A man A Tent & One Hell Of A View
the night of 6.22.15 the night sky erupted in one of the most stunning and vivid displays of the aurora I have ever seen. Here I am at white Lake State Park tak...
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the night of 6.22.15 the night sky erupted in one of the most stunning and vivid displays of the aurora I have ever seen. Here I am at white Lake State Park taking in the view.
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Sep, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This image was captured at White Lake State Park in the White mountains of New HampshireTime
I remember it like it was yesterday. We (my self and three fellow shooters) were in poison at an alternate location at Lily Pond on top of the Kancamagus Highway that runs over the spin of the White Mountains in NH between Lincoln and North Conway. We had been tracking potential northern lights activity most of they and this was one of the few placed in the North east that was not cloud covered. as the sun set over the pond it was clear the aurora was already active. but so were the clouds. we had just enough time between sunset, moon set and the clouds rolling on to get off a few shots at the lily pond location. Hoping we could outrun the clouds we moved to White Lake State park about 30 sough of Lily Pond and into clear skies again. By now the moon had set and night was in full swing. It became very apparent as soon as we got into position that they sky had erupted in the time it took to get to our second location. A lot of people overtook the night when thinking about photography but its my favorite time to explore light with my camera!Lighting
When thinking lighting for an image of the northern lights I usually let the aurora do the talking. I mean when the sky lights up for you with aurora there is usually no need to add much more to the scene. However in this case there was a large halogen lamp across the lake from our shooting location that just did not look natural and cast an odd light on the scene. To combat this unwanted light source I moved our tent over to the boat ramp I was shooting from and positioned it between the camera and light. for a bit of added effect I tossed a green glow stick into the tent to provide some interior illumination. It worked perfectly!Equipment
The equipment used for this shot was a Canon 6D full frame camera with a Rokinon 14mm lens my camera was on a Manfrotto 055xprob tripod and a PiXel King wireless remote trigger timer.Inspiration
when the sky dances you dont need a whole lot of inspiration you just hope you can keep up with the show. I knew I like the location with nice wide view framed by the trees, a sailboat moored just off shore and a sky full of aurora the tent completed the scene. its funny I think of this image more s inspiration of my next shots of the aurora more so then needing any inspiration to capture this image. Its funny how that works some times. you fin inspiration in all sorts of ways at the strangest of times.Editing
this images was processed in Light Room CC as well as a few minor tweaks to the mid-tons and shadows in Photoshop. Some of my images especially my night shots require a great deal of post processing. In this case however so much just came together that it did not need much more the standard RAW image processing.In my camera bag
I try to keep things as light as possible as I am usually accessing fairly remote places. in this case I had my Mindshift gear Rotation 180 with me and in the mane compartment I had a Rokinon 14mm fixed lens a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8. 4 extra batteries for the camera plus back ups for my trigger and remote. In the rotation hip pocket of the bag I had my Canon 6D with my Rokinon 24mm Pixel king trigger and Think Tank Pixl Pocket with back up SD cards. lastly I had my trusty headlamp and snacks in the top pouch and a Camel Back 2L hydration pouch on the side.Feedback
The best advice I can give you is you will never get the shot sitting on the couch. Well to be fair that was advice given to me by renound photographer Brad Goldpaint and it has stuck with me ever since. the only way to guarantee yo will not get your shot is to not go out and try. today with camera technology were it is and with having real time access to aurora forecast via any number of apps the mechanics of taking a decent night shot are fairly straight forward. go wide (30mm or wider) go fast (f2.8 or better) and go long (10-30 seconds). Beyond that use a sturdy trio pd and have some way of remotely triggering your camera so you dont add any camera shake. that hard part is being in the right place at the right time. Invest sometime and energy into learning the basics of aurora forecasting (The Great Lakes Aurora Hunters group on Facebook is a great resource for this) an terrestrial weather forecasting. get to know the night sky and what you can see at what time of year. Research interesting places to go shoot (always get permission to shoot on private property) and what you can see from there. Photopills is great for this if you are on iOS or Stellarium on Android can five you an ide of what will be out in the night sky in any direction you want at any time you want right from your couch. But again ill leave you with the most basic tip of all. you have to get out at night to get a night shot. there is just no way around that.
