I watch solar data pretty closely. Thanks to a couple of guys at NOAA, I’ve learned which numbers are the most important to us here in North Dakota. The way the numbers were peaking on Monday, I was going absolutely nuts. The sky was on fire, but unfortunately we were on the daylight side of the globe. As darkness approached, I made plans to go out to see them.
I had planned some dramatic foreground objects, but things didn’t time out the way I’d planned. I found myself along the side of a rural highway with some friends, however, which was cool in itself. I started to swing the camera around to see what I could capture.
Again, I’m of the opinion that any sky photo is made 10x better by having an interesting or unique foreground. That was driving me nuts as I didn’t really have one, but the Lord put on a lightshow that was so astonishing that I began to just look upward and not focus so much on the camera.
I keep little LED flashlights in my camera bag, and I grabbed a blue one to illuminate the roadway with blue light so vibrant I actually had to tone it down for this photo. I played around a little bit until the clouds began to roll in, I began to get tired, and the lights began to wane.
There’s a really good chance of more Northern Lights tonight – keep your eye on the skies! I’m going to be on the road for a shoot all day and don’t expect to get back until after dark…but I may have the opportunity to transition from work to play just in time to catch more Northern Lights.