The Aurora Portraits

As a service to those who join our tours I always try to make portraits of everyone who wants. Sometimes the conditions don't allow it, and sometimes the photographers on the tour are too busy taking their own photos. But very often it happens. I don't take the photos to show off on Facebook or here on the blog. I do it as a service to everyone who wants to come Aurora chasing with us.

Often there are couples who are on their honey moon. 

Or couples who are just really sweet...

Or a radio star from Ireland.

A series of family portraits:

And this gang from India who cam with me in spite of horrible weather forecast. The forecast turned out to be wrong and we enjoyed a very nice show. This is one of the biggest groups we do, and only on special request. Normally we only have small groups. 

 A very busy photographer.

And people taking a break and just watching the sky.

The photos are done in a very simple manner. I just use one flash, mounted on the camera. Yeah I know it's not very "professional", it's down and dirty press-photographer's style. But hey, that's what I am when I'm not doing Aurora tours. The portraits are memories for the ones who come on these trips. My main focus is to help the client get good photographs, and to experience the Aurora. That's what important. 

The way to do these photos is to use a flash to light up the face of the person, and then to let the time go so that the ambient light in the background comes in. Thus the exposure times are fairly long for portraits. Often 10 - 15 seconds. It is important to stand still all the time during the exposure. I could have gone for a shorter time, but then the ISO would have been too high, or the depth of field too short. To learn more about flash and ambient light check out Strobist, or come to one of my tours and practice for yourself.