Exploring in Arctic Norway
Explore Series by Lane Oliveri for Branwyn, : A Travel Friendly Wool Performance Underlayer
As part of an Active Lifestyle Travel series with Branwyn, photographer Lane Oliveri headed 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle to the frigid top of Norway. Explore behind the scenes with us on this shoot.
Lane: “When I put out the casting call for Norway and started to chat with and have models recommended to me, I came across Becca because her boss who owns a Norwegian Brand introduced us. I must admit that I first judged the book by its cover. Branwyn is fantastic because they focus on casting with “real women”, but subsequently I almost dismissed Becca because I was worried the brand might consider her to be too “modely”. However she followed up with me promptly and professionally so we started talking.
There is a sense of peaceful power that emanates from Becca, which I found compelling. A sort of inner calm that is “big” for lack of a better way to say it. Because I had stereotyped her in my mind she surprised me at every turn (it’s a mistake that women ourselves make all too frequently, to typecast another woman for being stereotypically pretty, petite, and blonde).
She is a wilderness guide, specializing in survival skills, making the mountains and woods of Scandinavia her home, taking people trekking out into the wild for weeks at a time.
Every spring when winter lessens its hold on the Nordics, the call of the wild becomes her siren song and she starts to get the itch, making preparations to disappear into the wilderness solo for months at a time, in what she refers to as “her time”, alone with only nature, living off the land.
We talked about what it feels like to return to civilization after weeks in the wild, she said every time, that the best thing is how luxurious it is to have someone else prepare food. To sit down in a restaurant and order food and it’s just so easy. I suppose as compared to finding and preparing food in the wilderness this luxury must be dramatic.
In the wintertime, Becca guides tourist in the Arctic, on various polar excursions. She works with the indigenous Sami people, (reindeer herders of the Lapland region that makes up the top of Norway, Sweden, and Finland) bringing tours to visit the reindeer camps that settle in the mountain just out of town in the winter before moving back into the mountains for the spring and summer.
I realized that Becca was absolutely in every way the person I would love to shoot with while in Norway. A day in her life is exactly the imagery I’d love to capture to bring the beauty of Norway alive and give place to the practicality and performance elements of the Branwyn product. What commenced was an incredibly active photoshoot.
The adventure included taking the ferry to shoot at an Aurora hut perched practically in the fjord. (An aurora hut is a glass version of an ice fishing hut that has been developed to maximize views of the northern lights and immersion in nature). We hiked vertically up into the mountain adjacent where climate change had brought an absurdly early melt, exposing bright green moss between snowbanks. Becca, being the hardened Swede that she is, easily jogged along the tiny wooded path with a precipitous drop below.
Becca was in her element throughout the shoot, nature in the Nordic regions is her playground. With the sun out (before a snowstorm hit the next day) all the Norwegians commented constantly on what a nice warm day it was (a very balmy 36 degrees). In this region the long winter night lasts months and having not seen the sun since last year, they have only had it back for a few weeks. So these days complete with sunrise and sunset, are golden.
We reached our destination, a lookout where we’d been told there was a fire pit, with breathtaking views over the fjord and Becca whipped up a fire in minutes. Later returning to the hut it was nice (particularly for me!) to be cozy and warm, make up some coffees, and partake in that particularly Nordic practice of Hygge.
Staying at the tiny Aurora hut was one of the most magical experiences of my life, from the way the sunrise lit up the surrounding mountains in hues of pink to the tiny ermine that scampered past my wall of windows in its bright white winter coat, to glimpsing the Aurora borealis whisp and unfurl over the fjord at night.
The Aurora hut can make you a little too sun sleepy and lazy, so it was a refreshing wake-up as we shot Branwyn as swim both in the polar plunge concept and finally in maybe the most relaxing end to a photo shoot, in the jacuzzi with the dramatic arctic panorama around us.
Overall, this shoot was a good lesson learned in how often women are typecasted incorrectly. The fact that I had to justify casting a model when she was exactly the right person reminded me to always cast with integrity no matter the concern for what a woman “should” look like. She’s that woman that flexible, sturdy, quality performance wear is made for, (better yet if it doubles as swim)!
Becca was such a breath of fresh air, with no frills, no pretense, and easy and fun to talk to, she lives and breathes the “activewear” adventure woman's life rarely actually captured in magazines or photos. Of course as part of the shoot she took home some Branwyn and she’s excited to bring it in the next time she heads out into the woods.
