Tag: aurora borealis

iPhone Friday

Experiencing the aurora borealis in Iceland was unforgettable, yet witnessing such phenomena from my backyard also brings joy.

Last Friday, I mentioned that I found several iPhone shots that grabbed my attention, which made finding an image for this week rather easy.

Over the past year, we have been blessed with some rather spectacular solar events to color our skies in the northern hemisphere. Each of these events has provided a unique spectacle, transforming the mundane into something truly magical. The colors swirling in the sky, reminiscent of a painter’s palette, have often left me speechless at the sheer beauty that nature presents. I’ll be honest that after having experienced the aurora borealis in Iceland on a very cold winter night, I feel that it’s cheap to get the same effect— or even better— without having to go through the hardships of braving freezing temperatures and rugged terrains.

Nevertheless, here’s a view from my backyard on November 11, 2025…

Backyard Aurora

It’s fascinating how certain phenomena can evoke such strong emotions and memories. The vibrant hues of the auroras danced above me like a living artwork, and while that experience was unforgettable, I must admit that witnessing solar phenomena right from the comfort of my home or local area can be equally rewarding. This juxtaposition of adventure and accessibility adds a new layer to our appreciation of such wondrous natural displays, reminding us that sometimes, the beauty of the world is just around the corner, waiting for us to take a moment to look up.

Monday’s Moment – Portfolio v2.1

The challenge and joy of pulling together a portfolio. The memories of the circumstances are relived in this process.

As I have started in earnest to begin to pull together a more comprehensive portfolio, I’m also beginning to realize how monumental a task this may be. There are just a lot of images to go through and I really want to do a solid job gathering all that might come into play.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s an unpleasant task, as part of the fun is looking at older shots and remembering things about the time and situation. Among these, this is one…

Fixer-Upper near Vik

As there might be an opportunity to capture the Aurora Borealis while we were in Vik, a bit of location scouting was needed. Part of my thoughts about shooting the Northern Lights was that there should be a certain amount of interesting landscape silhouetted with the sky’s light display. Plus we should be far enough from any town to reduce light pollution.

This field became the location for our Aurora shoot a couple of days later (cf. A Return to Iceland post). It helped that there was good access by road and far enough away from a main road, and the experience was amazing!

A note about the process I am using to organize my portfolio; Lightroom is my tool of choice, as it enables me to quickly go through images. If I see an image that I want to take a closer look at later, I give it a rating of 1 star. On a second, slower pass I take the time to decide whether this image actually speaks to me, in which case I upgrade its rating. Sometimes this does mean that I will take a quick dive into processing the image to get some idea of what the end result might be.

There will be more on progress!

A Test Shot from Iceland

Even a test shot might reveal something interesting.

It’s fun going through some of my wintry images, as I’m working towards a bit more coherence within the set of images to ultimately become the core of my portfolio. As I was looking through some of my Iceland images from earlier this year, I flipped through the folder that holds my Aurora Borealis images and noticed a particular image…

Pre-Aurora Test Shot

As my friend, George Fellner, and I were setting up, I took a quick test shot to get a sense of the exposure values that we would need, as well as some idea about how I wanted to frame the landscape for the sequence coming up.

That’s where this image came in, and even though it’s rather grainy at 6400 ISO there is a certain amount of interest in it; at least for me, as I don’t normally get to see this many stars in the sky. Settings for this shot were 25 second exposure at f/2.8.

If you’re curious about the actual series of images, please take a look (and listen) here: Aurora Borealis on YouTube .

A Return to Iceland

The Aurora Borealis in Iceland was magnificent, as captured in this video!

First of all, greetings to everyone! It’s been too long since my last post for all the wrong reasons.

Great news is my recent return to Iceland for the third time. This was the first foray into the land of Fire and Ice during the Winter season, as I wanted to see even more of the Ice part of this beautiful country. During ten days in February, my traveling companion, George Fellner, and I spent some quality time photographing the amazing landscapes in their Winter glory.

Here’s my first item to share from this epic journey (it’s almost 4 minutes long, and I hope you enjoy all of it along with the soundtrack):

Aurora in Vik, Iceland

This was the first time in my life that I experienced the Aurora Borealis in person, and it was absolutely magical, breathtaking and astounding!

We had scoped out a location ahead of time, which would provide a bit of foreground in the form of the hills that you see in these images; the location is about 20 minutes from the town of Vik, and definitely not the most popular place, as we had it to ourselves. A number of other locations had large groups of people gathered, as we could even hear them in the quiet of the night.

After setting up around 9 pm, I spent some time ensuring that all the camera settings were within a range that would work, dialing in the exposure on my remote trigger. Just after 10 pm, the first glimpses of the aurora started showing in the sky, much to our excitement! For the next hour we were treated to this magnificent celestial display.

For the photography nerds, these images were capture on the Canon EOS R5 using the 15-35mm f2.8L RF lens. I kept my aperture wide open at f2.8 and set ISO to 800. During the shoot I made some adjustments to exposure lengths depending on strength of the aurora; exposure was typically around 20 seconds.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did!