It may sound like a cliché, but for sure my passion for both photography and traveling came from my parents. Throughout my childhood we travelled a lot, and they weren’t afraid to go off the beaten track. It was never a laid back holiday with my parents, we would always rent a car to explore a place or make friends with locals and end up having coffee at their house. When visiting Sri Lanka in the late 90’s I remember walking with my dad on the beach and him talking with the local police chief who ended up inviting us to his house. Just talking with him and meeting his family was an honour, even with the language barrier, I remember how thrilled I was to have had that privilege. This transcends into my travelling experiences today, meeting local people is at the core of travelling for me.
As for photography, my dad was a graphic designer, meaning photography and editing was part of his life, so I think subconsciously this passion rubbed off on me. He ran a magazine and often took me along to photo shoots as a child. Meanwhile, my mum is an adventurous person and she inspired me a lot to go out and see the world. She always tells me to take every opportunity I can, however small. I’m lucky for this support. As I grew up into my early teens I became obsessed with weather photography and video. Especially storms and the more extreme spectrum of weather had my interest, which got me working at the Royal Meteorological Society, doing radio interviews and even appearances on TV.
There is not a day that goes by where I don’t have the overwhelming urge to pick up the camera and capture what’s going on around me. Over the last years I’ve tried to put the camera away at times to live ‘in the moment’ or to be ‘free from technology’. However, all I do is get stressed about not having recorded that moment in time, because after all, memories aren’t always everlasting. As a compromise, the camera comes with me wherever I may go, but I know when to put it down. Being an aurora photographer can make this difficult, especially when the sky fills with pink and green, and each aurora appearance is different to the next.
After finishing my bachelor in geology at Royal Holloway University, England, in 2015, my move to Tromsø was primarily study based. I’d always wanted to see the northern lights and experience polar night, so when I saw the opportunity to take a masters degree at the university I jumped at the chance. Within only a few months of arriving, my studies took me to Svalbard, which would cement my love for the Arctic. Coming from Britain, which is so built up and so densely populated, it was so freeing to stand on a glacier with friends, rifle in hand in case of polar bears, and hear silence. Thousands of km from the nearest big city, the hustle and bustle that I’d become accustomed to was silenced by thick snow and never-ending untouched landscapes.
At the end of my first year I was given the opportunity to work with northern lights tourism as a guide and now, after having worked for a northern lights company in Tromsø for 4 years, I have seen the aurora hundreds of times in many shapes and sizes. An aurora ‘hunt’ involves hunting clear skies and good locations, not the aurora itself, because the aurora is there nearly all the time, above the clouds or hidden by daylight. But when it is cloudy, there is a skill in finding the clear skies to catch a glimpse of the spectacle. On clear nights, the aurora is visible to all, depending on the mood of Lady Aurora.
Photographing the aurora depends on light conditions, whether that be the sunset auroras of Autumn and Spring (usually the most spectacular) or the dark milky way stapled auroras of the polar night. DSLR and new mirrorless systems work best for aurora, as they allow for high iso settings without too much noise. Quite often the aurora can show up from nowhere, and explode into the sky, giving you only seconds to change your settings to suit the new scene. Therefore I recommend the following tips:
You want as much light coming into the camera as possible so set the aperture as wide as it will go depending on your lens. Between F4 and F1.4 is good depending on the light conditions. Your iso really depends on again light conditions. As an example, with full moon I’d opt for an iso of around 800 with exposure time around 3-6 seconds and aperture around 2.8. With moonless skies and clouds around I’d maybe opt for 1600 iso, an aperture of 1.4 and 10 seconds exposure time. Practise at home wherever you are with night sky photography, it will help you significantly when you come and try it in the Arctic Winter.
I use a 14mm with F2.8, or 15mm F1.4. The 14mm allows you to get both scenery and a large section of the open sky. You’ll see many of my photos where you see both scenery and the ‘corona’ which occurs directly overhead. It makes it much more difficult to set up such a scene when your lens is less open than around 30mm.
To make your pictures stand out, research good locations and ask around. It doesn’t even have to be in the middle of nowhere. When the lights are strong enough you can get some great pictures of landmarks in the city centre with aurora above. Although being away from city light is best for the full experience. Your location can also help when the weather conditions are difficult. It’s normal for the city to be cloudy while a one and a half hour drive inland has clear skies all night. Research is key in finding the best location for the weather type. As for editing, I have over time used different white balances, from the warmer tones that were all the rage when I first started guiding four and a half years ago, to the colder icy tones that have taken over social media recently.
In my case, my editing has been influenced by a Japanese man with a dream to see the northern lights: It was my second year of guiding and I was taking a tour out with difficult weather conditions. I greeted the guests and one Japanese man got onto the bus with his daughter close behind, the man was 91 years old. At our first stop it was snowing/ sleeting heavily and most didn’t get out of the bus, but he did and talked at me in Japanese for a good 5 minutes before his daughter came out to help translate. He told me that he’d been saving his whole adult life to have the chance to come and see the aurora. Pressure! At our second stop the clouds parted and he walked out into a snow covered field and fell to his knees as the aurora swirled overhead. I walked over and saw he was crying, so put my arm around him and watched the aurora with him while the screams of excitement from other guests faded into the background. His photo was taken first, then all other guests, with pure excitement on their faces.
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Those are the emotions I want to express through my photos. Structure is important to me, I like to bring out the small or sometimes large scale structures the aurora has that make people scream while frozen to the spot as it dances overhead. Silhouettes I use as a mirror into human emotion at that time. Body posture can convey excitement, shock, awe and more, meaning that snapshot in time has far more emotional value than any simple photo of aurora and landscape. Recently I’ve also been trying to edit so that the aurora looks as close to real life as possible, although this can be difficult, as the aurora does appear different shades given different light conditions. The extreme greens and deeply saturated yellows that are often seen on social media are not realistic and are bad advertising.
The moon acts as a natural light source that allows you to lower your iso and lower exposure times, capturing the fast moving structures that can be blurred out by long exposure times on moonless or cloudy nights. Not only this but the landscape that is so often hidden in the darkness comes alive, adding another dimension to the photography. Some locals will tell you it has to be icy cold to see the aurora, this is not true. However, very cold weather does mean a clearer atmosphere. The coldest tour I ever guided took us into -38 Celsius, just over an hour inland from Tromsø. I’ve still never seen such defined purple pillars rising up above the swirling green and pink as I did that evening, the moon seemed to illuminate the lights from below.
I may know a lot about the aurora and how to capture it at its best now, but photography has taught me to keep learning, even when it feels like you’re already saturated with all the information you think you need to know. The biggest personal development of all is learning to be patient and to accept the outcome of every endeavour with a positive attitude. Waiting in a field for the aurora for 6, 7 maybe 8 hours in -15 Celsius is difficult, but I’m always willing to do it just in case that perfect shot comes along. Even after all that waiting, if the result isn’t what you had in mind e.g. the aurora doesn’t show up, you will still get back out there the next night and try again.
Photography makes me happy, it calms me down, and most of all I get a high from showing others my work so that they can experience something that they may never have the chance to see. Photography helps me connect with myself and with nature in a way that I’m not able to express with any other outlet. Taking photos in nature makes you see the insignificant in a different light. The insignificant cloud becomes a beast on the skyline, or the berry amongst thousands in the field becomes a focal point for the viewer. If you can appreciate the insignificant, the significant, such as the aurora, become even more spectacular. With the constant flood of images we see everyday, that line between photo and reality has been blurred. Being behind the camera allows me to differentiate between the two, and to give all of my soul into the photos I take and edit. Always with the knowledge that what I post online will be appreciated by those who have a similar passion.
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