JOURNAL

 

Lofoten — On lines the cold draws

New images from a winter expedition to the Lofoten Islands. Ice forming on the fjords. The cold worked in thin geometries.

 
Fine art wildlife photography „CHAOS“ by Axel Schmidtke – Close-up of an Antarctic seal on pack ice while glacier behind collapse, Sony World Photography Awards 2026 shortlisted.

Shortlisted - Sony World Photography Awards 2026

Chaos, captured in Svalbard, has been selected for the officiall shortlist in the Motion category. The work was exhibited at Somerset House, London.

 

Azores - On light that arrives sideways

Volcanic islands mid-Atlantic. Mist that doesn’t lift - it moves. Light that arives sideways and stays briefly. First visit. Not the last.

 

South Africa - On waiting at a different scale

Animals in their own time, on their own terms. The patience required is the same as anywhere else. What changes is the scale of what you’re waiting for.

 

Svalbard - On light that never stops

Midsummer in the High Arctic. Twenty-four hours of light changes nothing about the quality of waiting. Some moments arrived in the first hour. Others took four days.

 
Icecave Iceland

Iceland - On waiting

South coast in winter. The conditions were as difficult as they were clarifying. Storms that force you to stop - and then, briefly, don’t.

 

Finland - On what remains below minus thirty

Arctic Lapland at its darkest. Below -30, movement reduces to the essential. The landscape stops performing. What remains is what was always there.

 

Australia - On geological silence

Remote beyond what the map suggests. Gorges that took hundreds of millions of years to become what they are. Silence with geological weight.

 

La Réunion - On tension between growth and destruction

An island built by a volcano still active beneath it. The tension between what grows and what destroys is visible in every landscape.

 

Blue Moon Tree - On the simplest decisions

A prominent tree, a setting moon, long glass. Sometimes reduction is the only decision required.

 

Faroe Islands - On three days of rain

Three days of horizontal rain before the light arrived. Worth every hour of waiting.

 

Iceland - On what a place offers without spectacle

A second visit. No aurora, no lava. What Iceland offers without spectacle is often more interesting than what it offers with it.

 
Setting Moon.jpg

Upper Bavaria - On turning around

I was already leaving when I turned around. The mountain was catching the first light. The moon was behind me. Eleven minutes to unpack and decide.

 
Isar morning.jpg

Isar valley - On returning to the same place

-15 degrees, pre-dawn. The same valley I’ve visited many times. Solitude and the cold have a way of restoring clarity.