Glorious
An awe-inspiring auroral display lights up the moonless skies above volcanic mountains, escarpments and glaciers streaming down from the more distant Vatnajokull icecap, near Brunnholl, Iceland.
This is a sort of intro to what I expect will be something of a series of aurora shots that Sky Matthews and I will likely post in the coming weeks or months from our recent photography trip to Iceland. We planned to be there a week in the hope that moments of clear skies would align with visible auroral activity for at least an hour or two on one night or another. What nature gifted us was far more than I'd dared hope to see.
We had a completely clear night, with no moonrise until shortly before dawn, on which the aurora first appeared in the northern skies before we'd even finished dinner, and from there it grew nearly to fill the heavens at times from horizon to horizon. Perhaps most spectacularly, it morphed in form throughout the night. Streaks and arches of glorious light closer to the northern horizon evolved into this luminescent ribbon dance weaving intricate patterns in every direction, and then the aurora steadied in the later hours well after midnight into great flowing rivers of light across the sky which in turn spun off smaller eddies of the most magnificent green with hints of red and purple.
Needless to say, we stayed up all night in utter amazement, shooting in six different locations across one hundred kilometers or so of Iceland, and watching this seemingly never-ending display in all its stunning forms (you'll get a glimpse in future posts of what I keep saying about the different ways the aurora presented throughout the night) until it was finally overwhelmed at last by dawn's light the next morning.
This was only my second-ever attempt at photographing the aurora, so there was a substantial learning curve, and much room for further improvement still if I'm ever lucky enough to see a display like this again one day, but I was nonetheless pleased to get some shots to share! Two things stood out in my mind when reflecting on photographing this awesome display: First, even with my 14-24 wide open, I could not hope to communicate the massive area of sky infused with these ever changing patterns of light; and, second, I cannot imagine any photograph, video or anything else giving more than the faintest hint of how much wonder, awe and reverence an aurora like this inspires when experienced in person.
Thanks for viewing!
Glorious
An awe-inspiring auroral display lights up the moonless skies above volcanic mountains, escarpments and glaciers streaming down from the more distant Vatnajokull icecap, near Brunnholl, Iceland.
This is a sort of intro to what I expect will be something of a series of aurora shots that Sky Matthews and I will likely post in the coming weeks or months from our recent photography trip to Iceland. We planned to be there a week in the hope that moments of clear skies would align with visible auroral activity for at least an hour or two on one night or another. What nature gifted us was far more than I'd dared hope to see.
We had a completely clear night, with no moonrise until shortly before dawn, on which the aurora first appeared in the northern skies before we'd even finished dinner, and from there it grew nearly to fill the heavens at times from horizon to horizon. Perhaps most spectacularly, it morphed in form throughout the night. Streaks and arches of glorious light closer to the northern horizon evolved into this luminescent ribbon dance weaving intricate patterns in every direction, and then the aurora steadied in the later hours well after midnight into great flowing rivers of light across the sky which in turn spun off smaller eddies of the most magnificent green with hints of red and purple.
Needless to say, we stayed up all night in utter amazement, shooting in six different locations across one hundred kilometers or so of Iceland, and watching this seemingly never-ending display in all its stunning forms (you'll get a glimpse in future posts of what I keep saying about the different ways the aurora presented throughout the night) until it was finally overwhelmed at last by dawn's light the next morning.
This was only my second-ever attempt at photographing the aurora, so there was a substantial learning curve, and much room for further improvement still if I'm ever lucky enough to see a display like this again one day, but I was nonetheless pleased to get some shots to share! Two things stood out in my mind when reflecting on photographing this awesome display: First, even with my 14-24 wide open, I could not hope to communicate the massive area of sky infused with these ever changing patterns of light; and, second, I cannot imagine any photograph, video or anything else giving more than the faintest hint of how much wonder, awe and reverence an aurora like this inspires when experienced in person.
Thanks for viewing!