Posted April 28th, 2019

Conducting the Symphony of Lights

Auroral activity has been weak this past winter as the sunspot cycle established solar minimum, but the early hours of April 1st brought the best display I have seen all season and it was no April fools. An unusually warm March had melted all the snow off the lake ice (as well as most of the land) but it still was solid and thick enough to safely walk on it. I had been wishing for northern lights the preceding week when the surface had many glassy areas that would have produced wonderful reflections; unfortunately those had decayed mostly to frosted glass by this time. Still, the light show was exhilarating. I illustrated my emotion whilst breaking up the empty space of the foreground by posing myself in the scene, guided by the teachings of Paul Zizka at our recent workshop.
Pentax K-1, Bower 14mm f/2.8 ED AS IF UMC, 13 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 2500