Northern lights

The northern lights are the one subject I will happily lose sleep for. A good night can start with nothing more than a pale green smear low on the horizon, and an hour later the whole sky is moving.

Manitoba sits under the auroral oval, which makes it one of the best places in the world to watch them. Displays are possible on any clear night from late August through April, and the long dark evenings around the equinoxes tend to be the most active. The green comes from oxygen roughly a hundred kilometres up. Red shows when the oxygen is much higher, and the pink and purple edges come from nitrogen lower down.

I shoot them from country roads, riverbanks, and dock ends, anywhere the horizon is open and the town lights are far behind. The camera picks up more colour than your eyes do, but the pillars, the rolling curtains, and the reflections on still water are exactly what was there.

Photos

Back to prairie landscape photography, or see autumn colour.