Shock and Awe

Night Lights, Snaefellsnes Peninsula, Iceland
Sony α1
Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM
ISO 3200
f/1.8
5 seconds

That night at dinner, one person in the workshop group asked if there was a chance we’d see the northern lights, or if he could safely have another beer. I laughed and told him, while I can’t predict the future, I’d be shocked if the northern lights happened this night and to just go ahead and have that beer. I’ve never been happier to be wrong (and that my advice didn’t ruin his evening).

Each winter Don Smith and I do a winter workshop in Iceland. There are many reasons to visit Iceland in winter, but for most of our workshop students, at the top of the list is the northern lights. Because northern lights success doesn’t just happen, each day Don and I powwow with our Iceland guide to assess our odds for aurora success that night, and to plan our strategy to be there when it happens. We base these decisions on forecast aurora activity, expected cloud coverage, dark sky (no light pollution) views of the northern sky, and the experience we’ve gained from prior northern lights shoots.

Our second night on Snaefellsnes Peninsula (the workshop’s third night), the expected KP-index (the universally accepted 0 to 9 scale of aurora activity) was a very disappointing 1—about as low as we ever see in Iceland. Worse still, an incoming storm had already started to spread clouds, further reducing the night’s aurora expectations.

But regardless of the target (aurora, lightning, Milky Way, and so on), past surprises have taught us to never not have a plan in the event of the unexpected, so at dinner this evening we laid out the bad news to the group, but promised to keep an eye on the sky and notify them if anything changes. Though the incoming storm meant we wouldn’t be able to drive to another location if the aurora surprised us, we told the group that just across the road from our remote hotel was an unobstructed, dark-sky view of the northern sky above snowy peaks—perfect for the northern lights.

With a plan in place, everyone retreated to their rooms for the night with the lowest of expectations. At about 9:30 I was still up, answering e-mails and doing other boring business stuff, when I glanced at my phone and saw at least a dozen notifications from the WhatsAp Iceland group thread. Well that’s interesting…

It seems that Siggi, our exceptional Icelandic guide, had gone outside at around 9:15 and discovered clear skies and aurora. Without bothering to read all the other exclamations from the group, I bundled up, grabbed my gear, and rushed out as fast as I could. I expected something similar to the aurora display we had over Kirkjufell the prior night—enough to show up in the camera, but not bright enough for our eyes to register—but as soon as I stepped out into the cold and looked up, I spotted a soaring shaft of light that told me tonight would be different. Much different.

I hurried to the outline of photographers assembled across the road and quickly trudged through two feet of snow to set up at barbed wire fence. Out here, away from the hotel’s lights, it was even more apparent that something special was underway.

Don, Siggi, and I had prepared the group for photographing the northern lights, but with any type of night photography, there’s no substitute for experience. Since this was the first aurora experience for many in the group, I spent my first few minutes out there moving around, helping get people up to speed. While focus is always tricky at night, aurora focus is no different than any other night scene. The greatest challenge for aurora first timers, even those with lots of night experience, is the need to constantly monitor the rapidly changing exposure. An exposure bright enough to reveal foreground detail and aurora color one minute, might completely blow out the aurora the next. And a 15 second exposure might be fine when the aurora is changing slowly, but it blurs intricate detail when the aurora’s activity ramps up. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for everyone to settle in, and soon my instructions were down to occasional shouts reminding everyone that the brightness had changed, or to point out a different area of the sky that had ramped up.

The WhatsAp notice had gone out to everyone, but I soon realized it had only been a fluke that I’d noticed, so after a few minutes I decided to take attendance. Easier said than done in the extreme darkness, especially since there were a few people out there who weren’t in our group, and everyone was bundled head-to-toe. But I did determine that Don wasn’t out there, and one other person in the group (turns out there was a second person missing, but we didn’t realize it until the next morning). I called the missing workshop participant first, but that call went straight to voicemail—then another person in the group said she’d called him and he’d decided to pass (apparently he’d been asleep and regrettably wasn’t thinking rationally when he got that call). Don, on the other hand, was especially grateful for the call and made it out in record time.

An aurora show is special anytime, but it wouldn’t be an understatement to say this one truly shocked me by its unexpected splendor that ranks right up there with the very best I’ve seen in my half dozen years of photographing Iceland in winter. It was very bright, covered most of the sky, and was infused with lots of red, but what stood out most for me this evening was the dancing waves and shafts that twisted and fold right before our awestruck eyes.

Join Don and me for a very special Iceland photo workshop in 2026

Iceland Aurora Collection, 2019 – 2025

Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE

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Northern Lights, Kirkjufell, Iceland

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Heavenly Veil, Glacier Lagoon, Iceland

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Swoosh, Northern Lights Over Kirkjufell, Iceland