Here’s a shot of the northern lights, or aurora borealis, I took from just near McCarthy, in Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.
I was guiding a photo tour into the park, and we were late leaving Anchorage, due to delays with one of the guest’s flight to Alaska.
What Are the Northern Lights?
Wikipedia says this about the northern lights:
“Auroras are now known to be caused by the collision of charged particles (e.g. electrons), found in the magnetosphere, with atoms in the Earth’s upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 80 km). These charged particles are typically energized to levels between 1 thousand and 15 thousand electronvolts and, as they collide with atoms of gases in the atmosphere, the atoms become energized. Shortly afterwards, the atoms emit their gained energy as light. Light emitted by the Aurora tends to be dominated by emissions from atomic oxygen, resulting in a greenish glow (at a wavelength of 557.7 nm) and – especially at lower energy levels and at higher altitudes – the dark-red glow (at 630.0 nm of wavelength). “
Make sense? There you have it folks – the northern lights are tiny little things in the air, like dust, so small we can’t even see them, that glow because they crash into other tiny little things we can’t see. How cool is that?
They’re called the aurora borealis after the Roman Goddess of the dawn, ‘Aurora’, and the Greek god of Wind, “Borealis”. That sounds reasonable, except that the Aurora Borealis isn’t visible in either Greece or Rome.
Seems to me then we should allow people who do see them reguarly to name them. The Scottish called them “the merry dancers” or na fir-chlis.
The Scandinavians name for the northern lights translates as “herring flash”. It was believed that northern lights were the reflections cast by large swarms of herring onto the sky.
The name they gave the northern lights was “norðurljós” — which I have no idea how to pronounce. The Norse folks also called them “the fires that surround the North and South edges of the world”.
In central Asia the belief of the Chuvash peoples is that the lights were the god/goddess Suratan-tura (Birth-giving Heaven).
The Algonquin Indian folklore proclaimed that the northern lights were their ancestors dancing around a ceremonial fire.
The Athabascan people who lived in what is now known as Wrangell St. Elias National Park, saw messages from their dead, the “sky dwellers“.
I love this kind of way of seeing the world. It’s beautiful, much more beautiful than ‘the northern lights’. And as beautiful as they are, it seems fitting we should have a beautiful way to refer to them.
Our Northern Lights Photography
We’ve had some pretty great weather here through the month of February, and that means, a great time to get out and look for northern lights. Working on my own project, rather than photo tours, I was able to hit a few destinations I wanted to shoot that are a little more hit and miss; less reliable than some others, but places I wanted to shoot nonetheless.
One of those places is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Inevitably I’d be in the wrong place at the wrong time in a place slightly larger than the country of Switzerland; I’d head off in one direction and then have fog and haze cloud up the skies, or I’d head off in another direction, and the lights display would be directly behind me. The mountains in front me being what I want to shoot, and the lights behind me. Not a great mix.
But, such is what happens when you have specific ideas in mind; it’s important to be flexible in nature photography, and particularly so when shooting the northern lights, but part of working on a project involves fulfilling your own ideas. Spontaneity is great, and I’m all for it. But I’m also interested in trying to make a photo of something I envision ahead of time, and working toward that.
It’s a rewarding, but often frustrating endeavor.
This particular night I spent the greater part of the night plaint solitaire, listening to my iPod, and waiting for something to happen. Too many nights I’d been skunked, heading out too late, and missing the greatest moments of too many brief northern lights displays. So here I went out before dark, and stayed out until sunup the next day. It was a long night, but I’m glad to have made the effort.
For what it might be worth, an iPod or iPad or even iPhone is a wonderful tool for northern lights photography; something to do while you wait, and wait, and wait. And wait.
This photo is looking north toward the Wrangell Mountains, of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The lights display wasn’t the most intense I’ve seen, even that I’ve seen this year, but it was a grand display nonetheless. And, more importantly, I was where I wanted to be when it happened.
Northern Lights, Arctic Alaska
Blogging regularly is hard; really hard. Sometimes I’m busy, or behind with my image editing, and sometimes, to put it simply, I’m just not that impassioned about it.
I’d like to be more disciplined about posting regularly, and more inspired to keep up with my own photography more consistently as well as that of others I enjoy, but sometimes, I think, the world of the internet is so overwhelming it’s easier to switch off and disengage than try to keep up and follow everything that flies by. I’ve probably missed hundreds of great posts around the web, I’m sure, but if that’s the worst of my recompense, well, things aren’t too bad I suppose.
Here’s a photo of the northern lights from last March. Ya gotta love the northern lights, no?
Shoot Your Passion
Shoot Your Passion
…
If you don’t, who will?
The northern lights are a passion of mine, for sure.
Northern lights and motion
Just trying a little something different; hoping to give a little sense of motion to the northern lights the other night.
Not that I’m bored shooting the northern lights, or anything; just trying to see what else might work.
Thoughts, anyone? Works? Awful?
Northern lights north of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
I’ve been busy working in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park for a snowshoe trip, and then a week in central Alaska looking for the aurora borealis.
Now I’m back for a couple of brief days before heading out again to the park for another trip, snowshoeing and photographing. So I won’t be around much at least for another week or so.
This shot was from last night in the White Mountains, just north of Fairbanks. The aurora rocked all night long. We got back in the cabin at a little after 5, then up at 9, breakfast, and on the road back to Anchorage. I was hoping to go back out tonight, but I don’t see that happening at this point. I’m tired.
People tend to underestimate how difficult it can be to shoot the aurora. It means long nights, and often little sleep. And very often, very little good photographic fortune. But sometimes we get lucky.
Hope you enjoy this image of the aurora.
Northern lights with fall colors
Here’s another image from Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to see and photograph the northern lights, or Aurora borealis. It’s always a treat to have a moonlit night to shoot by, providing plenty of ambient light to capture the fall colors as well as the northern lights.
This trip was a wild ride. A mad run from Anchorage to the Glennallen area to shoot the Wrangell Mountains at sunset, a short break to eat, then shooting the northern lights, before setting around after midnight to drive around to the east side of the mountains, hoping to shoot more northern lights (clouds were rolling in rapidly from the south west) and hopefully catch sunrise.
On the drive east, the northern lights would suddenly pop out, and I’d have to decide whether to stop and shoot where I was, or try to find a ‘better’ location somewhere nearby to shoot from, and hope I didn’t miss the lights. Most times I missed them.
This is supposed to be a great winter coming for the northern lights, and I’m excited about the potential photo opportunities. I hope to run a small tour in the spring, with details to come soon. If you’re interested in maybe coming up to shoot/see the aurora borealis, please let me know. It’s an amazing treat.
It’s getting to that time of year (again) when the blog slows down?
Why? Because I’m not gunna be away from the computer. I’ve been catching up a bunch of keywording and editing, and so forth, from the winter, which is a poor way to spend the spring.
Here’s a photo from a month or so ago, when the northern lights were rockin‘. You can see the Mentasta Mountains in the foreground, right from my camp.
They came on just as sunset faded – kinda of like a double-header at the movie cinema, although I can’t think of a movie that is a awesome to watch – maybe “Crash”.
The lights dimmed not too long after this, before it got really dark, and I thought the show was over. They came back out again around 2am, and I was fortunate to get up and get some more images, one of which I posted here a month ago.
I slow down a lot with posts over the summer, as I keep a full schedule book. I try to get a trip report done for each trip between trips, but don’t want to make any promises. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, and drop in from time to time and see what’s new here.