Aurora No Show

It all began on Monday 24th April, I received an event notification for the Northern Lights. Excitement built! It has long been a dream of mine to witness the Northern Lights, one which I have yet to check off. I quickly checked the weather forecast to see what the day had in store. To my surprise it was cloudy with cloud breaks throughout the day before becoming clear around 10pm. Perfect! I pulled all of my gear together, charged up the spare batteries and even went as far as giving my lenses a clean for the special occasion.

I took Milo for his evening walk and used the time to think of a good location for the evening’s opportunity. I needed somewhere with a northerly view point and no artificial light. Blea Tarn was the first place that came to mind. I now had a plan and was ready to go.

The drive up was pretty straight forward, that was until the final mile or so up towards the National Trust carpark. There’s always the odd pothole to watch out for but this time around, this time they were different. These potholes had evolved, they were now car devouring craters. Needless to say I had a fun time crawling up the hill glaring at the road ahead and dodging everything it threw at me. I had survived the onslaught and reached the carpark, tyres intact. After the usual admin, grabbing my gear, scanning my National Trust card and displaying the ticket I bolted across the road through the tarn gate (closing it behind me) and headed for the banks of Blea Tarn. At this point it was around 10pm. As I reached the shore I was relieved to see a handful of other hopeful photographers, as eager as I was to witness the Aurora show. After a brief conversation with a few of the photographers I lined up a composition, the usual Blea Tarn classic featuring the spectacular Langdales as a backdrop and began the waiting game.

For those interested, my starting point was my 24-70mm lens at 35mm, ISO 800 F2.8 with a shutter speed of 20 seconds. From there I had planned to adjust as conditions developed.

The Aurora was forecast to peak around midnight and so I was prepared for a long night of waiting around for the magic to happen. At various points throughout the night the silence was broken by the sound of Tawny owls, their calls echoed around the surrounding valleys and made it impossible to pinpoint their rough location. There was also a woodpecker, nonchalantly going about its business. I don’t know what it is but it always makes me smile hearing a woodpecker pecking away. I’m not sure if everyone else agrees but everything seems ten times louder at night. Still there was no sign of the Aurora, I had however seen countless meteors, most likely the remnants of the Lyrids meteor shower. I managed to capture a few on camera but I wasn’t too overly impressed with the shots.

The hours trickled away, before long it was 2am, as far as I could see, all of the other photographers had packed up and left – it was just me. At some point I knew I had to call it, it was getting chilly and even with my winter skins on, the cold was beginning to penetrate. It was then I realised how cold it was actually getting when I noticed my camera bag had begun to freeze! I was deflated. I’d spent the day being super excited about the chance of finally seeing the Northern Lights and it just didn’t come to fruition. I beat myself up as I headed back to the car, it’s a hard pill to swallow. I was completely of the mindset I was done, ready to head home and get into the warmth of my own bed. But then I noticed it, the frost forming on the grasses. I hadn’t realised it earlier because I was too busy replaying the night’s events. I knew the forecast for Tuesday was clear, this was it, that moment of redemption. This time of year I know there’s a good chance of misty mornings following frosty nights. With this in mind, I jumped back in the car and headed a few miles down the road to Elterwater where I parked up at Elterwater National Trust carpark.

I rustled up some breakfast (Quaker Oats, can’t beat them) and a warm brew and slowly got myself together and headed down the trail towards the River Brathay. My new location was one I’ve visited many times as I’m sure many other photographers have, the famous picturesque Oak trees. I arrived at the spot around 20 minutes before sunrise and my head fell off. I finally had the perfect conditions I’ve wanted for so long at this spot. Stunning silky mist glided across the surface of the river and the banks were lined with frosted grasses and reeds. Absolute picture perfection. It was here I met a fellow local photographer, we had a great chat, sharing our experiences and location tips whilst soaking up the gorgeous atmosphere that the morning had laid out for us. It was time to get to work. I’d refined a composition I had captured a while back, opting for a tighter frame with my 70-200mm as opposed to the popular wider angle choices. The sky was blue and cloudless and didn’t really do much in terms of adding to the scene, hence my decision to chose a tighter composition. Starting point was 180mm, F8, ISO 100 and whatever the shutter speed turned out to be at that point in time. Due to there being zero wind, I knew I was absolutely fine with a slower shutter.

As the sun began to flood the scene with light, I fired away. It was such a dynamic morning with the mist gliding throughout the scene to varying degrees of density and the light progressing throughout. I constantly checked the histogram to ensure everything was correctly exposed as the golden hour light developed. For some reason however, there was a slight delay on the light hitting the main subjects, the gorgeous ancient oaks. I can only think that there was one small section of cloud in the sky that morning and it just happened to block the light from flooding the scene temporarily. The light eventually flooded on through and what can I say, I was a happy man! I could not wait to get home and check out the images in Lightroom. What a consolation prize, I may not have seen the Northern Lights but I did enjoy a spectacular morning at the River Brathay!