Behind the Scenes of a 4-Day Winter Wildlife Shoot in the Norwegian Wilderness

It can be difficult to consistently push yourself to achieve more, but Morten Hilmer manages it. In this video, he ventures out into the Norwegian wilderness for days on end to capture the local wildlife in grueling conditions.

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YouTube is full of photography and videography-related content creators. It's a saturated market at this point and it's difficult to find true gems in the rough. There is an almost unwatchable amount of good content, but relatively small amounts of great content. For me, Morten Hilmer's excursions and BTS are comfortably the latter.

I have done photoshoots in some pretty testing conditions; from rainforests with suffocating humidity, to — like this video — far-flung stretches of Norway in the brutal winter. One shoot that was one of the most enjoyable I have ever done was in the Norwegian countryside and it was unambiguously the coldest I have ever been. It was snowing, there wasn't much light, and the temperature was deep into the minuses. I found it difficult to function a lot of the time, but when I look back at the images, they seem tranquil. This video by Hilmer is the first I've seen (other close examples have also been by him) that really captured the freezing chaos. There's unparalleled beauty, but you have to endure conditions that at times feel completely untenable.

If you would like a real sense of what it's like to shoot in the freezing cold wilderness, this video is for you.