Nightscapes & Aurora

The magical qualities of the night are unparalleled. As soon as the veil of sunlight fades, the night brings us a unique perspective of our place among the stars.

 

Learn to create these yourself.

Inspired by what you see here? Can't wait to try this out yourself?Learn exactly how I create these in my complete tutorial. Here's everything I’ve learned over the years.

Project: ā€œRite of Passageā€

Inspired by the intro of the series ā€œThe Terrorā€, this black and white series started out with images of the aurora borealis in just shades of light and dark. I had never seen such monochrome northern lights photos before, and even when they were very unpopular on Instagram and 500px when I was still active there, they are closer to my heart than most of my other nightscape work. ā€œWhy would you subtract all color from the northern lights?ā€ Well, why wouldn’t you? Creativity to me is more important than popularity, so similar remarks on social media never stopped me from chasing wherever inspiration took me.

These black and white photos show the stark landscape under the stars in a way that suggests even more mystery, desolation and loneliness.

A still from the opening of the AMC series ā€œThe Terrorā€ that inspired me.

More often than not, I processed the same image twice. This project was never meant to be a backup plan in case of a badly post-processed result. In fact, the black and white version has completely different values than the color version. They are often more rich in dark and light contrast because the intent is to print them on Baryta paper as opposed to the color version that looks fantastic on PhotoRag.

Waiting out the snow before an aurora shoot in Norway.