Anatomy of a Composition - the right timing ii

North Michigan is where I grew up, but Colorado is where I grew into who I am. I love retuning to Michigan for more than just the memories and for my family. It is a truly beautiful place, surrounded by the largest freshwater bodies in the world and it holds incredible human and natural history.

This summer’s trip “up-north” was another abbreviated one, having worked on some personal projects for much of June and July but I was determined to see important family members and maybe have the timing necessary to capture some of my favorite sights.

The sunflowers fields near Williamsburg offered were my first clue that I might be able to enjoy the photography of Northern Michigan as well as the time with family. Unfortunately the fires and the smoke from Canada that have caused so much destruction were impacting Northern Michigan, adding a heavy ring of haze to the horizon. While this effected some aspects of photography it also enhanced them. The immediate impact was not being able to see the clear super-moon rise, as well as more muted light around sunset and into twilight. This didn’t stop be from making trips into Charlevoix to photograph the Pine River light, but I certainly made less ambitious plans hoping to capturing the night sky.

But the Aurora doesn’t care about wild fire smoke or about a waning moon, and on the last day of the trip, alerts started to pop up on my phone that we had a pretty good chance of seeing the Northern Lights! I’d already planned to photograph a final sunset over the sunflower fields and tentatively looked through maps of likely locations to take advantage of a possible display. Returning late to my parents house and checking through more recent notifications it seemed that it would be worth the effort to head back out. I didn’t want to drive too far away and with an empty Lake Michigan beach being only a few miles away, and nearly completely dark according to sources I was using I repacked the gear and drove the 20 minutes I needed to get to the parking area.

I can simply say that had I been any later I would have missed the best part of the show. As I hastily set up two cameras on their tripods, then positioned a third on my gear bag, the sky to the north exploded with a series of spikes and halos reaching far into the upper atmosphere while creating glows bright enough to reflect off of the chaotic waves breaking onto the beach. The whole lasted well into the next morning but I only had enough energy for about four hours. I was able to gather a few 1,000 images, which now make up nearly three minutes of video footage - check out the YouTube channel for that.

the right timing ii - Sony a7siii w/ Sony FE 24GM - ISO 6400 | F/1.4 | 1.3 sec ~ 24mm