An exhibiotion tomorrow

I have a great day tomorrow. I have the opening night of my exhibition (starting 4 pm in the library of Ulvila) of my aurora photos “Lights of the night”. There are some photos that were taken this September during our trip to Lapland but also some photos taken earlier from the seaside of Pori or at a beautifull nature trail of a swamp Isoneva in Pomarkku.

I simply love Northern Lights. I have been photographing them for almost 10 years now. Every aurora night is different and you can never know what is going to happen, if anything. But there are some tricks that are good to know if you want to catch Northern Lights. Last week I was talking to a local gathering of photographers about these.

We started from the equipment and a check list of them. A camera where you can switch off all automatic settings to begin with and preferably a wide lense. It is good to open the aperture as large as possible and also increase ISO enough to be able to see something. Green auroras can best be seen when the exposure is around a second and red auroras when it is longer, 10 sec or more. I usually focus with stars and check it every now and then. I often use a heating band around the lense to prevent ice formation. The camera might easily go out of focus when fixing the heating or chanching camera position.

I tend to forget important things, for example extra batteries. When the sky is in fire and your camera dies, it is too late. You also need warm clothes and good gloves ( with the possibility to get some fingers out and in) since there will almost always be some waiting before anything happens. And a lot of patience, because sometimes the waiting can be very long.

And then when it is happening it is very quick and conditions are changing all the time. You have to have a lot of patience and calm yourself, when adapting to the scenery, for example not to run quickly in the dark to a better place like I did. I fell down on my back few years ago and the camera hit orbita (the bone structure around the eye) and I got a black eye and a fracture. Of course I photographed the Northern Lights first before going to the hospital. Surgery was needed but everything is ok now. I learned the hard way to be a little bit more calm in the dark!

If you happen to be around my hometown Pori, come and visit my exhibition tomorrow. I will also add some new aurora photos in my shop, so check it out. Maybe you might enjoy having a poster at your wall.

Tuikku (by the way my name Tuikku means a little candle)