Midnight at Minnewanka
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Lake Minnewanka is a glacial lake in Banff National Park approximately 3 miles northeast of the town of Banff, Canada. When an aurora is displaying it is a fantastic location to make images. The lights around the boathouse, jetty and car park areas provide a nice warm glow against the dark shape of Mt Astley and reach across the water toward the camera, breaking up the dark mass of the foreground. Above the mountain that wonderful spectral light rises into a veil of stars blanketing the midnight sky, it is truly stunning.
I have a number of resources for tracking auroral activity, and occasionally when the potential is very good I will make the journey to a specific location to make an image (rather than capturing the aurora from my balcony at home as is often the case) I remember this night very well, I reached the lakeshore at 10:00pm and set up my camera and tripod before the early summer sun had set. Low cloud threatened to block out the sky but fortunately it drifted away by 11:30pm.
Other photographers arrived and I enjoyed a long conversation with a middle eastern guy who was desperate to catch an aurora before his holiday was over. Suddenly just a few minutes after midnight that familiar light green glow appeared behind the mountains and just for moment purple lit up above it as shafts of light danced along the dark edges, it was a truly beautiful sight but incredibly short lived. I only made about half a dozen good shots before it died away, and even though my new found friend and I stayed chatting until 2:30am it never reappeared.
Chasing the aurora can be incredibly frustrating, it appears when forecasts fail to predict it and fails to appear when they do. It will be huge when predicted to be small or small when predicted to be huge. It is the unpredictable nature of this wonderful phenomenon that keeps me chasing it when time allows, I have now photographed it more times than I could possibly remember but when it is predicted to appear you'll still see me out there with the tripod again, waiting, hoping for one more glimpse of this spectacular phenomenon.
I have a number of resources for tracking auroral activity, and occasionally when the potential is very good I will make the journey to a specific location to make an image (rather than capturing the aurora from my balcony at home as is often the case) I remember this night very well, I reached the lakeshore at 10:00pm and set up my camera and tripod before the early summer sun had set. Low cloud threatened to block out the sky but fortunately it drifted away by 11:30pm.
Other photographers arrived and I enjoyed a long conversation with a middle eastern guy who was desperate to catch an aurora before his holiday was over. Suddenly just a few minutes after midnight that familiar light green glow appeared behind the mountains and just for moment purple lit up above it as shafts of light danced along the dark edges, it was a truly beautiful sight but incredibly short lived. I only made about half a dozen good shots before it died away, and even though my new found friend and I stayed chatting until 2:30am it never reappeared.
Chasing the aurora can be incredibly frustrating, it appears when forecasts fail to predict it and fails to appear when they do. It will be huge when predicted to be small or small when predicted to be huge. It is the unpredictable nature of this wonderful phenomenon that keeps me chasing it when time allows, I have now photographed it more times than I could possibly remember but when it is predicted to appear you'll still see me out there with the tripod again, waiting, hoping for one more glimpse of this spectacular phenomenon.