Lady of dawn

"Lady of dawn"
The season has started in Tromsø! Now we just need to get darker skies and all the aurora addicts will be happy!
As you can see in the shot, our favourite lady was fighting against the sunset and the clouds, although it was 1AM. We do not get proper nights anymore, but she is eager to come and visit us!
This photo was shot from Tromsø island, close to university. I had to run a lot to find a dark spot to get her photo! 
Feel free to share, and let me know your thoughts!

 ISO 100, f 2.2, 10 seconds exposure time

Northern light challenge

While we wait for the northern light season to begin, why not start warming up our editing skills? Here you have the download link for the JPEG and RAW photo, just choose the one you prefer to edit and send me your result! Just send me a mail with the photo attached to northernlighchannel@gmail.com or as a message/wall post on Facebook, and I will share it in the album I have created for this challenge.
Feel free to do as much editing as you want, add or remove elements with Photoshop, put your signature, share it with your friends... just go crazy!
Download the files here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tosz93hljlio2a0/NL%20Challenge.zip?dl=0

And follow the challenge on the album, I will try to post all the photos I receive. And feel free to tag yourselves, I will definitely give credit to every person

This is the unedited photo, let's see how would you like to see it!

This time, I let you find out the settings I used :) Let me know if you have questions!

Steal this photo

Yes, steal this photo! Make it yours, own it, get it...

This is what I have seen and experienced during the last northern light season. Some people have stolen my photos, some people have used them with permission. 

But what is "sharing"?

This question has popped up several times when I have confronted the people that have used  the photo without my permission. 

Social networks have a built-in "Share" button. When you hit that button, you decide if you want to share it in your wall, in a message, or any other place. This is sharing: you share something you like with other people, and the name of the photographer will follow the picture. 

This is something we encourage you to do: it helps us reach more people, and hopefully more people will be interested in what we do. In my case, the goal of this blog is to go through the nuts and bolts of northern light photography (are you missing any information? Please, let me know!), others want to have publicity for their business, and others sell prints of the photo you are seeing. 

So share and comment if you like a photo, that means a lot to us.

Another option is if you download the photo, then upload it to your profile. Here you will be in a tricky position: if you upload it and give credit to the photographer, that is still sharing, but if you upload it and do not tell that you are NOT the photographer, then you are using the photo inappropriately. 

What is "stealing"?

Stealing is inappropriately taking something that does not belong to you. In our case, when you upload someone else's photo and you do not say who was the photographer, you are doing it wrong: no, you will not get a SWAT team storming your house, and nobody will sue you if you just post a photo. The real problem comes when you sell the photo, or use it as a business presentation ("See what photo I took last night, join a tour with me" -but the photo was taken last week, and it was not him taking the photo-). A clear case of stealing is here, go and read!!

If you remove the signature from the photo (which is there not to annoy our friends, but to deter robbers), or you upload it as yours, or you use it for promoting your business, then that is called stealing. Even if you do not make money out of it, you are unlawfully owning another persons's piece of work!

What if I want to share it in a social network, but you aren't there?

This happened to me some weeks ago: I am not on Instagram, and I got a message asking if they could share my photos there. Of course you can! Go share! Post them wherever you want, just remember to put "Photo by Northern light blog". If you feel like it, a link to the blog, or the facebook page: we will always appreciate that. 

In summary, you can print the photos, share them or upload them to your profile/website, as long as you say "this photo was taken by XXX".

Several of you have asked about this, I hope this helps clarifying how sharing and stealing work when it comes to photography. Do you have more questions? Drop me a line on my e-mail or on my facebook page!

ISO 3200, f=2.8, 4 seconds exposure

Finally, here you have my latest time-lapse project! Sit down, turn your volume up and feel the arctic coming to you!

I have included real time sequences in the video, and I have tried my best to make the time-lapse sequences as close to real time as possible. This has been a lot of work and my poor computer has almost died several times... 

Let me know your thoughts! Drop me a line on my e-mail or on my facebook page and I will gladly reply :)

Catching up

Dear friends,

I thought I had managed to automatize my posts in Facebook and the blog, and I have realized that all the posts were saved as drafts, so they were not published. Here I leave you the photos you have missed! The season has finished for us here in Tromsø. The last two photos here were taken on the 17th of April in Oldervik, a small village near the island, together with Photography by Terje Brannfjell. The feeling was very strange: temperatures were mild (almost warm!), there was sunset light for the whole night, and we knew that it was our last chance: luckily, the selfish lady came to give us a last dance! I will of course keep posting photos, but they will be from archive.
As always, enjoy and share if you like it!
I am now preparing a new post, what are you curious about? Let me know and I will try to help :)
Drop me a line on my e-mail or on my facebook page!

Tromsø at night

Tromsø is known for its increasing tourism for northern lights: any avid northern light addict comes to town to find the elusive green lady, and most of them succeed finding her. We always think that we need to get away from the city lights to enjoy her dance, to see her in all her magnificence.

But here is the truth: when she dances she does it as if nobody is looking! And you can look at her wherever you are, as long as she dances. We cannot always find the perfect location, find a dark place, and you are stranded in midtown...

Of course, you can dance together with her! So I did, while shooting this panorama. The challenge of shooting a panorama is to be quick enough as to get the northern light in frame before it moves too fast, while keeping everything in focus. The star shape in the street lights is due to a smaller aperture (higher f-number), which helps increasing the depth of field in the photo, but requires longer exposure times.
I shot 16 vertical shots at ISO 1000, f=7.1 and 10 seconds exposure time with a Canon EOS 6D and a canon 24mm f1.4 L lens

Let me know your opinion in a comment, e-mail or drop me a line on my facebook page!

16 vertical shots at ISO 1000, f=7.1 and 10 seconds exposure

The end of the road

When you are hunting northern lights, you always go to the limit, and in this case, to the end of the road. Finally the sun is coming to Tromsø, and soon we will start feeling warm during the day (if "warm" can be understood as "not totally freezing"). Ironically, the coldest days of the winter have not come yet, they will come together with the sun.

This specific night, the cold was very present all the time: the location is a valley inland in the Troms county, where we ended up being at -18ºC, with chilling cold wind. Although we were ready for the cold, we decided to wait into the car until some activity happened.

Yes, we went out to chase northern lights, and we decided to wait in the car until the selfish lady started showing up. Of course, as soon as she winked at us (with a glowing green in the sky), we jumped out of the car, all the gear ready and spots (and composition) planned previously. That way, we knew where to be and what to do.

This is something that has to be kept in mind: chasing the lights is not just a matter of warm clothes, hot coffee and a camera. It is about planning, and being ready for the shot. Choose your destination before you go, decide on a time, and try to keep your eyes wide open. Sometimes, the best spot for a photo is not the best spot to enjoy the night, and vice versa. Sometimes, there is a better spot on the way to your planned spot: try to plan for a bit of exploring time on your way to the destination, then you will always have the option to see what can you find around.

And always, always, enjoy what you do. With or without camera, she is always happy to say hi!

Let me know your opinion in a comment, e-mail or drop me a line in my facebook page!

ISO 2500, f=2.8, 6 seconds exposure time