northern lights

Aug 06 2013

How to take Aurora Photographs with only a Flashlight

Sometimes you go out to photograph the Aurora Borealis in Yellowknife and they just don’t show up. So you make your own aurora.

1. Practise circles. Start small.

2. Go bigger. Make bigger circles.

3. Focus really hard on the light.

4. Turn yourself into light. Be one with the light.

5. Think of winter. Maybe a snowman will help.

6. Get Marcus to make a horse.

7. Envision the great outdoors, and maybe a wolf.

8. Pretend you are driving to the ultimate Aurora spot, in Yellowknife of course.

9. Have Marcus set more of a scene with animals.

10. Maybe a bigger animal.

11. Okay we got it. Here it is THE AURORA!

12. To be clear for people, spell it out. Make sure to spell it correctly.

Done you have just created your very own aurora and photographed it at the same time.

Apr 15 2012

My Hidden Lake Adventures

I have tried to get out to Hidden Lake every other weekend this winter and that seems to be working. I went out for Friday night and most of Saturday this weekend and now I feel exhausted but it is always fun.

This was one of my hang-ups living in Fort St. John, I didn’t get out in the woods much. It could have been for several reasons: I didn’t know where to go, there wasn’t a place to go, no one to go with or maybe I just had a general lack of ambition to do so down there. None of those are a problem here in the Northwest Territories. It is my domain, where I grew up, what I know.

There is not just one cabin I could go use, there is 3, all on different lakes spread out outside of Yellowknife. Even though my snowmobile broke earlier this year I have friends who lend me theirs. I’m never without access to the great outdoors and the ambition is there.

Hidden Lake is one of my favourite places to escape to because there is no contact with the outside world. In other words no cell phone service. The cabin itself is well setup with a propane furnaces that doesn’t require any maintenance other than changing out the bottles. Even then three 100lb bottles hooked up into the system allow it to go for several weekends without needing to be changed.

The cabin is located on a ridge of rock at one end of this lake and even though I have gone to this cabin now for almost ten years I finally climbed the ridge this winter. Check out the view:

While there is a lot of time for good R&R we do get some work and maintenance around the cabin done. This past trips project was to get some scrap wood out from behind the outhouse so we could have a bonfire. While I was cutting a trail in towards the outhouse I got the snowmobile stuck – this in no way reflects the performance of the snowmobile, just the driver 😉 – so we had to cut it out.

It did eventually drive right out of there once we cut out the brush that was wrapped around the skis.

Moving on to a more recreational activity, no winter outing at a cabin in the Northwest Territories would be complete without some Ice Fishing and Hidden Lake offers some of the best. Ciscos are often a good choice for bait when Ice Fishing and sure enough out of our three holes we caught a Lake Trout.

Finally of course would be the Northern Lights or Aurora. Getting out of Yellowknife with all its light pollution generally means the aurora will be good and sure enough – when I was actually awake – they were.

Jan 28 2012

I done better at Aurora

But I still ain’t that good.

This was my second attempt here in Yellowknife, third attempt over all at photographing the Aurora. Ironically, I still this my first attempt was the best. Nonetheless I keep trying.

The lights were not very bright while I was out this evening (about 11:30pm). I’ve been told there normally at their best from 1am – 3am, but I just don’t have the dedication yet to stay awake or get up again to go out and shoot.

This is however one of the “better:” ones I got this evening:

I like the element of the houseboat in the photo, but I must admit to some Photoshop trickery.

There is no way I could have lit up the foreground while keeping the Northern Lights so bright, so what I did, is brighten the foreground myself. I used the quick-select tool, got all the foreground and then upped the exposure. Seemed to work, although you can tell it was processed by the amount of noise you can see.

Next time I go Aurora hunt I should try two things:

Wait until there are real good lights. Be patient. Go far out-of-town, away from light pollution.
Be a man. Do the right fing. Err, I forgot what the second thing was.

Well until next time, send me all your tips. I need all the help I can get.

Just another one to look at.

Oct 06 2011

KyleWith: Photographer Karl Johnston

[podcast]http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53888dece4b0b0e91301d66b/t/55b33427e4b0fa8a2a8966a4/1437807708589/kw_karljohnston.mp3/original/kw_karljohnston.mp3[/podcast]

Click here to download or listen on an iOS Device

Karl Johnston first caught my attention with his amazing shots of the Aurora in the area of Fort Smith, NWT. Since then I have watch his career as a Photographer grow.

During our conversation Karl and I talked about how in the last couple years he was worked towards supporting himself a photographer and proper marketing. Even though it can be very difficult, Karl has set out to make sure he is selling his prints. His prints can be seen in Fort Smith, Yellowknife and more to come.

A recent project that Karl has been working on is combining the natural beauty of the Fort Smith, NWT area and the beauty of a human. Check out some his latest work on his website and hear more about Karl, the project, what inspires him and what is next in this episode.

Be sure to check out his website and like his page on Facebook.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to Subscribe on iTunes or by Email here.

Don’t forget if you know someone doing something interesting (or another photographer or yourself) send me their info, I want to talk to them!

Sep 10 2011

Aurora Funnel over the Peace Region

Well I finally did it, after living in the prime Aurora viewing city all my life, I finally got out and took a photo of them… while living 1000km south of that in Fort St. John. This was proabably one of the best displays of the lights the Peace Region has ever seen, ironically that would be consider an average show in the North.

While I was dancing around with the lights last night on the side of the highway by myself many memories came flooding back. I remember one paricularly of myself coming out of the Gerry Murphy Area in the dead of winter in Yellowknife and seeing the green AND red light dancing around.

It being the first time I had ever tried the capture the dancing beast I probably didn’t do all that I should. I quickly found, thanks to a friend, that I needed to lower my ISO as I was shooting at 1000. I brought it down to 400 and even found that was to high while processing the photos later.

I’m definitely no or (the King of the Aurora) but I happy with what I got.

ISO400, 11mm, f/8, 30.0secs