Ness Lake Frozen Aurora
“We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.”
Rudyard Kipling’s faint voice from 1891 has seemed more relevant than ever to me with the chaos happening in the world at the moment. I took this shot after heading out in crisp -25 deg C (-13 F) air onto Ness lake at around 2am under the light of the setting moon as if to check that I was still alive. In the distance the mesmerizing glow of the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis some thousands of km away in the Yukon, and the eerie sounds from the ice stress fracturing, quickly cleared my mind of other thoughts. The frozen lake, free of snow, has developed frost flowers over the previous few days which create an amazing texture. The flowers grow from the moisture in the supersaturated vapor found directly above the ice that is caused by the sublimation of ice into the extremely dry, cold air. Ness Lake, British Columbia, Canada
If you would like to learn a little bit more about my background in photography you can read the interview @photofeed did with me here.
Robert Downie
Love Life, Love Photography
All images in this post were taken by and remain the Copyright of Robert Downie - http://www.robertdowniephotography.com
Jeez you're game. I'd be like nope staying inside too cold XD but you do get some phenomenal views :)
As the Scandinavians say; there is such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
A perfect shot! I have a degree in physics and one of my wishes is to be able to observe this phenomenon at some point in person and not only through photographs, you are very lucky ... The process that is carried out to obtain something so beautiful is incredible, The field Magnetic protects us from solar flares. These flares are ejections of plasma or highly charged particles that travel throughout the solar system and beyond almost the speed of light, these particles being charged, interact with our magnetic field and do not reach the earth's surface as does the visible light. These particles flow with the magnetic field and that is why the northern lights occur, they are attracted by the magnetic poles dissipating their energy when interacting and emitting those beautiful colors! Quite a show! Beautiful photography again! 🌌
Thanks. I have had the opportunity to shoot a lot of auroras (both northern and southern lights). I was also lucky to be involved and help with the recent characterization work of the aurora type phenomena 'STEVE' which is different to a normal polar aurora and have had worked published in physics journals. If your interested, check out the post below on "The Vertical Distribution of the Optical Emissions of a Steve and Picket Fence Event" (in Geophysical Research Letters) , of which I was both a co-author of the paper and had my work featured on the front page of the journal.
https://peakd.com/photography/@intrepidphotos/the-vertical-distribution-of-the-optical-emissions-of-a-steve-and-picket-fence-event
@intrepidphotos Thank you very much, I will visit your article
Excellent work, I've only ever seen the Aurora from a plane window when flying back from Canada.