nickartphotographer

[nickartphotographer]

After several years of not actively posting on here I have returned with a picture of the northern lights.

The story behind this picture is quirky: I'm currently studying in Denmark as part of my exchange semester and on a weekend a fellow Aussie exchange student asked me if I would like to join a trip to Tromsø to see the northern lights. This being on my bucket list I could not say no.

Come the weekend I had organised the flights (see more soon on my travel blog) and we flew over there and had a great time. Me being me, I had messed up my reservation for the northern lights tour and ended up having to take a different bus compared to my friends but not to worry. The journey started slow in Tromsø with the weather being rather overcast. Due to that it was decided we would drive all the way to the Finnish border. Some time into the journey, however, the girl in front of me got sick and puked all over herself. It was so bad that we had to stop early at a cloudy spot and had to wait for a replacement bus. At this stop we got to see some glimpses, but due to the overcast not a lot. So after some time the journey continues, only for us to be interrupted and stopped by military police. After waiting for some more, we finally continued and eventually reached the Finnish border (sadly we did not cross, so I'll have to visit Finnland some other time!).

It was at this spot we set out camp to try and catch the northern lights. And see them we did! The skies cleared and after some time some whiteish streaks formed across the sky. It is important to note that to the human eye northern lights are barely visible and only when they are very strong is it possible to see their colours by eye. The camera, however, can capture them in all their glory! And these are some of the pictures I had taken that evening.

As time passed, the northern lights were getting stronger and stronger, the weather however was getting colder (-18 degrees celsius) and furthermore we had already overstayed for over an hour, so eventually we started to make our way back. It was on this way back that when looking out the window I spotted the mist majestic northern lights so far. Due to this, our bus stopped again (funnily at the very first stop we had stopped in the beginning) and when looking up the whole sky was covered by northern lights. Pictures will not do this justice as in most directions you took a picture in, the sky was just covered in green.

In conclusion, this trip, not only due to this photography expedition, but also due to the friends made along the way and all the other experiences is one of my favourites so far. Go visit Tromsø! It'll be great.

[nickartphotographer]

For my first picture I‘d like to share this one. Can you guess what it is? The story behind it: I was in art class together and our awesome teacher let us do a project where everybody could decide what to do themselves. Naturally I chose Photography for my means and chose to do night time long exposer shots. It is actually a long exposure shot of an airplane taking off. I and a friend then went out in the night to Zurich Airport. It was cold and it was raining. Did I mention it was cold? We then went on and built up our gear having taken several umbrellas with us just to keep the gear safe. (not us though). This was when this shot was created, it was one of the last airplanes to take off that night and the rain in combination with the light from the airport in the background just make it look magic to me. I hope you enjoyed this little story behind the picture. If you‘d like to know the story behind another picture of mine just let me know and I‘ll gladly tell you. Have a wonderful day!