Chasing The Lights

Last night was truly remarkable. I was processing a few images & also checking on Facebook when I read a post talking about the northern lights. At first, I thought nothing of it. I continued to see more and more posts about the northern lights. I decided to go step outside and see what all the talk was about. Hit the break for more images & the story!

As soon as I stepped off the porch and looked up, my jaw dropped. I walked in awe toward the center of my driveway (still awestruck) and just stood there. My mind was completely blank. I continued to just stand there for another 30 seconds until I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I opened the Twitter app and sent a very obnoxious tweet saying only “NORTHERN LIGHTS. NOW.” I have only witnessed the northern lights once before in my life, and they were nothing like last night.

After sending the tweet my mind began racing and came to one conclusion, drop everything and get the camera. I sprinted into the office and put my gear together. I was so excited to capture ‘the lights’ on my camera; my hands were shaking. In fact, I don’t even remember running back outside; I was that excited. I sprinted down to the “Look Out Point” in my yard, where I can see 8 miles of Lake Huron coastline & began shooting.

I only had my slippers and a t-shirt on, but there was no time to think about being cold. This event had to be captured and shared. The first few images I took came out extremely red. So I kept changing my white balance settings to different modes to tone down the reds. NOTHING worked. I began to think something was wrong with my camera, but then realized there wasn’t. The vivid reds were actually there, I just couldn’t see them with my eyes that well. The image above this text shows the vivid reds in the upper half.

Composition wise, these pictures aren’t spectacular, but I wasn’t even thinking of it at the time. All I could think about was capturing the moment.

Let me know in the comments section if you saw the northern lights! Also, don’t be afraid to use the social media buttons below!