Night photographer

At this point, I had been taking Northern lights photographs for 10 years. My early obsession with capturing every possible aurora that was thrown at Iceland was often rewarded with deep feelings of awe. People talk about standing on the edge of the grand canyon and in the presence of such magnificent beauty, they feel small and insignificant. Although I have never seen the Grand Canyon and can’t relate directly to this feeling, I can report deep sensations when you witness a good aurora storm the first few times. I am not sure if I was hypnotised by the lights, or high on nicotine, but I suppose an overwhelming humbling in the presence of such massive solar energy. I guess what happened was some sort of enlightenment. Enlightenment happens on an astro-physical level, so why not? Maybe I was jolted into some Kundalini awakening, but I remember thinking that smoking cigarettes seemed pretty pointless. (I did quite some years later.) So in meditative terms, I was in the present moment, (that’s what cigarettes do – small scale) I was SO in the present moment.

Photography at Jökulsarlon

Since, then I have turned this into a business and more importantly I have taken the business to Jökulsarlon. As a consequence I have built such a collection of photography at Jökulsarlon including many beautiful Auroras reflecting in the lagoon among the ice bergs. A consequence of seeing auroras on the lagoon many times is that the feelings of awe become fewer and further between. I started to feel jealous of customers who were getting their first experiences.

Winter workshops

Night of Ghosts was taken on one of our Winter workshops, this was January 2015. I took around 10 images with the same frame but after taking the shot above, something made me stop taking the photos and just stand and look at the scene. Those auroras and their reflections were clear and they were dancing around, but there was a thin veil of mist moving eerily among the floating ice which made them look like ghosts. I was there in the moment with such an incredible scene in front of me. I could have witnessed all that if I was taking the picture, I mean, I don’t have to close my eyes when the shutter opens, but here I felt like capturing it would have been inappropriate and disrespectful of the moment. These few seconds were just for me. The picture above was the picture before and it doesn’t reflect my experience although it is helpful for the reader to understand some of my experience.

Is there a point to the story?

Yes. Practice being in the moment it is the most important thing. It can be easily achieved by dropping whatever you are doing and just breathing.