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"How I Almost Froze to Death Trying to Capture The Aurora Borealis"
One of those Bucket List items for many photographers is to get amazing images of the Aurora Borealis. Down here in the lower 48 that can prove to be quite a challenge. There are all sorts of smarty-pants scientific conditions that need to be just right for there to be any action in the sky (geomagnetic activity, Kp Index, Solar Winds...the list goes on and on). And THEN, you have to hope for a clear sky to boot.
And the truth is, nobody can predict what is going to happen. There is only a PROBABILITY of seeing the Northern Lights. I remember one night in particular that I threw all my camera gear into the car and drove over 2 hours east to Vantage in hopes of getting a scenic shot of the lights over the Wild Horses monument. Predictions were that there would not only be a show, but that it would be epic.
Insert sad trombone sound here (WHA-WHA-Whaaa-aaaa)
It was a bust. Lesson learned.
But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Or substitute limes and make margaritas. Either way.
Luckily I had a backup plan and took these shots on the non-Aurora Borealis night:
Finally one night I received a Facebook notification. This one was legit. It was late at night, but posts were spinning like a slot machine that the Northern Lights were going crazy. My son and I chucked gear in the car and blazed a trail to west of Spokane where the nearest area was without light pollution from the city.
About halfway there, my son said that it "looked cloudy". This time around it wasn't clouds, it was the gray haze of the Aurora.
There is an important note to make here: So many people get excited to see the Northern Lights in person, and understandably so. Photographers post images of dazzling colored lights moving across the sky, but the reality is this: They are almost impossible to see with the naked eye. Often times I have to take a photo and review it through the camera to even see if there are any lights at all. And if you do see them, there is almost no color percievable to the human eye. It has to do with something about your eye's rods and cones or some other stuff that I barely paid attention to during that chapter of science class.
On this night, it was clearly visible that something big was happening. Not a lot of color to be seen, but we could see ribbons of gray flowing along the horizon, another rarity down in the lower 48 states. Usually you get a nice green glow or some purple pillars, but nothing noteworthy. It only took a few exposures to find out that this night was special:
Photograhy Nerd Data: ISO 3200, 33mm, f2.8, 10 second exposure
That night was pretty warm, but it was the exception to most nights.
Here's a night wasn't nearly as pleasant. The still photos I was capturing were pretty ho-hum. I decided the only way to salvage this night was to take a ton of exposures and compile them into a time-lapse. There were no guarantees, but it was my best chance to get anything worth sharing. This meant waiting for hours while the camera clicked away, so it was great exercise in patience, perseverance, and avoidance of hypothermia. This time lapse was a compilation of around 100 photos during the storm's peak; this was another night when there was virtually nothing visible with the naked eye. Luckily the camera picked up some color, and there was enough cloud break to see it:
Photographer Nerd Data: ISO 3200, 24mm, f2.8, 10 second exposure, about 100 images compiled using "Time Lapse Creator"
If you want to see epic Northern Lights with the naked eye, I recommend traveling to Alaska, Norway, or Iceland. But plan on taking your jacket.
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