Astralis Productions moves to Greenland
Astralis Productions was born out of inspiration from remote arctic nature and the aurora. I’ve now spent 5 years in Denmark during which I released Beneath the Aurora, but couldn’t shoot any new production-quality footage – something I’ve missed a lot. So I’m very happy to announce that I grabbed the opportunity to move to Greenland, where I just started as a high school teacher in Sisimiut.
Sisimiut is located on the west coast of Greenland just north of the arctic circle and 160km/100mi from the ice sheet. That is just about the farthest you can get from the ice sheet in Greenland at all, and it is access point to the largest backcountry area in Greenland. You’ll have to go by boat, snowmachine, dog sled or foot/ski to enjoy it though as there are no roads outside a few miles from Sisimiut.
Because the magnetic pole tilts towards Greenland, Sisimiut is much farther north magnetically than I was shooting footage in Alaska. In fact, in Greenland it is opposite to (almost) everywhere else in the northern hemisphere: The farther south you go, the better the aurora (generally). I’m quite curious to see how frequent the aurora appears and in what ways it is different from the aurora farther south, but having just had my first glimpse of the aurora last night I can already say that there will be plenty of opportunities to shoot great footage – if only I can find the time for it.
I’m here as a teacher first, photographer second. I expect at least the first year of teaching to be very demanding, and I also need a lot of equipment I don’t have money for yet, so there’s no new film right around the corner. I’m hoping to gradually start to collect footage that could be used in a production down the road – perhaps in a few years time.
Meanwhile I’ll use this blog as a more personal outlet for posting stories and photos to share with family and friends – but anyone interested is of course welcome to tag along and see what I’m up to here in Sisimiut.