Last night we had the biggest blizzard on the Lofoten islands (read Blizzard, not Lizzard!). It was so bad, that there was zero visibility on the roads and there were a few moments when I had to stop the car in the middle of the road, because I simply couldn't see where I was going.

Needless to say, my flight and the following three other ones got cancelled. I've been to Lofoten a few times now, always in Winter, and not had any cancellations, but even the locals were saying the weather conditions were something else last night.

So I'm stranded here in Norway until Thursday, and will be spending a lot of free time roaming around Bodo, which seems like a nice town (i've only ever seen it in the dead of night when coming in from Oslo en-route to Lofoten).

But if you're reading this and thinking 'sounds terrible', then you should also consider that the reason why the Lofoten is so amazing to photograph in winter, is precisely because of the dramatic shifts in the weather. If you want to shoot dramatic light, then you have to do it at the edge of a storm, and storms mean bad weather. They also mean unpredictable weather, and it's this unpredictability that you have to accept (and to some degree - hope for). Things won't always go according to plan and having an open mind to this, and the surprises it might give to your photography is a start, but you also have to consider you might not get home on time either.

So if you are considering going anywhere like Lofoten in winter time (maybe Alaska, or even the Scottish Highlands), it's always worth giving yourself plenty of contingency time to change flights if need be.

We've become too used to having things work on time, and in my own case, I've just been reminded that nature does not conform to timetables.