Honorable Mention / 2024 / Nature / Landscape

Polar Night in Uummannaq

The town of Uummannaq is a small island of around 1400 people located in the northern parts of Greenland at a latitude of nearly 71 degrees north. During the winter the sun is nowhere to be seen, but the skies aren't just black either. In the daytime the skies are painted in pastel pink colors known as the belt of venus and when the stars begin to be visible, one might find the northern lights dancing all over the sky.

Dennis Lehtonen is an adventurer of the polar regions, living the nomadic lifestyle by moving to unusual locations frequently and living with strangers. Dennis has spent three years in the northernmost parts of Finland and two years in Greenland with plans to take the adventures to the remote parts of arctic Canada, Siberia and Alaska in the future.

Dennis got into this type of lifestyle when he first found out about the world of astronomy by watching a video of a man capturing Saturn from his backyard. Amazed by this, Dennis got into astrophotography which evolved into aurora phot