Frozen! The night I tried to capture the evening sky, and instead it captured me
posted Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 6:57 AM EDT
By IR Reader Karen Celella
As photographers, we are on a quest to capture the moments. But sometimes the moment captures us! This happened to me in Iceland. It was near the end of the trip and after many cloudy nights and some rainy days our hope for seeing the aurora was fading.
Then as usual, each time I woke up during the night I would peek out the window just in case something might appear. And finally, there it was! That glowing green light in the sky. We ran outside, I set up the tripod, changed to the wide angle lens, adjusted the settings and pressed the shutter. Twenty five seconds later the beautiful image appeared. Success! Wow, let's try it again. Yes! Another success.
As the excitement progressed so did the action in the sky. It was now surrounding us and as an image was captured in one direction the aurora was moving frantically all around. Suddenly I became overwhelmed and didn't know which way to turn. Before I knew it I was frozen in awe as the aurora blanketed the sky in curtains of dancing light.
(25 seconds / f/2.8 / 16mm / ISO 250 / manual exposure)
I forgot to press the shutter button during the height of the activity. It was “I” that was captured by the amazing beauty. It actually took my breath away. When my senses returned I was upset to have missed capturing those precious moments of beauty with my camera, but I can still feel the intense beauty that captured my heart and soul.
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[They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but in this case, Karen's words about her experience transcend the picture. To see more of Karen's work please click here!]
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(25 seconds / f/2.8 / 16mm / ISO 250 / manual exposure)