Autumn on fire !!

Back home from a week in Norway, visiting Dovrefjell, Rondane and Forrolhogna National Parks in search of Musk oxen, wild rendeer and moose in the autumn setting.

The real eye-catcher indeed were the awesome colors of the landscape; with all the yellow turned leaves still on the trees the view was terrific and worth a shot all the way. As a bonus the last three days we had some snow what made it even more unbelievably beautiful.

We were lucky with the musk oxen in Dovrefjell: we found animals not far from the road. Things can be different: as you know all has to be done walking and with only about 300 oxen in a park of about 2000 square km it can be hard work.

To find the rendeer on the contrary was indeed hard work; they are extremely shy and you got to have a skilled guide (like Floris Smeets in our case) to work out a strategy to approach them within photo distance. In Dovre we found a herd of about 150 animals. It took us quite a few hours of stalking as the wind was not in favor and also the terrain was not in favor as it gave us little cover. As a bonus (or rather a malus) we had to cross a river barefoot twice. Sadly our second approach attempt after the herd moved to another location was ruined by other (stupid) photographers who went straight to the herd and chased them of course.

It has been a week I enjoyed very much, being in wild remote places, walking in landscapes without visible human interference (no roads, no electricity wires etc.) and feel the tension of an encounters with wild animals. I'll be back!

For more pictures you should go to the 'Norway autumn' on my website https://www.julienherremansphotography.com

Enjoy!