Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The meeting of Earth and Sky

















Crazy cool, INCREDIBLE northern lights last night!  What made the night totally unforgettable was not only the lights but the music of nature.  Spring peepers and wood frogs were calling all night long and while I was shooting over a lake I could hear a barred owl calling from across the lake.  It was one of the best nights I've ever spent in the woods with my camera!  For the first hour of viewing, the Aurora held the form that you see in the photo above.  To me it sort of resembled the funnel cloud shape of a tornado.  This photo was taken at about 11:00 PM.  A couple of hours later the scene was totally wild as the lights easily filled 75% of the sky and were moving much, much faster than they were when the above photo was made.  The lights shown in the photo above were hardly moving at all.  The variety that exists in the lights of the Aurora never ceases to amaze me!

















The last few times I've gone out shooting the Aurora I've been trying to get more creative with some of my compositions.  I've been trying new locations as well as new perspectives.  The above photo is one such perspective, with the lights reflecting in the lake and the top corners of the image framed by pine branches.  I personally really like this composition.  To me it feels like I am looking through a window out into the scene beyond.

















This was such an incredible night of photography, it's hard to imagine being able to top it.  Between 1:00 and 2:00 AM the lights were some of the best I've ever seen.  At the time the photos below were taken, the lights were flickering incredibly fast and it felt as though they were actually touching the tops of the trees.  They were emanating from the sky directly overhead and washing down over the surrounding landscape.  Indeed, the Earth felt connected to the Sky that night.
















 














 













 





No comments: