Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Aurora Dreams
Posted on March 19, 2024
Northern Lights and Big Dipper, Vik, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM
ISO 3200
f/2
8 seconds
Even without the northern lights, there’s enough stuff to photograph in Iceland to more than fill a 10-day winter workshop. But I’d be lying if I said the prime goal of every person who signs up for an Iceland winter photo workshop isn’t the northern lights. And Don Smith and I do our best to fulfill these aurora dreams, but that of course isn’t completely under our control. (Full disclosure: our motives aren’t entirely unselfish because we get as thrilled about the aurora as anyone, and would go chasing the lights by ourselves if everyone else wanted to stay in.)
To maximize our chances for success, we have aurora locations for each of our overnight towns (and multiple locations at most of them), monitor the weather and aurora activity obsessively, and use these forecasts to plan (and adjust) our schedule, sometimes days in advance.
But like most things in nature photography, nothing is guaranteed. For example, last year we had two Iceland workshops back-to-back—the first group enjoyed truly epic northern lights displays on consecutive nights, at two different locations; the second group was essentially shut out, only managing to see a faint green glow on the horizon, visible to the camera but not the eye. But that disappointment wasn’t for lack of trying.
Since knowledge is power, when chasing fickle natural phenomena like the aurora, it helps to have as complete an understanding as possible of the science involved. Not only does this understanding help me maximize my chances for success, it helps me appreciate my subjects and enjoy the experience even more.
Aurora basics
Our planet is continuously bombarded by solar energy. When this perpetual solar wind encounters Earth’s atmosphere, a narrow range of wavelengths (infrared and visible) passes through to warm us and light our way. But other energy wavelengths in the solar wind interact with the atmospheric molecules they encounter, creating a charge imbalance by stripping electrons.
Instead of penetrating our atmosphere to create havoc on Earth’s surface, most of these charged particles (ions) are intercepted by the magnetosphere, our planet’s protective magnetic shield. Continually buffeted by solar energy, the magnetosphere is teardrop shaped, with the battered side that faces the sun compressed, while the side shielded behind Earth thins and stretches much farther into space.
As Earth rotates, at any given moment the side toward the sun (the daylight side) faces the compressed side of our magnetosphere, while the night side of Earth looks out at the less dense, extended region of the magnetosphere. Just as the upwind face of a wall or building channels wind around it, the sunward side of the magnetosphere deflects the charged particles and channels them to upper regions of Earth’s leeward (night) side.
While many of these ionized molecules stream toward the back, extended part of the teardrop-shaped magnetosphere and eventually away from Earth and deeper into the solar system, some are drawn Earthward along magnetic field lines created by our planet’s north and south magnetic poles, creating an oval of charged particles lower into the atmosphere above the poles. It’s these energized particles that we see as an aurora.
The aurora’s color depends on the molecules involved, and the altitude of their activity. Green-emitting oxygen molecules at relatively low altitudes are the most plentiful, which is why green is the most common aurora color. Less common is red, which we see when charged particles strike oxygen at very high altitudes, as well as nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium at lower altitudes. Blue and purple are also possible, depending combinations of altitude and the molecules involved.
Aurora activity is measured by the Kp- (or K-) index, a 0-9 scale of atmospheric electromagnetic activity, with 0 being little or no activity (get some sleep), and 9 being the most extreme activity (don’t forget the sunglasses). Many governments and scientific organizations issue regular Kp forecasts that seem about as reliable as a weather forecast—decent, but far from perfect, and improving as the forecast day draws near. There are many websites and smartphone apps that will provide you with up-to-date Kp forecasts for your current location—some will even issue alerts.
The solar cycle
The size of the aurora oval, and therefore the extent of the area below where we’ll be able to view an aurora, is a function of the amount of activity on the sun. In times of extreme solar activity, not only will the aurora display be visible at lower latitudes, the intensity of the display at higher latitudes will be greater.
Through centuries of observation, solar scientists have identified an 11-year cycle of solar activity tied to the reversal of the sun’s magnetic poles: every 11 (or so) years, the sun’s north and south poles flip. With this solar reversal comes an increase in sunspots (storms on the solar surface) that spawn the solar flares and coronal mass ejections that hurtle energetic particles Earthward to ignite an aurora. And though strong aurora displays are possible at any time during the solar cycle, their occurrence is most frequent around the 11-year max, and least frequent around the 11-year minimum.
For anyone with aurora dreams of their own, all this is especially relevant right now because the sun is approaching its 11-year peak. It’s impossible to know exactly what month the absolute peak will occur, but the activity is still increasing and it’s safe to say that it will probably peak sometime in the next year or two. Whether you join me in an Iceland photo workshop, find some other workshop or tour, or just plan a trip on your own, the time for action is now.
This year’s aurora chase
Based on the aurora forecast, this year’s Iceland workshop group started out very hopeful. And while the aurora was indeed active during our visit, the weather didn’t fully cooperate. After a couple of nights of cloudy skies (and fantastic daytime photography) on Snaefellsnes Peninsula , we made the long drive to Vik beneath a sunny sky that gave us hope for that night’s chances. So, given the day’s horizon-to-horizon blue, it was difficult to believe when an early afternoon forecast suddenly promised clouds by nightfall. But sure enough, as we photographed sunset on the coast near Vik, we were discouraged to see clouds approaching from the south and west.
Despite our pessimism, we went to dinner with a plan to give the aurora a shot if the clouds held off. After dinner (pizza, at a small restaurant that has become an annual favorite) we were pleased to walk outside and see stars in the north. Let’s go!
One of last year’s great aurora shows happened on our night in Vik, a display so spectacular that we were able to photograph it in all directions from a location with the best views west, south, and east. But we knew that on this night, even if the clouds held off long enough, any visible aurora would likely be limited to the northern sky. And with clouds encroaching, we knew south-facing views would likely be fruitless anyway.
Unfortunately, of all the locations we visit in Iceland, Vik has the worst north-facing views. But not to be deterred, we pointed our bus up the steep hill behind the town’s beautiful little church (if you’ve been to Vik, you know what I’m talking about) until we could go no further. We found ourselves at a cemetery parking lot high above town, with an open view northward to nearby mountains and the sky beyond.
Don, Albert (our guide), and I piled out of the bus and could instantly see above the mountains the telltale greenish haze that indicates an aurora—nothing spectacular, but enough to get a group of aurora virgins out of the bus. It only took us about 60 or so seconds to return to the bus, rouse everyone, and grab our gear, but in that short time a distinct green shaft of aurora had shot along the northwest horizon. Since we didn’t know how long it would last, and we could clearly see clouds closing in from the south, we ramped up the urgency to something approaching a fire evacuation.
For the next 30 minutes, until the clouds arrived to shut down the view, the group enjoyed a beautiful aurora display. Though pretty much limited to this one region of the sky, it was quite bright—bright enough that the color was clearly visible—with visible definition and motion.
Since this was the first time photographing an aurora for most of the group, I spent most of my time making sure everyone else was doing alright and didn’t get to take a lot of pictures for myself. I just set up my camera, found a composition I liked, set my focus and exposure, then clicked an occasional frame as I passed my camera on my way to help someone else.
The aurora was more prominent on the left side of this view, but I wasn’t crazy about the foreground in that direction. I decided to put the aurora on the left side of my frame and go wider to balance it with the Big Dipper and nicer peaks. I was less than thrilled about the light from Vik painting mountains, but figured I could minimize that fairly easily in Lightroom/Photoshop.
So, did we have the spectacular aurora show of previous years? We did not. But on this one night, and this night only, we did enjoy a short-lived but beautiful aurora that fulfilled everyone’s aurora dreams.
Don Smith and I will be back in Iceland for more next year
Iceland’s Aurora
A Shot in the Dark
Posted on December 19, 2023
Nature’s Light Show, Aurora Over Dyrhólaey Coast, Iceland
Sony α1
Sony 12-24 GM
6 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 6400
At its best, still photography reveals aspects of the world invisible to, or overlooked by, human vision. In Nature photography, we create these visual revelations when we use an extremely fast exposure to freeze a lightning bolt’s intricate detail that disappears too fast for the human eye to register. Or when we dial up a long exposure to turn pinpoint stars into symmetrical arcs that reveal Earth’s rotation.
As a lifelong admirer of the night sky, I’m a huge fan of the camera’s ability to see in the dark far better than I can, extracting stars and celestial color too faint for my eyes. This is possible because cameras can accumulate light over an extended period, and because the camera’s ability to “see” color is less dependent on the amount of light it captures than the human eye is.
No subject more clearly demonstrates the camera’s light gathering ability better than the Milky Way. A relatively faint ribbon of light in even the darkest sky, a high ISO (extremely light sensitive), large aperture, multi-second exposure (30 seconds or less to minimize star streaking) brings to life the exquisite color and detail of starlight infused with interstellar dust and gas.
This ability to accumulate light also helps the camera extract color from apparent darkness. But just as important to the camera’s light gathering advantage over the human eye is the way it does it. The human eye uses a collaboration of rods and cones to collect light, with the rods doing the heavy lifting in low light, pulling enough monochrome information for us to discern shapes, while providing little help with color and depth. The cones that complete the scene with color and depth information require much more light to do their job. But a digital sensor, though blind to depth, captures photons using tiny photosites specifically designed to discern color.
With the first DSLRs, way back in the early 2000s, successful night photography required help from external light, like light painting with artificial light (which I never do) or moonlight (which I did all the time). But sensor technology has improved steadily over the years, not just the sensors’ resolution, but their light capturing ability too. Today I don’t hesitate photographing dark sky, the darker the better. Nevertheless, despite many years photographing the night sky, it wasn’t until 5 years ago that I got to photograph an aurora.
In January of 2019 Don Smith and I had traveled to Iceland to scout for a future photo workshop. We chose winter to ensure the longest, darkest nights for the best chance to view an aurora. Having seen thousand of pictures of the northern (and southern) lights, I believed I had an idea of what to expect, but I had no idea. No. Idea.
Before I start raving about the camera’s ability to photograph an aurora’s unseen color, let me just say that no picture can do justice to the experience of witnessing an aurora in person. I’m not talking about the green, horizon-hugging glow that lucky high-latitude Lower-48 residents enjoy from time to time (that’s still worth staying up and freezing for, BTW), but an actual sky-spanning dance of light beams, waves, and swirls. Rivaled only (in my book) by a total solar eclipse and a brilliant comet, a brilliant aurora display might possibly be the most beautiful thing you’ll ever witness in Nature.
But, despite lacking the dynamics of personal aurora experience, a camera does do better than the eye in one important aurora aspect: color. That’s because to the naked eye, many aurora displays aren’t bright enough to engage the cones and appear monochrome to our eyes. A camera, on the other hand, reveals auroras in all their kaleidoscopic glory. And though color in an extremely strong aurora is indeed plainly visible to the unaided eye, no matter how strong the aurora, the camera will always “see” more color than we will.
Since that first visit, I’ve returned to Iceland most winters, and have viewed many beautiful northern lights shows. Each was unique and beautiful in its own way, but hold a gun to my head and ask me to pick a favorite, and I think it would be a tie between back-to-back nights early this year (January)—first at Kirkjufell, then at Dyrhólaey on the South Coast. The Kirkjufell night was special because it featured a spectacular display above an Iceland icon. The Dyrhólaey show, while lacking the instantly recognizable foreground of the previous night, was even brighter and more expansive, at times spanning the entire sky.
I blogged about both nights earlier this year:
- Kirkjufell: It’s All About the People
- Dyrhólaey 1: Lights, Camera, Action!
- Dyrhólaey 2: Blessings
The image I’m sharing today is another one from the Dyrhólaey night. With our eyes we could actually see a little of the green, but not the red. And as beautiful as this image is, even with my 12 – 24 lens at its widest, it didn’t come close to capturing the entire horizon-spanning display.
One more thing
When there’s not enough light for visible color, colors in the night sky become the photographer’s processing choice. For my Milky Way images, that’s mostly a matter of adjusting my white balance in Lightroom until sky color feels right. I find a lot of other photographers’ night images too cyan for my taste, and if you look at my older night images, you’ll see that I used to skew them fairly blue. But in my recent night images, I’ve gone for something closer to black with just a hint of blue/violet, which is what I’ve done with the background sky in this image.
The color of the northern lights is similarly subjective, and starts with the color temperature my camera’s auto white balance chooses. Since I don’t have as much experience photographing auroras as I do the Milky Way, I’ve started identifying northern lights images that I like, taken by other photographers, then try to adjust my own images’ white balance in Lightroom to something that comes close to that. But looking at the gallery below, with greens that skew toward yellow (warmer), and some that skew toward blue (cooler), it’s clear that this is still a work in progress. But it does appear that I’m moving a toward cooler aurora images. And believe it or not, none of my northern lights images have any saturation added because they don’t need it—just giving the scene a little more light than my eyes see is all that’s necessary to bring out this eye-popping color.
Join Don and Me in Iceland (add yourself to the waiting list for first shot at the next trip)
The Lights Fantastic
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
It’s All About the People
Posted on March 6, 2023
Swoosh, Northern Lights Over Kirkjufell, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 12-24 GM
5 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 6400
As I’ve made abundantly clear in earlier blog posts, 2023 started with my busiest ever workshop stretch. But I’ve finally reached enough of a lull in my schedule to start processing the fruits of all this labor—not nonstop, but maybe one or two images a day if I’m lucky. Part of me feels a little overwhelmed by how how long it could take at that rate, especially since I’m just two months into the year with many more trips ahead. But another part of me looks at the things I’ve seen and photographed and remembers how uncertain I was when I turned my stable life upside-down to start leading photo workshops. If you’d have told me that in 17 years I’d have more images than I have time to process, I’d have taken it with no questions asked, so no complaints.
To say that leading photo workshops has exceeded my expectations would be a vast understatement. I came into it with 20 years of technical communications experience (teaching a programming language, tech writing, and tech support), and thirty years as a serious amateur photographer. And as a California native who grew up camping, backpacking, and (later) photographing all of my initial workshop locations (Yosemite, Eastern Sierra, Death Valley), I was intimately familiar with my subjects. Piece of cake, right?
That said, since photo workshops weren’t really much of a thing 17 years ago, I was totally winging it when I started. Having never actually taken a photo workshop myself, I didn’t even have a template for how it should be done, so I just structured mine the way I thought I’d like a workshop to be run if I were to attend one. Since then I’ve learned so much—and of course much of what I’ve learned is stuff I didn’t even know that I didn’t know. (For example, walkie-talkies seemed like a good idea, so I invested in 15 of them and now have a box of 15 once-used walkie-talkies somewhere in my garage.)
A big unknown for me was the people part of the equation—I like people, but (perhaps you’ve noticed) people can be difficult. Would every group have a difficult person (or two, or three, or…), and how would I handle them? I mean, no longer would I be lecturing programmers and IT geeks in an air conditioned training room, delivering a canned presentation I’d offered countless times before. Leading photo workshops would mean herding a group of individuals with a broad range of fitness, skill, equipment, expectations, and needs, through remote areas in extreme, unpredictable conditions. What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out, not too much. First, I’ve always felt that my best photography memories often come in the most extreme conditions. And guess what—it turns out most other photographers feel the same way, and will gladly endure extreme conditions in exchange for great photography. They’ll also forgive difficult conditions that prevent potentially great photography: a downpour that makes photography impossible, clear skies that bathe beautiful scenery in harsh light, clouds that block a much anticipated moonrise, and so on.
But what about basic human diversity? Surely attempting to integrate a bunch of people with so many differences would be a recipe for disaster. Concerned about mixing struggling beginners with impatient experts, I originally toyed with the idea of minimum equipment and experience requirements. What a mistake that would have been. While most of my workshops include photography skills ranging from enthusiastic beginner to experienced pro or semi-pro, rather than generating tension, these differences have created a synergy, as it turns out most experts love sharing their knowledge and experience with those who need it.
Of course diversity encompasses more than photography skill. I’ve had workshop participants from nearly every continent (no penguins so far), and (I’m pretty sure) every state in the U.S. My workshop participants have been, in no particular order, musicians, computer professionals, artists, physicians, writers, lawyers, corporate executives, electricians, accountants, bond traders, active and retired military, other professional photographers, real estate agents, clergy, stay-at-home dads and moms, a classical composer, a Hollywood graphic artist, and a Hooters girl (a very sweet young lady who would completely dash any preconceived impression of what that might mean). In one workshop I had a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon. I’ve gotten to know a woman who biked across America, and a man who hiked the entire Pacific Crest trail. I’ve had (many) gay and lesbian couples, outspoken liberals and conservatives, a couple of people in a wheelchair, a man in the final stages of cancer, the patriarch of a family that endured one of America’s most public (and irrational) scandals, and a 9/11 survivor. So it’s not hyperbole to say that I’ve learned as much from my students as they’ve learned from me.
The common denominator connecting all this disparity? A passion for photography that unites strangers long enough to overcome superficial differences and appreciate deeper similarities: a love of family, friendship, nature, sharing, and laughter.
Of course it hasn’t all been a Disney movie. One question that comes up from time to time is whether I’ve ever had anyone attend a workshop who I would not allow in a future workshop. For a long time my answer was an immediate and emphatic, No, everyone’s been great. About 8 years ago one person changed that answer, but fortunately that turned out to be a one-off situation that hasn’t been repeated. (And thankfully that person has not attempted to sign up for another workshop.)
The bottom line is that a successful photo workshop is more about its people than it is about the location and conditions. My job is to create an environment that fosters connection, guide them to the best photography possible, then step back and let the participants themselves enjoy each other.
About this image
Of course great locations and conditions can certainly contribute to the happiness factor, and nothing makes a group happier than photographing the spectacular sights they signed up for in the first place.
I’ve already shared a couple of northern lights images from the first of the two Iceland workshops Don Smith and I did in January. Both of those images came from the workshop’s third night of photography, which I called the most spectacular aurora display I’ve ever witnessed. But after spending more time with my images from the previous night, I’m thinking maybe that proclamation was a little too hasty. But anyway, it’s not a competition, so who cares?
On our first night the group was completely shutout by an overcast sky. It didn’t help that later that night I got a text from an Icelandic friend congratulating me on getting the northern lights on the workshop’s first night, and I had to reply that unlike his vantage point in Reykjavik, we had wall-to-wall clouds up on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula.
While the aurora forecast was also good for our second night, the clouds persisted all day. But with clearing forecast that night, we ate dinner at a restaurant just a few minutes from Kirkjufell, then kept an eye on the sky. While waiting for the clouds to part after dinner, we got to watch Iceland’s handball team compete in the handball equivalent of the World Cup. I played a little handball in high school, this is a completely different sport (something like a soccer/basketball hybrid) that is clearly a huge deal in Iceland because half the town was crowded into this little pizza place to watch it. (It’s really a lot of fun to watch and many of us in the group got into it enough that we watched Iceland’s remaining tournament games as well.) But anyway…
The sky was just starting to clear when the game ended; by the time our bus parked at Kirkjufell the lights were dancing in all directions and we raced to the view as fast as our crampons would take us. Since this was most of the group’s first northern lights experience, I spent a few minutes getting people situated with exposure and focus. It was nice that we were the only ones out there (when we started), so everyone was free to spread out and make their own compositions.
Looking up at the variety of colors and ever-shifting forms felt like standing inside a celestial lava lamp. I started with my Sony a1 and Sony 20mm f/1.8 G lens, but the lights covered so much sky that I soon switched to my Sony a7R V, which I’d pre-loaded with my Sony 12 – 24 f/2.8 GM lens.
I moved around based on where the display was best at the moment, most of the time trying to align the aurora with Kirkjufell, but at one point I dropped down to the bottom of the slope and shot in the other direction to capture fanning shafts in the sky above Kirkjufellsfoss (the waterfall). When a magnificent arcing beam stretched across the northern sky, starting in the northeast and continuing out toward the western horizon, I was extremely grateful to have a wide enough focal length to capture the entire arc with Kirkjufell.
Though the temperature was about 10 degrees, with a 20+ MPH wind (and gusts closer to 40 MPH), I hardly noticed the cold. And I suspect no one else did either, because I didn’t hear a single complaint.
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
2023 So Far
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Blessings
Posted on February 20, 2023
Aurora Ribbons, Dyrhólaey Coastline, Iceland
Sony α1
Sony 12-24 GM
10 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
I just wrapped up what was no doubt the most intense work/travel stretch of my 17 years leading photo workshops. It started the second week of January with 3 weeks in Iceland leading 2 workshops with Don Smith (with no break in between). After the long flight home (that’s a story for different day), I had just one day to recover before driving nine hours to Death Valley (still very much jet lagged) for another workshop that started the next day. Returning from Death Valley, I actually had a few days to lick my wounds before heading off to Yosemite for my Horsetail Fall workshop (with crowds that make it pretty intense by itself).
I have no one to blame but myself for this schedule (it seemed like such a good idea at the time). And I won’t say that I’m not looking forward to a few weeks off before my next workshop. But honestly, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. And I should also say that despite appearances to the contrary, I’m actually home far more than I’m on the road, and when I’m home, I’m really home (unless I’m at Starbucks, without a lot of places I’m expected to be. So don’t feel too sorry for me.
The people I get to share my workshops with are constant source of energy and joy that sustains me through these difficult stretches. But today I’m (selfishly) thinking about the bucket-list worthy sights and locations my frequently nomadic life has afforded me. It’s an exercise I try to go through regularly to avoid taking my many blessings for granted.
I’m thinking about this right now because I returned just a few days ago from another Horsetail Fall workshop, where I could be at serious risk of taking for granted a truly beautiful and unique spectacle that I’ve seen literally dozens of times, but that is a genuine bucket list experience for so many others.
One way I try to avoid taking my blessing for granted is to revisit my annual Highlights galleries: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. I love creating these galleries not only because the process reminds me of the sights I’ve seen over the past year, but also because it gets me excited for the still unknown sights in the upcoming year. And each time I revisit them, I’m reminded of how lucky I was to have been witness to such beauty. Invariably, after opening a gallery, I’ll find myself thinking, oh wow, surely this was my best year (not necessarily my best photographs—just my best year for the things I got to see), then I go on to another year and have exactly the same thought.
Another thing this exercise makes pretty clear is the things in Nature that excite me most. I’ve always believed that we each make our best pictures when we follow our heart to the subjects we love most. For me that’s locations to which I feel a personal connection, like Yosemite and Grand Canyon, and natural phenomena like weather and all things celestial. Not so coincidently, these are also the subjects I most love studying and understanding.
For the longest time I would say the most beautiful sight I’d ever witnessed was a comet—I just couldn’t imagine anything matching it. Then in 2017 I witnessed a total solar eclipse and that list became two. Then (I bet you know where I’m going here) I saw the northern lights. So now my most-beautiful list is three.
I’ve seen the northern lights many times since that first experience, but that first one always stood out as the best. But Nature always seems to be trying to top itself, and this year it finally managed. The first Iceland workshop group got two consecutive nights with spectacular northern lights shows—the first night at least matching my previous “best,” the second night topping it.
Because I blogged about that night a few weeks ago, I won’t go into all the details. The image I shared in that earlier post was more of a spontaneous capture away from the best scene, simply because the display was so spectacular. The image I’m sharing today is the scene I spent most of the night pointing at because it had the best combination of foreground and aurora display. The dancing lights changed so much from one minute to the next that I could pluck any one of dozens of images from this scene, label it “best,” and get no argument.
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
A Few of My Many Blessings
Lights, Camera, Action!
Posted on January 23, 2023
Wings of Angels, Aurora Above Dyrhólaey, Iceland
Sony α1
Sony 12-24 GM
10 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
A couple of posts back I wrote about Nature’s gifts, natural phenomena that sometimes augment the ordinary enough to defy belief. In that post I cited reflections, relatively ubiquitous phenomena that improve nearly every scene they touch. Toward the other end of the commonness continuum are auroras, colorful lights that dance randomly in the frigid darkness high above Earth’s extreme latitudes.
While everyone has seen reflections, many live their life without ever witnessing an aurora. For most of us, viewing an aurora requires travel at the absolute worst time of year for travel, and then venturing outdoors in the darkest, coldest hours of the day. And even then, there’s no guarantee of success. Some nights the aurora simply doesn’t show up, other (many) nights auroras perform their dance behind a curtain of clouds.
So what’s the deal?
Despite all appearances to the contrary, auroras aren’t magic. Our planet is continuously bombarded by solar energy; a narrow range of these wavelengths (infrared and visible) battles all the way through Earth’s atmosphere to the surface to warm our bodies and light our way. But other wavelengths in the solar wind interact with atmospheric molecules they encounter, stripping their electrons to create ions, which causes a charge imbalance in the atmosphere.
Instead of penetrating the atmosphere to generate havoc on Earth’s surface, most of these ions are intercepted by the magnetosphere, our planet’s protective magnetic shield. The magnetosphere is a teardrop-shaped barrier surrounding Earth—battered by the relentless solar bombardment, its sun-facing side is spread out and compressed to about 6 to 10 Earth radii thick, while the shielded side behind Earth (from the Sun’s perspective) is stretched up to 60 Earth radii into space behind us (beyond the Moon’s orbit).
As Earth rotates inside the magnetosphere, the daylight side at any given moment looks through the wide, compressed region, while the night side peers out toward the extended region. Particles ionized by the sun are pushed by the solar wind from the daylight side of the magnetosphere to the upper regions of the polar latitudes on Earth’s leeward (night) side.
The result of these atmospheric machinations is an accumulation of ionized molecules dancing high in the night sky, creating an atmospheric oval of geomagnetic activity that waxes and wanes with solar activity and the intensity of the solar wind.
The aurora’s color depends on the molecules involved, as well as their location in the magnetosphere. The most plentiful and frequently activated molecules vibrate in the green wavelengths, but reds and blues are possible as well, depending on the intensity and altitude of the activity.
Known colloquially as the northern or southern lights, and more technically the aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere and aurora australis in the Southern Hemisphere, to see them you need all of the above: the correct location on or near Earth’s surface, activity in the magnetosphere, and dark, clear skies.
As with terrestrial weather, great effort is taken to predict the aurora, but there’s no such thing as an aurora “sure thing”—the best we can do is put ourselves in position to be as close to the auroral oval on nights with the greatest chance for activity. Planning a winter trip to the high latitudes (the higher the better), like Iceland, is a good start—then just pray for an active sun and clear skies.
Another key to successful aurora chasing is access to and comprehension of the Kp- (or K-) index. The Kp-index is a 0-9 scale of atmospheric electromagnetic activity, with 0 being little or no activity (get some sleep), and 9 being the most extreme activity (don’t forget the sunglasses). Many governments and scientific organizations issue regular Kp forecasts that seem about as reliable as a weather forecast—pretty good, but far from perfect. There are many websites and smartphone apps that will provide you with up-to-date Kp forecasts for your current location—some will even issue alerts. On my iPhone I find the Aurora Pro app essential for both planning and real-time aurora chasing.
Electric Night, Kirkjufell Aurora, Iceland
Last week, armed with all this aurora knowledge, loads of preparation, and a healthy dose of hope, Don Smith and I embarked on the first of this year’s back-to-back Iceland photo workshops ready for action. We’ve had pretty good luck in all of our previous visits, but are wise enough to Nature’s fickle ways not to be too cocky.
After having (what from all reports was) a beautiful display erased by clouds the workshop’s first night, we were blessed with a truly magnificent show at Kirkjufell the next night. Not only did the sky behind the mountain light up, the colorful lights careened about the sky in all directions. On our ride back to the hotel, Don and I agreed that this show rivaled the Glacier Lagoon aurora show on our first trip to Iceland that we considered the best we’d seen so far. The group was happy and life was good.
Departing Snaefellsnes Peninsula for Vik the next morning with a tremendously successful aurora shoot already in the bank, I thought to myself that wishing for anything more would be downright greedy. And since Vik lacks the really great north-facing views that are ideal for photographing the aurora, I wasn’t counting on another northern lights shoot that night.
Nevertheless, because the sky was clear and the aurora forecast was decent, after dinner in Vik we went aurora chasing anyway. Rather than opt for the more sure but mediocre north-facing view, we instead drove to Dyrhólaey, a coastline/ocean vista with nice views in all directions except north. Our rationale was that a truly great display can be viewed in any and all directions, and since we already had our northern lights success in the books, why not just go for broke?
Smart move. An aurora was already blasting so strongly when we arrived that we started photographing the instant we rolled off the bus and didn’t make it out of the parking lot for about 15 minutes. And while the previous night’s aurora display at Kirkjufell rivaled our best ever, this one easily topped it.
Once ensconced at the vista, we spent most of our time photographing westward, where the view up the coastline was the best available, and from where a persistent series of brilliant red and green beams radiated. Very much aware that the show was great in all directions, at one point I glanced southward, out over the Atlantic, and just had to photograph what I saw.
There really wasn’t a lot happening in the foreground, but a few small islands (more like large rocks) saved the day. I took several frames facing south, but chose the one I’m sharing today because it I find its beautiful angel wing shape truly unique.
After using my brand new Sony a7R V at Kirkjufell the previous night (it performed wonderfully), for this entire shoot I used my Sony a1. For both shoots, because the aurora spanned most of the sky, I shot almost exclusively with my Sony 12 – 24 f/2.8 GM lens at 12mm—and would have gone wider if I could have. With the aurora changing continuously, I shot wide open and used ISOs between 3200 and 6400 to keep my shutter speed at 10 seconds or faster. I’m thrilled with how clean these high ISO images were from both cameras, and won’t hesitate to use either one for any future aurora shoot.
2 FAQs
Here are my answers to the two aurora questions I hear most frequently:
- Can you see the aurora’s color?
- For most auroras there simply isn’t enough light to see any (or much) color. But in no way does this detract from the beauty. And when the aurora really gets going, yes, you can indeed see color—at one point this night it did brighten enough that the color was clearly visible, so bright in fact that I had to drop my exposure by 4 stops to avoid blowing out the highlights. And the color you see in my (and probably most) aurora images appears right there on the LCD after capture—in other words, rather than a Photoshop manipulation, aurora color in an image is mostly a simple product of the camera’s ability to accumulate photons.
- Can you see the aurora move?
- Sometimes you can’t see the aurora’s actual motion, but from minute to minute you become aware that its shape is noticeably different. And the bigger and brighter the aurora’s display, the faster it moves, until its motion becomes clearly visible—I’d compare the speed to a fast moving cloud. And a better word than “move” for what an aurora does might be “change.” While clouds seem to scoot across the sky, an aurora continually shifts and moves—the more intense the display, the faster the change.
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
A Gallery of Iceland Auroras
Worth the Sacrifice
Posted on March 13, 2022
Aurora Reflection, Vestrahorn, Iceland
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 GM
15 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
Photography should, first and foremost, make you happy. But every once in a while, for some reason (I have to be really bored) I’ll surf over to an online photography forum or Facebook photography group, only to be instantly reminded why it’s been so long since I visited. The litany of online insults, one-upmanship, and destructive criticism makes me wonder whether there are any happy photographers out there.
Of course I know there are, because I meet them all the time: in my workshops, on location, or simply sharing their images online. I don’t know whether the same photographers who seem so happy when they’re taking pictures do a Jekyll to Hyde transformation as soon as their butts hit the computer chair, or whether there are two types of photographers: those who actually take pictures, and those who simply prefer their computer to Mother Nature (no wonder they’re so unhappy).
Of course getting out to take pictures does require more effort than sitting at a computer. And nature photography usually requires some level of sacrifice because the best time for photography is usually the worst time to be outside: sunrise, when we’d rather be in bed; sunset, when we’d rather be at dinner; crazy weather, when we’d rather be warm; and after dark, when we’d rather be in front of the TV. But I’ve decided that there’s something about witnessing Nature’s majesty that transcends any transient discomfort and inconvenience. And doing it with people who appreciate it as much as you do makes it even better.
Don Smith and I got another reminder in last month’s Iceland photo workshop. On this trip we dealt with all the wind, snow, and frigid temperatures you’d expect in Iceland in February. And then there were the long days and bumpy miles—not to mention a fair share of unexpected hardship. For example, less than 36 hours after clicking this image, several members of our group were nearly swept into the North Atlantic by a rogue wave. Then there were the hotel room snow drifts (note to self: Don’t sleep with the window open in Iceland in February), the lost and found camera bag, the stolen airport shuttle….
But despite all this difficultly, this trip was an absolute blast. This night is a great example. It must have been freezing, but I have no memory of that now. But I do remember standing on the beach beneath Vestrahorn with the rest of the group that night, the waves washing over (and sometimes into) our boots, waiting for the northern lights. Approaching from behind was a storm that, according to the forecast, threatened to close the roads. This scene is beautiful in any conditions, and to be able to photo Vestrahorn under the stars, with even a little bit of aurora, was truly special. Doing it with a group of like-minded, fun loving friends is something I’ll never forget.
What you see here is about as good as the aurora got—nice, but nothing spectacular. Nevertheless, we were having such a great time, we stayed out in the cold dark until the clouds swallowed the stars. Back at the bus, with a storm threatening and an hour’s drive back to the hotel, we were anxious to get on the road. So imagine our chagrin when Óli (or Icelandic guide) turned the key and got nothing but a click. If you’ve every photographed Vestrahorn from here, you know this isn’t one of those places where you can just walk out onto the road and flag down a car. Uh-oh. It would have been easy, understandable even, for people to be upset—or frightened, or angry. Instead, while Óli worked his phone trying find help (the cellular coverage in Iceland is fantastic, FYI), we just continued enjoying each other’s company.
As it turned out, we only had to wait an hour or so for a friend of Óli’s to come out and give us a jumpstart (one more reason why it pays to have a local guide). He also arranged for another friend to drive our direction with van large enough for the entire group, in case the battery charge didn’t hold. Rather than wait for the backup vehicle to arrive, we just started driving in toward the hotel—the other vehicle met us halfway and followed us from there, but we made it without need for more help.
The next morning the battery was dead again, and we were stuck at the hotel all morning while the bus was being repaired (turned out to be an alternator problem). As luck would have it, the storm was so bad that we’d have had to stay in anyway. That afternoon we were picked up for our visit to the ice cave, and the bus was good as new when we returned. So all’s well that ends well.
Worth the Sacrifice
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
Clicking the Lights Fantastic
Posted on February 7, 2022
Northern Lights, Kirkjufell, Iceland
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 GM
10 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
I woke in my hotel room this morning to find a 6-inch snow drift (I measured) on the floor beneath my window, and still more snow frosting the curtains and wall. An expanding glacial lake stretched almost to my bed. Honestly, the risk of turning my room into an ice cave is never a consideration when opening the window at bedtime back home—but this is not home, not even close.
So why would someone choose to leave scenic, mild California for frigid Iceland in early February? Believe it or not, there are many reasons, including snowy volcanic peaks, a mind-boggling assortment of waterfalls, shimmering ice caves, all-day low-angle light (the sun in early February never ascends higher than 10 degrees), and hour-long sunrises and sunsets. (I could go on.)
But the number one motivator, the thing that most inspired Don Smith and me to consider an Iceland photo workshop in the middle of winter, and that drove a dozen people to sign up for it, is the potential to witness nature’s mesmerizing celestial dance, the northern lights.
Let’s review
Our planet is continuously bombarded by solar energy. When this perpetual solar wind encounters Earth’s atmosphere, a narrow range of wavelengths (infrared and visible) passes through to warm us and light our way. But other energy wavelengths in the solar wind interact with the molecules they encounter, stripping electrons and creating an atmospheric charge imbalance.
Instead of penetrating our atmosphere to create havoc on Earth’s surface, most of these ions (charged particles) are intercepted by Earth’s magnetosphere, our protective magnetic shield. Under constant bombardment from the sun, the magnetosphere forms a teardrop-shaped shield around Earth, with the battered side that faces the sun compressed, and the shielded side behind Earth stretching much farther into space.
As Earth rotates, the daylight side at any given moment faces the thinner, compressed region of the magnetosphere, while Earth’s night side looks out toward the extended region of the magnetosphere. Particles ionized by the sun are pushed by the solar wind from the daylight side of the magnetosphere to the upper regions of the polar latitudes on Earth’s leeward (night) side.
The result of these atmospheric machinations is an accumulation of ionized molecules dancing high in the night sky, creating an atmospheric oval of geomagnetic activity that increases with the intensity of the solar wind. The greater the solar activity, the greater the oval’s size and the intensity and range of the aurora display.
The aurora’s color depends on the molecules involved, as well as their altitude. The most plentiful and frequently activated molecules vibrate in the green wavelengths, but reds and blues are possible as well, depending on the intensity and altitude of the activity.
To view the northern lights, you need all of the above: the right location, activity in the magnetosphere, and clear skies. As with terrestrial weather, there’s no such thing as an aurora “sure thing”—the best we can do is put ourselves in position to be as close to the auroral oval on nights with the greatest chance for activity. Planning a winter trip to the high latitudes (the higher the better), like Iceland, is a good start—then just pray for clear skies.
Essential to aurora chasing is access to and comprehension of the Kp- (or K-) index. The Kp-index is a 0-9 scale of atmospheric electromagnetic activity, with 0 being little or no activity (get some sleep), and 9 being the most extreme activity (don’t forget the sunglasses). Many governments and scientific organizations issue regular Kp forecasts that seem about as reliable as a weather forecast—pretty good, but far from perfect. There are many websites and smartphone apps that will provide you with up-to-date Kp forecasts for your current location—some will even issue alerts.
Meanwhile, back in Iceland
This is my third trip to Iceland in winter, all with my friend and fellow pro photographer Don Smith: in 2019 to scout for our planned workshop, then in 2020 and 2022 for our workshops. On all three trips we’ve been guided, chauffeured, and entertained by our Icelandic guide, (the unforgettable) Óli Haukur.
On our previous two winter Iceland visits, it seemed the aurora was toying with us, tantalizing us each evening with clear skies (yay!) and just enough aurora potential to drive us out to wait in the cold dark night (meh), before ultimately disappointing (boo!). But on both trips, after a week of torture, the aurora finally came through with a dazzling display on the trip’s penultimate night (phew).
This year, the aurora gods played a different game. On our first night we were based near Kirkjufell (English translation: Church Mountain), arguably Iceland’s most iconic landmark—not to mention the north-facing vantage point that makes Kirkjufell a perfect foreground for photographing the northern lights. But, in a stunning plot twist, instead of the clear skies and KP-1 or 2 we’d been accustomed to, this year’s opening night’s aurora forecast was KP-6—the highest KP rating I’d had for any of my Iceland visits (even the big display nights). However…
Remember the aurora big 3: location, activity, and sky? We had location and activity, but even two out of three isn’t enough. So my ecstasy was quenched the instant I checked the Kirkjufell weather forecast: cloudy, with a chance of snow. But, because photographers will endure all kinds of abuse when a good shot is even remotely possible, our group bundled up and went out anyway. One small benefit: Though we certainly weren’t the only ones out there, the weather forecast and overall COVID-reduced tourist numbers made Kirkjufell’s crowd much more manageable than it would have been.
But crowds aren’t the only limiting factor at Kirkjufell. Night photographers there also need to deal with light leaks from the nearby village of Grundarfjörður (just as easy to pronounce at it is to spell), a couple of lights on the mountain, random headlights from the parking area, and a highway that runs along the base of the mountain and right through any composition that includes it. (Fortunately there weren’t a lot of cars, because each one lights the mountain for at least two minutes before its arrival.)
When we arrived at the Kirkjufell parking lot, there was no visible sign of the northern lights, but there were a few stars visible above the mountain, giving me a slight surge of hope. A couple of us tried test frames and our cameras picked up a slight green glow, nothing to write home about, but enough to justify making the short hike out to the prime viewing area. Though there was space for everyone in our group to set up with a good composition, it was crowded enough to make it difficult to move around a lot.
For the first hour or so we stood around waiting for the aurora to improve, clicking occasional frames to check its status. Most of this time the aurora was a benign glow, just bright enough to make out with the naked eye as a faint, colorless glow on the horizon. Our cameras, on the other hand, with their ability to accumulate light and brighten the darkness, easily pulled out some color. Nothing spectacular, but at least everyone was getting nice, albeit unspectacular, images.
Eventually a few in our group reached their chill threshold and began packing up. When I saw more clouds moving in from the west, I texted our guide that we were heading back to the bus (to call this beast a mere “bus” doesn’t really do it justice)—then joked that if that doesn’t start the light show, nothing will. (All photographers know that the best stuff doesn’t happen until at least one person packs up his or her gear.)
And sure enough, just as I collapsed my tripod and started zipping my bag, I took one last northward glance and saw actual, naked eye green. By the time I had my tripod re-extended and camera mounted, the color was really starting to kick in and stretch skyward. Soon we saw curtains of green waving in the solar wind, first a little right of the mountain, and soon directly behind it.
I can’t say that the composition I got here is much different from the composition everyone else got, but there were a few framing decisions that I was very particular about. I used my Sony a7RIV with my Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens wide open, starting at ISO 1600 and 10 seconds before quickly bumping to ISO 3200.
As you may know, my goal is to photograph the world in a way that allows viewers to imagine it untouched by humans. So I took care to avoid including the footbridge that mars the left side of the scene. (I did have to clone out a small piece of bridge that snuck in under the cover of darkness to photo-bomb me.) Down the hill on the right side of the scene I had to contend with a pair of photographers (and their lights), plus the lights from Grundarfjörður, but I hid them behind the right side of the frame.
The top of the frame I set at the base of the thick clouds covering most of the sky. On the bottom, I took care to include enough of the riverbank to create a continuous white frame.
Given the clouds, it’s impossible to know the extent of the aurora’s spread, but I don’t think while we were there it ever reached the KP-6 we’d been promised. Nevertheless, it was a real treat for all of us—especially those who had never seen the northern lights. We finally left when the clouds closed in, but on the trip back we drove into clearer skies and actually stopped to photograph a little more along the side of the road. We didn’t get back to our hotel until midnight, but no one minded.
The last thing I want to mention here is my processing decisions. While everyone there that night got more or less the same version of this scene, I’ve seen several different processing approaches (from others in the group), resulting in noticeable differences in the finished products.
Because night images usually take in a lot more light than the human eye sees, there’s not really any way to say how it “really looked.” But I’m happy to share my own processing choices and why I made them, and try not to argue with anyone else’s night photography choices (within reason).
The unprocessed raw preview of this image looked very similar to this finished version, but there were a few important adjustments I wanted to add. I started in Lightroom by cooling the temperature of the entire scene to shift the yellow-ish daylight cast my camera’s auto white balance imposed, to a blue-ish, more night-like cast.
And very important to me during processing was minimizing signs of human influence on this naturally beautiful scene. In addition to cropping out that tiny section of bridge and a few rogue house lights, I cooled and subdued the town’s warm, artificial glow brightening Kirkjufell’s east (right) slope (many people liked this glow). And to bring out Kirkjufellsfoss (the waterfall), the turquoise water, and snow-cover shoreline, I brightened the foreground a little.
Epilogue
Several days have elapsed since I started this post. Since then we’ve had a couple more northern lights shoots—nothing spectacular, but very nice. We’ve also had lots of fun and a few adventures that I’ll share in future posts. Oh, and the snow drift in my hotel room was dealt with swiftly by the hotel staff—with no harm, financial or otherwise, on the perpetrator. (The hotel staff was very nice about the stupid American’s open window in a blizzard, and I got the distinct impression that this wasn’t their guest-room-snow-removal rodeo. And in my defense, it wasn’t snowing when I went to bed.)
My (Growing) Northern Lights Collection
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
I Laughed, I Cried…
Posted on March 9, 2020
Heaven Sent, Aurora Above Glacier Lagoon, Iceland
Sony a7RIV
Sony 16-35 GM
20 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
To photograph the northern lights, lots of things need to go right. It starts with picking the right time of year, and finding a location far from city lights—the best months and locations can be determined with research and scouting, but far more problematic are the factors beyond my control: solar activity and weather. And unfortunately, when people sign up for a January Iceland workshop, no matter how clear you make it to them the northern lights are not guaranteed, they really, really, really expect to see the northern lights.
Before Don Smith and I scheduled our 2020 Iceland photo workshop, we did our best to maximize our group’s photography opportunities in general, and northern lights chances in particular: we researched Iceland’s prime northern lights months, identified the best guiding service, and in January 2019 spent 10 days with our guide scouting the spectacular Iceland landscape. On this advance trip we even were treated to a breathtaking northern lights show that enabled us to hone our aurora photography skills, and fill our websites with images.
When we announced the 2020 trip we did all the right stuff, providing preparation and educational material that emphasized the disclaimer that we can’t guarantee the northern lights. But as the trip approached and I started receiving good natured (I think) threats (“You better get us the northern lights or I’ll…”), I couldn’t help feeling a little anxious. As early as 10 days before the workshop, I started checking the long-range forecasts, but no matter which resource I chose, and how many times I checked, things weren’t turning out the way I’d hoped. Not only did the weather look pretty bleak (rain, snow, fog), the KP forecast of solar activity was pegged in the 0-2 range (on a scale that goes all the way up to 9). Gulp.
Throughout the workshop Óli (our guide), Don, and I obsessively monitored the forecasts and tried to stay as positive as possible, but with two nights to go, we hadn’t had a hint of northern lights opportunity, and the natives were getting restless. I suspect that the only thing preventing an all-out coup was that the locations and frequent clouds and snow made the rest of the workshop’s photography pretty fantastic. (Okay, seriously, this group was tons of fun and very understanding about our impossible aurora conditions, but I really wanted to deliver for them.)
In the back of my mind was the experience Óli, Don, and I had last year, when the forecasts were bleak until an unexpected uptick in the KP index coincided with a clearing of the sky at Glacier Lagoon on the trip’s last two nights. Throughout this year’s trip, I told myself (and all who would listen) that if it happened once, it could happen again. And guess what…
By the time we wrapped up our sunset shoot at Glacier Lagoon on the workshop’s penultimate day, we all knew that tonight could be the night—the weather forecast had improved to “partly cloudy,” and the KP index had bumped up into the 2-3 range. Far from a sure thing, but definitely worth bundling up and giving it a shot. So after dinner we piled back onto our bus and returned to Glacier Lagoon.
At the lagoon I hopped from the bus to scan the dark northern sky and saw a mix of clouds and stars. There was the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia. And once my eyes adjusted, I found the faint section of the Milky Way overhead and traced its path downward until it disappeared into a mass of clouds—not ideal, but there were enough stars to know we’d be okay. Unlike the previous year’s shoot, the northern lights weren’t visible to the naked eye, so I quickly set up my tripod and camera to take a test exposure, and there it was in my LCD, a faint but distinct green glow hovering above the northern horizon, partially obscured by clouds but unquestionably the northern lights. We were in business.
The darkness made keeping track of people pretty difficult, but since we’d already photographed here, everyone had their own idea of where they wanted to be and quickly scattered. I, and many others, started along the lagoon’s shoreline, but within an hour or so almost everyone had ascended the hillside overlooking the lagoon for a much more expansive view of the horizon.
Even though the aurora had brightened and was now visible to the naked eye, it remained just a green and (occasionally) red glow that lacked definition. Nevertheless, I could sense everyone’s relief—despite maintaining a positive facade, until this night I think most of us had become silently resigned to the fact that the northern lights weren’t in our future. At least they could all now say they’d seen the beauty of the northern lights. And then something amazing happened.
As if someone had suddenly cranked the intensity knob, a visible green shaft climbed skyward from behind the mountains, and within five minutes half the sky was alive with dancing light. The display was so beautiful and unexpected that we all just couldn’t help laughing at our good fortune. This great group that had spent more than a week bouncing around the Iceland countryside, marveling, eating, sharing, shivering, and (especially) dreaming of northern lights, was having a blast photographing together above Glacier Lagoon.
I can’t begin to express the joy I felt that night. It’s always wonderful to witness nature’s marvels firsthand, but sharing a first time with an infinitely deserving group of friends is truly special. After a while I stopped shooting to just watch the show and listen to the joy and felt tears welling in my eyes.
Epilogue
I spent more time this shoot moving around in the dark, helping people in the group with focus and exposure, than I did taking pictures. And it turns out that at some point in these travels, my camera lost focus and more than half of my images, including those from the peak of the aurora activity, are unusably soft. This is only mildly disappointing because 1) in a workshop it really isn’t about my photography anyway, and 2) I already have plenty spectacular Glacier Lagoon northern lights images from last year’s trip.
And despite that setback, I did get enough images to confirm that my Sony a7RIV is an excellent night photography camera. Until this trip I’ve always used my Sony a7SII (or the a7S that preceded it) for my night work, but I decided to save weight by leaving the a7SII home. While the low-light vision of the a7SII makes its viewfinder second to none for night composition and focus, the a7RIV proved good enough for that, and the image quality difference isn’t discernible.
My Aurora Bounty So Far (mostly from 2019)
Click an image for a closer look and to view a slide show.
Enjoying Our World on Nature’s Terms
Posted on October 7, 2019
Aurora Reflection, Glacier Lagoon, Iceland
Sony a7SII
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
8 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 6400
Nature photographers have a tenuous relationship with clocks and calendars. They’re useful when we need to interact with the rest of the world on its terms, but pursuing our craft requires us to defer to the fundamental laws of nature: the Earth’s rotation on its axis, the Earth’s revolution about the sun, and the moon’s motion relative to the Earth and sun.
While my years are ruled by the changing angle of the sun’s rays, and my days are tied to the sun’s and moon’s arrival and departure, I can’t help fantasize about a world where I could schedule my Grand Canyon monsoon workshop for the lightning bolt and rainbow combination that graces the canyon every August 5 at 2:40 p.m., or the ability to mark my calendar for the blizzard that blankets Yosemite in white every February 7. But nature, despite human attempts to manipulate, subvert, and (when convenient) ignore it, is its own boss. The best I can do is schedule my monsoon workshops to ensure the best odds for lightning and rainbows, or monitor the weather forecast and rush to Yosemite when a snowstorm is promised (then wait with my fingers crossed).
The insignificance of clocks and calendars is never more clear than the first morning following a time change. On the second Sunday of March (or whatever the powers-that-be have changed it to this year), when “normal” people moan about rising an hour earlier, and the first Sunday of November, as others luxuriate in their extra hour of sleep, it’s business as usual for me. Each spring, thumbing its nose at Daylight Saving Time, the sun rises a mere minute (or so) earlier than it did the day before; so do I. And each fall, on the first sunrise of Standard Time, I get to sleep an an entire minute longer. Yippee.
Honestly, I marvel at nature’s blend of precision and (apparent) randomness. I love being able to point to the horizon and say, the moon will appear right there at exactly 5:44. But I also love going out with my camera and an expectation of what might happen, then being completely surprised by what actually does happen.
The aurora in today’s image was certainly not on anyone’s calendar when Don Smith and I planned last January’s Iceland trip. We’d done our best to maximize our odds by scheduling the trip for the heart of aurora season, then performed our due diligence by monitoring the forecast and waiting in the cold and dark each night for something to happen. But nature, while maybe absolutely precise on a cosmic scale, is still largely a mystery to humans. So while it’s possible that the northern lights we witnessed that night were preordained from the Big Bang’s first peep (Heisenberg’s protests notwithstanding), all that matters to me is that I was there to witness them.
Learn about the aurora, and read the story of this night: Chasing the Northern Lights
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints
One Unforgettable Night
Chasing the Northern Lights
Posted on September 29, 2019
Aurora on Ice, Glacier Lagoon, Iceland
Sony a7SII
Sony 12-24 f/4 G
15 seconds
F/4
ISO 16,000
Aurora Streaks, Glacier Lagoon, Iceland
Sony a7SII
Sony 16 – 35 f/2.8 GM
6 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 6400
Northern Lights Reflection, Aurora and Glacier Lagoon, Iceland
Sony a7SII
Sony 16 – 35 f/2.8 GM
8 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
After finally witnessing a total solar eclipse and declaring it the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, I started hearing people say things like, “Wait until you see the northern lights.” So when fellow pro photographer Don Smith and I planned an Iceland photo trip to prepare for our upcoming photo workshop, we chose January because it’s right the heart of northern lights season. Could the northern lights’ beauty really rival a total solar eclipse? (Spoiler alert: Yes.)
An Aurora Primer
Our planet is continuously bombarded by solar energy. When this perpetual solar wind encounters Earth’s atmosphere, a narrow range of wavelengths (infrared and visible) passes through to warm us and light our way. But other energy wavelengths in the solar wind interact differently with the molecules they encounter, creating an charge imbalance by stripping electrons.
Instead of penetrating our atmosphere to create havoc on Earth’s surface, most of these charged particles (ions) are intercepted by the magnetosphere, our protective magnetic shield. The magnetosphere is teardrop shaped, with the battered side that faces the sun compressed, and the shielded side behind Earth stretching much farther into space.
As Earth rotates, at any given moment the side facing the sun (the daylight side) looks out through the thinner, compressed side of our magnetosphere, while the night side of Earth faces the extended region of the magnetosphere. Just as the upwind face of a wall or building breaks a wind, the sunward side of the magnetosphere sheds the charged particles and channels them to upper regions of Earth’s leeward (night) side. It’s these ionized molecules dancing high in the night sky that cause an aurora.
The result of these atmospheric machinations is an atmospheric oval of geomagnetic activity corresponding to the intensity of the solar wind—the greater the activity, the greater the oval’s area and the intensity of its aurora activity. The aurora’s color depends on the molecules involved. The most plentiful and frequently activated molecules vibrate in the green wavelengths, but reds and blues are possible as well, depending on the intensity and altitude of the activity.
As with terrestrial weather, there’s no such thing as an aurora “sure thing”—the best we can do is put ourselves in position to be as close to the auroral oval, on nights with the greatest chance for auroral activity. Planning a winter trip to the high latitudes (the higher the better), like Iceland, is a good start.
Another key to aurora chasing is understanding and monitoring the Kp- (or K-) index. The Kp-index is a 0-9 scale of atmospheric electromagnetic activity, with 0 being little or no activity (get some sleep), and 9 being the most extreme activity (don’t forget the sunglasses). Many governments and scientific organizations issue regular Kp forecasts that seem about as reliable as a weather forecast—pretty good, but far from perfect. There are many websites and smartphone apps that will provide you with up-to-date Kp forecasts for your current location—some will even issue alerts.
Let the chase begin
Armed with more knowledge than experience, in the last week of January we set out for Iceland’s frozen hinterlands with visions of auroras dancing in our heads. Fortunate for us, our guide was an Iceland native and an excellent photographer with years of northern lights experience.
By day we photographed all the winter-accessible locations on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula and South Coast, benefiting greatly from winter’s 2-hour sunrises and sunsets and a sun that never rose higher than 8 degrees above the horizon. And by night we bundled up and ventured into the frigid dark seeking an electric light show.
For our nightly aurora hunt we’d drive to a pretty scene that had both dark skies (not hard to find in Iceland) and a clear view of the northern sky. There we’d sit for an hour or two, fogging the windows in the guide’s spacious Suburban, regularly stepping into the cold darkness to scan the sky.
We quickly learned the uncertain, frustrating nature of aurora hunting. Nights with potential were stifled by clouds; nights with clear skies were Kp washouts. So with just two nights in Iceland remaining, I was getting a little anxious.
The final two nights would be spent near Glacier Lagoon, a magnificent ocean inlet dotted with floating icebergs and a patchwork of thin ice and reflective water that created an ideal foreground for the northern lights.
The forecasts for Wednesday, our penultimate night, were clear skies, and a 1 or 2 Kp index. Not great, but the best weather/Kp combination of the trip. And our guide assured us that even Kp 1 can deliver an aurora, and Kp 2 can be a very nice display. Pulling into the Glacier Lagoon parking lot beneath a beautiful star-studded sky, we saw no aurora. So we waited.
Soon what I swore was fog appeared above the lagoon, but the guide insisted this was the beginnings of northern lights. Dubious, we followed him down to the lagoon and I was thrilled (understatement) when a long exposure revealed not fog, but my first view of the northern lights! We spent a couple of hours photographing a low-hanging, fuzzy green haze, occasionally infused with hints of red. Except for just a few minutes at its peak, the aurora we photographed that night had no real definition, but I really didn’t care because I could check northern lights off my bucket list. Little did I know that the show that night was just a warm-up for the next night’s experience.
The Kp forecast for Thursday night was 4 or 5, which our guide told us was perfect because anything more than Kp 5 can be too bright. The weather was a different story and all we could do was watch the sky all day and hope. Despite a nearly 100 percent cloud cover at sunset, we optimistically headed back to the lagoon.
Waiting in the lagoon parking lot, the clouds parted to reveal a faint aurora ebb and flow, but stayed in the car because, “This is no better than last night.” (One success and we’re already aurora snobs.) What looked promising out my north-facing side window one minute, all but disappeared the next. Then we noticed new activity in the western sky that went from 0-to-60 so fast that we bolted down to the lagoon like Keystone Cops. By the time I was set up the sky had transformed into a green and red psychedelic extravaganza.
The next two hours were a blur as I witnessed what was quite possibly the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen in my life. Starting across the lagoon, in the western sky, the show gradually moved south (defying all my expectations), forcing me to constantly shift further up the lagoon to keep the ice and water in my foreground.
With my head on a swivel, I saw glowing tendrils stretch skyward, some touching both the east and west horizons, others pulsing, spiraling, and doubling back until felt like I was inside a giant lava lamp. At one point I tore my eyes from the show above the lagoon and saw the entire eastern sky ablaze with tangled green ribbons so intense that I turned my back on the lagoon and frantically scaled the snowy hill behind me for a better view in that direction. Over the course of maybe 20 minutes, that display rocketed heavenward, filled the entire eastern sky from horizon to zenith, shifted north, and finally back to the west and over the lagoon, forcing me race (and tumble) back down the hill.
The display was still going when we left, but at some point it just felt greedy to keep shooting (and we couldn’t wait to return to the hotel to count our riches).
Lessons learned
Getting a shot like this requires a significant amount of good fortune for sure, but all the good fortune in the world will do you no good if you don’t:
- Bundle up: Winter nights in the high latitudes might just be the coldest temperatures you’ve ever experienced—dress accordingly because few things will shorten or distract a great shoot faster than cold. In addition to a robust, hooded down jacket, I was comfortably toasty in a wool base layer, fleece, wool hat, balaclava, thin liner and heavy gloves, wool socks, and insulated boots
- Learn how to expose, compose, and focus in extremely low light.
- Spend some time before dark to find a foreground to go with your aurora, and look for spots with views in multiple directions. The northern lights are so spectacular, it’s easy to just show up and forget to compose the scene. And while the northern lights tend to concentrate in the northern sky, an intense display can appear in any direction.
- Monitor your exposure constantly: Unlike Milky Way and other night photography, aurora exposures can change by multiple stops in minutes and sometimes seconds. An exposure that worked to capture the aurora’s color and bring out foreground detail one minute, may completely blow out the aurora the next.
- Bring extra batteries (more than you think you’ll need) and keep them warm. (In extreme cold, li-ion batteries can go from 50% charged to exhausted in minutes.) It’s best to store batteries next to your body, and/or and or close to a heat source, like a hand-warmer pouch. And when a battery runs down, it may be reusable once it’s warmed.
- Don’t forget to set the camera aside and take a few minutes to truly appreciate what you’re witnessing.
Celestial Rewards
Click an image for a closer look and to view a slide show.
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 