolvær, and of course 15h back. This trip to Norway remains one of the dearest memories to me. And this shot - always brings me back to the adventures and laughs I had there with my dad.