Why I Photograph the Northern Lights
The northern lights keep drawing me back for reasons that have as much to do with silence as colour. In places like Reine, Ringvassøya and Kvaløya, the real magic is not only in the sky, but in the meeting between aurora, landscape and the long stillness that comes before everything suddenly changes.
Northern lights above Reine in the Lofoten Islands, Norway, with red fishermen’s cabins, still Arctic water and jagged peaks beneath a vivid green aurora.
The northern lights keep drawing me back for reasons that have as much to do with silence as colour. For me, photographing the aurora is never only about what happens in the sky. It is also about standing outside in the Arctic night, waiting in the cold and watching a familiar landscape grow darker, quieter and more uncertain as the evening deepens.
In places like Reine, Ringvassøya and Kvaløya, the setting matters just as much as the aurora itself. A fishing village, a dark fjord or a snow-covered shoreline can feel extraordinary even before the lights appear. The strongest photographs are rarely only about the sky; they are about the meeting between the sky and the land below it.
Northern lights over Ringvassøya near Tromsø, where vivid green curtains move above a quiet Arctic winter landscape.
That is also why northern lights photography teaches patience so directly. There are nights when very little seems to happen for a long time, and then, within minutes, everything changes. When the movement builds and the colour begins to intensify, the reward feels greater precisely because nothing was guaranteed.
When I photograph the aurora, I usually work with a Canon 5D Mark IV, paired with a wide-angle lens in the 16–20 mm range. I often begin with the widest aperture available, around ISO 3200 and an exposure time of 20–30 seconds, then check the image carefully on the screen and adjust from there. The aurora can move slowly one moment and much faster the next, so every scene needs its own balance.
I also try to include a strong foreground whenever possible — a mountain ridge, a shoreline, a village or still water — because the sky alone is rarely enough. A dark location matters too, away from streetlights and other unnecessary light. Even the latest iPhone models can now capture the northern lights surprisingly well, but whether I use a camera or a phone, the principle is the same: keep it steady, study the result and respond to what the sky is actually doing.
Perhaps that is why the northern lights never become routine for me. They are beautiful, of course, but what keeps me returning is the combination of silence, uncertainty and sudden intensity. No two displays are the same, and no two nights feel identical. That is what makes the experience — and the photographs — worth waiting for.
If you would like to see more aurora and Arctic night photography, you can explore the full Night gallery, visit the Lofoten project, or browse all portfolio projects.
