Thomas Laupstad

Hi there :) My name is Thomas Laupstad and I recently picked up photography as my favorite activity. I want to show you northern Norway from my point of view. Hope you enjoy the blog!

Photo of Garden Angelica plant on a winter day in Northern Norway

20 Comments / Clouds, Coast, Flora, Garden Angelica, Mountain, Nature, Norway Norwegen Norge, Plant, Sea Ocean, Shore, Sky, Snow, Sunset, Winter /

Photo of Garden Angelica plant on a winter day in Northern Norway
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera December 8th 2007. Click image for larger view.

In this picture you can see a plant called Garden Angelica (Angelica archangelica ssp. litoralis), also known as Holy Ghost, Wild Celery, and Norwegian Angelica, in its winter suit. The plant grows wild in northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, but is also cultivated in France.
Garden angelica is well known to be used as spice, food and medicine here in Norway. Back in the days Sami people and Eskimos used Garden angelica as a way of preventing scurvy.

Check out this other Arctic plant called Roseroot that I photographed a while back.

As you might notice I played with my flash in this picture. I used the flash because there was so little light and I wanted to keep the sunset colors in the horizon. It was taken midday so you can see that we don’t have much light here.

Information about the picture:
Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
Exposure: 0.067 sec (1/15)
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 11-22mm F2.8-3.5
Flash used
Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in Northern Norway

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Picture from the coast in the Northern Norway – Alpenglow in the mountains and clouds

15 Comments / Clouds, Coast, Landscape, Mountain, Nature, Norway Norwegen Norge, Scenery, Sea Ocean, Seaweed, Shore, Snow, Winter /

Picture from the coast in the Northern Norway - Alpenglow in the mountains and clouds
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera December 7th 2007. Click image for larger view.

In this picture, from the coast in Northern Norway, you can see the “Alpenglow” (from German: Alpenglühen) phenomenon on the clouds and mountain peaks. It is a phenomenon that appears as a red glowing band as the sun sets.

Information about the picture:
Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
Exposure: 0.1 sec (1/10)
Aperture: f/11
Focal Length: 22 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 11-22mm F2.8-3.5
Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in northern Norway

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Macro photo of pink primula flowers with water drops

4 Comments / Countryside, Flora, Flower, Macro, Nature, Norway Norwegen Norge, Primula, Spring /

Macro photo of pink primula flowers with water drops
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera May 3rd 2007. Click image for larger view.

Time for a picture from the spring to remind ourselves of warmer times to come 🙂

The Primula got it’s name from the Latin word Primus that means “the first one”. It got it’s name because it is one of the first flowers to blossom in the spring.
The flowers are native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, south into high altitude tropical mountains in Ethiopia, Indonesia and New Guinea, and are also found in temperate southern South America.
There are amazingly 400-500 species of Primula and some of species are called primrose, auricula, cowslip and oxlip. I have just seen a handful, but there are some really nice color combinations out there.

Up here in the north it is a very usual garden flower and it is spreading everywhere. Have you got Primula in your garden? Feel free to leave a comment 🙂

Check out a few other flower pictures I have photographed:

  • Taking pictures while laying in a buttercup meadow
  • Macro photo of kingcup flower
  • Macro photo of forget-me-not flowers


    • Information about the picture:
    Camera: Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
    Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
    Aperture: f/4
    Focal Length: 35 mm
    ISO Speed: 400
    Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm F3.5 Macro
    Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in northern Norway

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    Picture of Norwegian winter mountain with snow blowing off the peaks

    6 Comments / Clouds, Coast, Fjord, Landscape, Mountain, Nature, Norway Norwegen Norge, Scenery, Sea Ocean, Shore, Sky, Snow, Winter /

    CPicture of Norwegian winter mountain with snow blowing off the peaks
    Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera November 28th 2007. Click image for larger view.

    The dark season is definitely here with very little light during the day. The weather has been mostly boring with overcast almost every day, but on this day the sky was clear. There was some nice blue tones to be seen such as in this picture.
    If you look at the photo in large format you can see the wind blowing snow off the mountain peaks. Must be extremely cold on top of those mountains (they are located on an island called Grytøya) 😉

    You can see the same mountains here, but in an early spring scene.

    Information about the picture:
    Camera: Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
    Exposure: 0.25 sec (1/4)
    Aperture: f/11
    Focal Length: 92 mm
    ISO Speed: 100
    Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 40-150mm F3.5-4.5
    Location: From Ånstad (Andørja) viewing Grytøya, Troms in northern Norway

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    Picture of polar night sunrise in Northern Norway

    22 Comments / Clouds, Landscape, Mountain, Nature, Norway Norwegen Norge, Scenery, Sky, Snow, Sunrise, Winter /

    Picture of polar night sunrise in Northern Norway
    Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera November 28th 2007. Click image for larger view.

    I captured this picture, of the “sunrise”, at 10:30 AM. I guess it’s technically not a sunrise because we have polar night right now so the sun never rises above the horizon. Nice to see some signs of the sun during the dark season 🙂

    Information about the picture:
    Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
    Exposure: 0.067 sec (1/15)
    Aperture: f/11
    Focal Length: 22 mm
    ISO Speed: 100
    Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 11-22mm F2.8-3.5
    Location: Ånstad (Andørja), Troms in northern Norway

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