So you are going to Tromso for a few days and want to see the famous Northern Lights. You've pre-booked your flights and hotel, and are looking on the internet for Northern Lights excursions or perhaps you will leave it to chance and book a trip when you arrive.

Well having been to Tromso a few times now to chase the Northern Lights, 5 to be precise over the last 3 years, you have two options: join up to 50 other people on a large coach with a company you've never heard of or book in advance on a small group or highly personalised private tour with THE Aurora Chaser and a MASTER of Northern Lights Photography. I mean to say, you wouldn't just arrive at Tromso airport without booking your hotel would you, so why take the risk of not fulfilling your dreams to see the Lights by booking with just anyone?

I have just been on a 5 day private tour with Kjetil. He's taken me to some spectacular locations around Norway offering breathtaking scenery and fantastic vantage points to see the Lights. I would never have found these on my own and I certainly would not have seen so many beautiful landscapes, fjords and mountain ranges stuck on a coach! We went as far afield as Senja and the Lyngen Alps. We went off piste up, down and around mountains to shoot some incredible pictures. Kjetil takes you to the places that no one else knows about and pinpoints the very best spots to photograph the Lights. Or perhaps you would like to be on one of the big buses stopping at a lay-by on the road side to wait for the Lights to appear?! And when they do, have 49 of your new friends in your photos!

I can't speak highly enough about Kjetil Skogli. What he doesn't know about the Northern Lights and where to photograph them isn't worth knowing. He is a guru of Norway and such a great guy. Even Joanna Lumley and Sir Brian May think so (check out Kjetil's website). I mean they could have picked anyone to go out with, ask yourself why did they choose Kjetil? He's even been featured in a special Norwegian TV documentary on the Northern Lights this week.

Of course, there are no guarantees in life and with the Northern Lights being a natural phenomenon sometimes you get lucky, sometimes very lucky and sometimes not so lucky. So don't just go out one night is my view. If you are in Tromso for 3 nights, go out 3 nights, and see Tromso itself during the day. I was with Kjetil for 5 nights this time. We saw the Lights on 3 out of the 5 nights. The 1st night was good, the 2nd night not so good, the 3rd night very good, the 4th night very poor with hardly any lights and the last night was OUT OF THIS WORLD, with a spectacular show lasting on and off for 4 hours. Where exactly? Well 'if I told you that I would have to shoot you', so you will need to ask Kjetil. And what about this, we arrive at our destination around 8.30pm after an hour's drive from Tromso, we set up our cameras and Kjetil does his stuff looking at various indicators on his phone (but never any Northern Lights Apps by the way). He calls out 'something is moving, we should see Lights between 9.30 and 10.00 pm'. He was wrong; they started to appear in the skies in front of us at 9.25 pm, 5 minutes early . The show was great. I managed to get some great photos, taking advice on the optimal camera settings from 'The Master'. Then they disappeared and I thought it was over. But Kjetil turns to his indicators (not Apps!) and then makes the call, 'we stay here, there could be something big coming in an hour or so'. Well something big was the understatement of the Norwegian year, for what unfolded before our eyes 45 minutes later was a G1 storm (quite rare) and the most spectacular display of the Northern Lights I have ever seen. They rained down forming long colourful green, white and purple/red streaks as they danced across the sky. It was big, very big, I mean very very big and lasted about an hour, with time for some fantastic photos and memories. After the show we laughed out loud, not just at our good fortune and the fitting end to a great 5 days on tour but also to the fact that 'the Apps' had predicted only an hour earlier a KP value of 0 with a zero chance of seeing the Northern Lights. How wrong could they be! Mind you there were no big buses out ... perhaps they'd looked at the Apps!!!

Kjetil - thank you for a great tour and your warm companionship ..... and of course for some fabulous memories of Norway and the magnificent Northern Lights.

If you want to give yourselves the best chance of seeing and photographing the Northern Lights in perfect settings then contact THE MASTER, Kjetil Skogli.

Go on check out his website now, and hope that he can accommodate you as he gets booked up well in advance.

KJETIL SKOGLI IS THE MASTER OF NORTHERN LIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY!