Somehow landscape photography is always full of surprises. Every now and then something unexpected happens. Most of the time it’s just the weather turning bad just an hour before the best light after having a beautiful, occasionally though, something surprisingly nice happens. In the beginning of the year it was a group of whales slowly passing by in the fjord in front of us. Last year it were seals, and this year I got unexpected company by a cute little fox.

I have been strolling along the coast west of the city Vardø, in the very north of Norway the whole day already. A 30km long and narrow road along the coast. In the beginning of the day, I had been trying to resist against the heavy conditions, and once it cleared up, I had been looking for locations and vantage points. I spent the whole day waiting for the conditions to change and the chance to finally to do some photography.

On the what felt like the 10th pass along this road, I stopped to explore a certain viewpoint when I spotted this little fox approaching the car from the front.

Looking rather curious at me, he passed and continued his path. Once he disappeared behind me I get out of the car to explore the area. It was this moment when he returned again and started looking with curiosity at me. One could see the expression “What the heck he’s doing here?” in his face.

Carefully I pulled out my camera and changed to my 70-200mm lens, as this is an opportunity that I didn’t wanted to miss. Trying to be calm to not scare him away, I approach him by a few meters. It turns out, that this really wasn’t so necessary. This little fellow is appears to be too curious to be afraid of me and the lens.

While he comes closer faster, I capture a few photographs, and quickly realize that I’m not used to do wildlife photography, aside the fact that he doesn’t appear to be too wild. Occasionally he holds on a little for a quick posing, and then disappears in the rocks next to the car only to pop up every now and then, to see what I’m doing there. I manage to capture a few fairly useable photographs when he finally disappears for good in the mountains.

It was a lovely and fun moment with this young and cute little fox and I continue searching for locations along the road. The evening will continue still for a few hours before I finally found a resting place and slept until long into the next day.