Friday Photo #556 – Twilight Aurora

Photo: Late August twilight and northern lights – aurora borealis, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. August 27, 2023. 00:15

After a week of mostly cloudy skies from last weeks first northern lights sighting of the year (Friday Photo #555), they were once again dancing in the sky last Saturday night. I was a warm summer evening, and so after a bbq with some neighbours I headed down to my beach to shoot a few images.

The evening sky is growing noticeably darker with each passing day, yet even in the midnight hours the glow of the sun just below the northern horizon is still quite strong. While I typically like these early/late season auroras with a twilight horizon, it is still a week or so early when shooting these images as the horizon was a little too bright – Especially if looking north towards the open sea as I was. And even with a moderately active aurora, the sky will not be sufficiently dark until around midnight, so this time of year misses all of the evenings early aurora activity.

The tide at the beach was in an awkward location, and I struggled to find a good foreground – with the the bright horizon not helping much either. At one point a small corona began dancing across the sky. I first tried to shoot it with more of a foreground, but as it passed directly to the north, I to a couple of images just pointing towards the sky and the horizon just out of frame. While a bit boring, I kinda like the abstract look of the image and the shift of warm to cool tones. It actually captures what it feels like standing out there, alone by the sea, in these last days of summer.

The image below is from when I first arrived at the beach and was still trying to work with a foreground composition to the scene. The sea was nearly flat and the rocks were perfectly in the middle of the tide line. If the tide had been a little higher, or the waves bigger, it would have been better to have the sea washing past to rock to give a little more balance to the dark sand and foreground.

It is not even September and I’ve already photographed the aurora multiple times. A good start to what will hopefully be a good aurora season!

For a bit of self promotion: there are still a few spots open on some of my winter photography workshops here on Lofoten.

Head over to my Instagram account for (almost) daily postings of the local conditions here on Lofoten: @distant.north

Camera Info: Photo 1
Nikon z8
Nikon 20mm f/1.8
20mm
ISO 640
f 2.2
1.6 Second
WB Daylight

Camera Info: Photo 2
Nikon z8
Nikon 20mm f/1.8
20mm
ISO 640
f 2
2.5 Second
WB Daylight