Surfing
Mick Fanning: Northern Lights, camera, action!
Sneak backstage to see how Mick Fanning’s incredible Northern Lights adventure came together.
2 min
Mick Fanning: Northern Lights, camera, action!
Sneak backstage to see how Mick Fanning’s incredible Northern Lights adventure came together.
Hopefully by now you've seen the incredible imagery created when Mick Fanningwent to Norway and surfed beneath the spectacular Northern Lights. The shoot took place in Lofoten, a far flung speck of a town on Norway's smashed plate of a coastlne. The surf is consistent, the aurora borealis is anything but.
Fanning teamed up with Norwegian photographers Emil Sollie and Mats Grimsæth as they sought to capture that one elusive moment of surfer and natural phenomenon squaring off, and no one ever said that was going to be easy.
Show up and glow up
© Mats Grimsæth
Afternoon aerials in the rapidly fading light
© Mats Grimsæth
Black and white lightning
© Emil Sollie
“Think warm thoughts, think warm thoughts...”
© Emil Sollie
Fanning and the film and photo crew camped on the beach to monitor the sky for signs of polar light, and give the team as much time as possible to strike once the green glow came out to play. Sub-zero temperatures and tents don't make for friendly bed fellows, but neither does surfing in such conditions, and the will to succeed was suitably strong that every hurdle was taken comfortably in stride.
After venturing to Alaska earlier in the year, Fanning has seen enough icebath surfing to last a lifetime, but mother nature's fireworks added an element that he'll find hard to top for the rest of his days.
Photos in the can, the team headed for the relative warmth of Oslo to thaw out, rejoin society, and reflect on a once in a lifetime experience. Job well done.
#SurfingNorthernLights