ImageMaker Adventures: The Summer Aurora Adventure

Join Ken Sklute as He Shows You What It Took To Capture This Amazing Photo

Let me begin with the fact that there are little, if any, lessons available in chasing the Aurora Borealis.

Chasing it is. It all begins with watching the forecast. Like weather that we experience on a daily basis, the aurora forecast is similar. It is constantly changing. You need to be familiar with the resources that are available in order to forecast the sun, the solar winds as well as the cloud cover in the area that you will need to travel to. This all becomes the easy part.

The basic challenge is, where on earth to go see the best light show. Once I figure out where the weather should be clear, the difficult decision becomes where exactly to go in order to find a beautiful foreground that will end up defining and giving dimension to the colorful background.

Recently, the sun began to show solar flare activity and the solar wind was increasing; the combination caught my eye. In addition, a notice was sent out by the space weather forecasters letting us know that we should be in for a brief, but spectacular show in the northern sky. Where to head became the quick thought. I’ve been lucky in Minnesota this year, though not this time as it looked like rain was in the forecast for days in the heart of the USA. My next choice was the Pacific Northwest, Seattle to be exact. The forecast put a huge smile on my face; days and days of clear blue skies were ahead. “Perfect. One ticket to Seattle please!” It is a terrific time to leave the furnace-like heat of Phoenix behind me, as it will be a record-setting weekend of 118 degrees!

Seattle and the populated surroundings tend to be too light for a dark sky, so I plan to drive east, crossing over the Cascade mountains into the eastern Washington farmlands where the area is flat and dark. Dark is the key. Today we will have virtually black skies, without a moon rising or setting during the brief period of summertime darkness.

My regular destination to capture the Aurora would be somewhere near the Arctic circle, generally dark and very cold. During the summertime, the earth’s pitch changes and as we rotate, the normally dark area becomes the land of the Midnight Sun; it is light for most, if not all, of the night. Up in northern Washington, darkness will come in at about 11PM and start to show the morning glow at about 3AM. That makes for a short night with the sunrise occurring just before 5AM.

Extremes. Witnessing extreme weather generally involves extreme temperatures. The wintertime chase of the Aurora typically takes me into areas where temperatures reach -30°F, so the equipment that I choose to bring along has to be extreme. I count on the best digital media in the world to capture my imagery: Delkin BLACK. The Delkin BLACK memory line is made for extremes; as soon as you pick up the card, you are aware that you are holding a card designed and built to last in extreme conditions. The desert farmland areas here in Washington can reach up to 100°F during the day. The cards are made to withstand heat, cold, as well as that unfortunate time when you either drop it, trample it or even run it over with your automobile.

As dark finally begins to happen, I will already be in place, awaiting the skies to come alive. I spent the better part of the later daylight hours searching for an interesting foreground in order to have a very strong composition. As I scout the area, I’m constantly entering interesting locations that I think will work into my GPS, so that I can pull them up when I might need them, which could and should be when the star of the night sky appears.

Without a foreground and a place for your viewer’s eye to come to rest, the image will look to be moved over quickly. As remarkable as the Aurora can be, without a center of interest or primary subject, there will be nothing holding you in the photograph. I search for windmills, naked trees, abandoned buildings and so on to become the strength of the image design. When the Aurora arrives, it will simply bring the image to life, adding depth and dimension to your creation.

I’ve come home to one of my most favorite and spiritual locations. I would like to believe that my spiritual leader led me here on the summer solstice of 2015. I now return one year later, June 2016, for hopefully another evening with my muse, the Aurora at this beautiful location.

As I approach my destination, I’m happy to see that not much has changed since my last visit, with the exception of the no longer fallow field located behind this great abandoned house. As I pull into the short driveway, I notice I’m being carefully watched by a family of owls that seem to call this farm their home. Mounting my 200 – 400mm + 1.4 teleconverter onto my Canon EOS-1D X Mark II, I captured a few images of my new friends before the waning light faded.

This unique night finds the Aurora arriving soon after the sun sinks below the horizon and the sky turns from rich blue into the darkness of this moonless night.

I will be photographing with two cameras tonight to capture different perspectives of the light show in the sky. This will allow different lenses, compositions and the ability to create panoramas or focus stacked imagery.

My style of photography often includes a foreground element to provide depth and dimension to the colorful presentation in the sky. I now have both cameras set up and ready. I’ve done a few tests and am now just waiting for the lady to arrive.

She arrives in a very subtle, but colorful display and remains with me until the eastern sky began to show hints of the sun returning.

During this brief time together, I was able to create a few different compositions, both vertical and horizontal, a 14 frame panorama and a beautiful time-lapse before she had to be on her way.

Please look into Delkin Devices’ BLACK line of digital media and be on the lookout for more of my adventures here on the Delkin blog!

To see more of my work, please visit my website at SerendipityVisuals.com

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