I mean, you knew this was coming, right? If you’re on any social media platforms, you’ve already seen enough northern lights photos this week to last a lifetime. Well, guess what? I took some too. Then I waited until everyone was already saturated with images from other sources before dumping mine out there into the world. It’s a terrible marketing strategy.
So, feel free to ignore this post and move on to more important things in your life. You know, things like deciding whether that white powdery substance on the bread is mold or flour. No one knows. It’s impossible to know.
On the first night of the colorful sky lights (Tuesday), I went down to our family pasture at about 10pm and stayed until midnight. The show got less interesting as the night went on, but it was fun to wander around the prairie in the dark and look for interesting shapes to silhouette in front of the colors.
One particular clump (clone) of Indiangrass really caught my eye. I liked it so much I photographed it in both landscape and portrait format and then circled back to it 15 or 20 minutes later and tried again.
The biggest challenge with this kind of silhouette photography was focusing. I had my camera low to the ground and was shining a flashlight on the plants I wanted in focus so I could see them through the camera and manually focus on them. I got it right about 50% of the time, which meant I took a lot of photos I can’t use, but since I anticipated that, I got multiple tries in on each composition and mostly came out ok.
On Wednesday, there were clouds in the area and the forecast for good northern lights visibility was uncertain. I decided to chance it and made a run out to the Platte River Prairies and my favorite restored wetland to see if I could get some reflections in the water. Right when I arrived, the show was terrific, but it didn’t last long.
Also, the beavers had done a lot of work since I’d last walked around that wetland. Stumbling about in the dark, I quickly found out that most of my favorite photography spots were under water. I made it work, though I startled several mallards into flight as I blundered through the tall vegetation and shallow ponded water, trying to find good vantage points for photos.
The ol’ eagle tree was a dependable focal point, as always. Of course, no one but me calls it the eagle tree because no one here has been around long enough to remember the bald eagle nest that used to be there.
Plus, of course, the nest wasn’t actually in the tree I’m talking about. It was in the tree right next to it, but during the restoration project (which included tree removal), we left both trees standing so as not to disturb the nest. When the tree with the actual nest fell down (15 years ago?), I kept referring to the other one as the eagle tree anyway. It’s weird that no one else calls it that.
Anyway, I only got 10 or 15 minutes of good northern lights on Wednesday before the clouds spoiled things, but it was still worth the trip. Just listening to owls hoot and ducks grumble while I splashed around in the dark would have been enough, actually. The brief sky spectacular was a really nice bonus.
It sounds like it might be another decade or more before we get a similar show, especially this far south. I hope you got your fill of northern lights photos, if not the opportunity to see them in person.
The Prairie Ecologist 