Solar Tsunami - Waves in the Sky

From Thursday night's Aurora event, this photo was made at the moment when the Northern lights transitioned from being "so-so" to SPECTACULAR. The colors and movement started on the left side of the frame, and within seconds a line moved very quickly all the way across to the right, then upwards into the sky. Along the bottom edge of the lights was a line of purple and white color, everything above that was green. The bottom edge of the aurora was waving up and down and back and forth. The whole sky was shimmering with waves of light. It is a memory and image that will live in the forefront of my mind for a long time to come!

Dance in the North Sky

Some friends had told me about seeing the Aurora in the early morning hours of March 10th, 2011 but unfortunately I was already asleep and missed the activity. The following evening, however, I noticed the telltale green glow in the Northern sky at 9:30 PM. I called a friend of mine and within 15 minutes we were both headed up into the woods to get away from any man-made lights. Just moments after we arrived in my planned shooting area the Aurora intensified and really started to put on a show. By 11:00 PM the sky was bursting with dancing lights. At one point the lights filled about 50% of the entire sky. I would have needed a fisheye lens (which I unfortunately do not own) in order to capture the entire breadth of the lights. We stood in awe at not only the movements but the colors we were seeing. Dominated by green, we also saw shades of red, purple and white. Rarely is the aurora seen this powerfully in Northern Minnesota. I was almost in a trance staring at this amazing show and I kept having to remind myself to keep taking pictures!

Northern Hawk Owl

For the past couple of weeks a Northern Hawk Owl has been hanging around near the Grand Portage Trading Post. I have seen him several times, but until today he was always perched on the power lines (not the best for photos!). Today I spotted him in the trees and promptly reached for my 100-400mm lens. I watched him (or her? I'm not sure how to tell the difference in owls) for close to half an hour. During that time the owl flew to 4 or 5 different trees, and from each tree was listening for sounds of mice down under the snow. Every now and then he would swoop down towards the ground, but he never did catch anything while I was there. He sure gave me some nice opportunities for photos today though!

Winter's Day on Mt. Rose

Went for a snowshoe hike up Mt. Rose today. Man, it was beautiful out there! What a delight tromping through the woods with a foot of fresh, light and fluffy snow! Today we had beautiful blue skies and a warm 30 degree temp with no wind... TERRIFIC day to be outside!

Aspens and Sea Smoke

This photo was taken on a VERY cold morning in February 2011. I think it was almost 20 below zero the morning I made this image. There was a lot of steam or "sea smoke" as people like to call it, rising off the lake. More common in early winter, it was a treat to see the steam in late February. My friend Roger and I had spent sunrise right along the water's edge taking photos of the rising sun and the ice on Grand Portage Bay.

To give you an idea of just how cold it was, while we were walking through some deep snow drifts to get to the water's edge, I tripped and fell in the snow. My tripod went right down under the snow, and was only in the snow for a few seconds. The tripod had been warm from being inside the car, and as soon as I pulled it up out of the snow it had ice on it. The snow had melted briefly when making contact with the warm tripod and as soon as I lifted the tripod up into the cold air it the melted snow that was on it froze instantly. I had a difficult time the rest of the morning adjusting my tripod legs due to the ice that now covered it.

After about 20 minutes in our first location we headed up to an overlook which looks down onto Lake Superior and Wauswaugoning Bay. From this elevated vantage point it was magical watching the sea smoke as it rose off the lake and drifted out away from shore. Roger has a Vari-ND filter which lets you block several stops of light and I thought this would be a perfect place to use it so I borrowed it for several exposures. The stationary trees and the edge of the ice combined with the moving steam made for a very compelling photo. Exposure time on this shot was 15 seconds, aperture f16, ISO 50. It was taken with my Canon EF 100-400mm lens.

Ice Ribbons

Tettegouche State Park, MN. The ice that is decorating the shore near Silver Bay, MN right now really provides for a lot of interesting photographic compositions. While most of the time my tendency is to go for the wide landscape images, I also greatly enjoy zooming in with my 100-400mm telephoto and composing detail shots within those landscapes. This is one such image that I really like. The lighting coming from behind the ice combined with the shapes and textures made for a scene that I couldn't resist photographing.

3 A.M. Northern Lights

Well, the aurora did make a showing last night! While it was nowhere near the best display I've seen, it is always exciting and special to see the Northern lights. As is my ritual when there is an elevated chance of seeing the lights, I was religiously checking the sky every 15 minutes until just before 2:00 A.M. when I noticed the green glow on the horizon. I quickly dressed for the cold (it was below zero last night), warmed up my truck and headed a few miles inland to try and catch a better view of the display. I stayed up in the woods for 2 hours hoping the lights would intensify, but they never did. I only made 6 exposures, this was my favorite of those six. Not a lot of color but still definitely pretty! The glow on the horizon on the right side of the image is from the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Sure wish I could get them to turn all those lights off :-)