Driving to Finland and back, only to find Aurora in our back yard.

Yesterday was one of those challenging nights. Clouds and more clouds, and some snow and rain.
Everywhere.
I talked to the local weather guy and he said my best chance was Skibotn or Kilpisjärvi. So we drove to Skibotn to find rain, then to Kilpisjärvi to find clouds. Finally we gave up and headed home.

Just when we made the last turn, where we could see our beloved Tromsø, we saw a light on the sky. And no it wasn't a cloud lit by the city lights. It was HER! Lady Aurora! We stopped at Berg just outside town. We had a show that lasted 45 minutes.

Troll marshmallows makes an excellent foreground. 

And so does trees.

Guess What Waited for Me When I Got Home in the Morning?

The last week has been great. I've been shooting time lapses, and have lots of pictures to process. I think I have grown a little spoiled. Aurora has been dancing non stop this week, the weather has been very nice; cold and clear. 

Last night we waited until 9 pm until we saw her. Aurora danced for us for about 30 minutes before she almost stopped. 

 There were still activities but, very little.

We waited and waited. At 12:30 am, my guests were cold enough and wanted to go back. So we did. We were a short hours drive from Tromsø. After dropping the guests at their hotels, I went back home. Guess what I saw when I got out of the van at home at 2:15 am? You got it: Aurora. She was dancing. Partying. telling me who's in charge.

Aurora seen from my drive way.

Corona 

Corona saying good night.

Laughter at Laughter Bay

The trip went to Lyngen this time. The lovely family from Singapore had chosen to stay in a cabin in Lyngseidet, in the middle of the Lyngen peninsula.

The lovely family from Singapore 

We had different options of where to go. We could have gone to Skibotn, but it's a place I've been visiting so much. Instead I decided to go north on the Lyngen peninsula, to Lattervik. Lattervik means Laughter Bay, and it was quite telling. Aurora was laughing when we arrived, and she kept laughing with us the whole night.

Try to spot the photographer.

To get a photo where the Aurora is mirrored in the water, it's important to find some water that is not moving too much. There is too often too much waves on the sea to get it right. The solution is a lake, if it's not frozen over, or a pond. On the beach there is almost always a pond to be found. If you're lucky you may also catch a photographer. 

The season has started!!!

The gang on their second outing.

We've been seeing Aurora from our house for quite some time now, but our first time out chasing this season was thursday September 26th. It was a dark and stormy night. Clouds everywhere. Wind, rain. We went towards Sommarøya and stopped at a beach. after several hours waiting Aurora came and said hello. We could see her through the clouds.

We managed to find a little pond with nice reflections. We got a few exposures, and then she was gone. No one said it was easy.

The same group had booked a tour the next night. This time the weather had changed, and Aurora showed us how it can be. We went to a couple of my favorite places. I let the images talk for themselves.

Sometimes sitting on a rock is enough.

The last week of February was really tough in many ways. The weather was bad everywhere. Driving conditions were very difficult with a lot of ice and big dams of water on the roads. Clouds everywhere, no northern lights to be found and both Silvia and me were down with the flu. On the last day of February things changed to the better. We drove through snowy weather and I could hear a few people in the back of the van mumbling about not being able to see the Aurora. When we reached the destination it was very windy, very cold and a clear sky with Aurora dancing over our heads!

We went down to the beach and had a fantastic time. These three young gentlemen from tropical Singapore were laughed in the face of cold arctic climate as long as Aurora was having a beach party for them.

When I made this picture I was thinking of the use of foregrounds. Someone said about photography that "the World has been seen." Meaning that it is super important to try to find new angles to things. Bring your camera low, bring it high. Use the golden rule, brake the golden rule. Make pictures, don't just take them. It's too easy to get so overwhelmed by the northern lights that we forget to be photographers and just click away at the lights, forgetting to compose. 

Joe McNally, a great photographer and an excellent writer about photography, says he always tries to put a ballet dancer in the photo. So I did. Unfortunately Mariann Csikesz had hurt her foot so she couldn't strike a pose with a foot in the air or something. But she did great just sitting on a rock. Sometimes sitting on a rock is enough. We let Aurora do the dancing.

Hanging Out with the Wild Bunch from 37 Frames

A group of photographers from Japan or shall I say somewhere in that corner of the world came up to Tromsø to pay us a visit and to go Aurora chasing with us. We spent three nights and an afternoon together. Tracey Taylor and Dee Green are two very talented Australian photographers who live in Tokyo, Japan, and run 37 Frames. They put together a group of photographers and came exploring the north. I have to admit that I have rarely been with such a positive group of people. They are writing a series of no less than 3 blog posts from the trip. Read the first one here.

In the blog they mention a five seconds long time lapse that they did the second day. I made a short little answer to that one. Check it out:

On the third day it was cloudy, cloudy and then some more. We drove and drove, and ended up by the Finnish border. Normally people who don't get to see anything because of clouds just sit in the car. Not this gang. First of course we had to prove we were on the border to Finland.

Then Tracey and Dee started doing their thing. Which is photography!

They used two light sources and made some really cool shots. Some of them are here and here and even here.

Then a little chimping: