Sorry Hive, it's been a while since I last posted anything to my blog. Life just got in the way and lately I've found 'regular' social media to be very unfulfilling. I'm also not too keen on making Mr Zuck R Berg any richer than he already is!!
This is a post about my recent obsession with shooting Aurora Borealis aka The Northern Lights.
The sun (that big ball of light that our Earth orbits around (sorry flat earthers!)), is currently in something known as Solar Maximum which occurs roughly once every 11 years. The sun expels CME's (coronal mass ejections) earthward in the form of solar winds which hit the north and south poles. I have seen the CME's described as "snot" being ejected like a sneezing sun in layman's terms. I could go in to detail about how Aurora events are detected but I'd bore the reader silly. But needless to say I've been keeping a close eye on solar events.
So far this year in the UK, I have seen three good showings of Aurora with a couple of minor disappointments. The photos below are from the 10th of October 2024. The images have had only minimal processing to improve digital noise at such high ISO film speeds; I'm not a fan of Photoshop!
The Cliffs above Thornwick Bay
After a previous Aurora event on the 10th May and the crowds which gathered at Flamborough Head on the east coast of England, we decided to head for a less popular spot not too far away known as Thornwick Nab (or Bay). I had no wish to fight off camera phone users polluting my images with little blue rectangles of light waiting for me to clone out!
This is probably my favourite shot of the evening:
As we arrived at Thornwick Bay it was just starting to become dark. This was the scene during the blue hour shot with an iPhone. At this point, the Aurora wasn't visible by eye. Using a phone is a quick way to detect any colour which might be present.
This is straight out of camera (iPhone) with no processing at all:
We were stood watching the display with mouths wide open and the occasional expletive!
The scene before us changed every few minutes:
Thornwick Nab is a great place from which to shoot Aurora since you get a choice of views. For this one we used a drone equipped with Lume Cubes to light up the foreground. This is 3 x images stacked since the drone couldn't light up the whole scene:
On this occasion I remembered to bring my old Samyang 12mm full frame fisheye lens. I don't mind the horizon not being straight, just look at the colours!!
Another fisheye shot, this time I attempted to straighten out the horizon. Not that well it seems!!
And finally. Since the 10th October, I have seen very little in the way of clear skies and there hasn't been much Aurora activity either. Certainly not visible in my part of the world. I have my fingers and everything else crossed for clear skies and Aurora so I can do this all over again!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex, landscape and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; the social side of photography is always good!
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