My Best Night of Photographing the Northern Lights

Aurora over Seward, Alaska

I’m alone on a forgotten beach. A bitter North wind gropes with frozen filaments. The ocean nearby, invisible, is a pool of ink like a portal to nowhere. Sea swells plunge into the sand with a gush and growl. A gibbous moon paints the mountain skirts in icy blue light.

But my gaze is fixed skyward. The night air is crystal clear, alive with electricity. Dancing auroras erupt across the tapestry of stars and galaxies. The most spectacular display I’ve ever seen.

All the elements collide—violent coronal storm, cloudless black skies, fierce magnetic forces—to bring this moment. This is a night when myth is born, a perfect confluence that may have no sequel. Manic with my camera, I rush from composition to composition. Each image on my screen makes me want to cry. The best photos of my life.

Yet, suddenly, I stop. This moment deserves something better. I topple to my back in the sand, unfeeling of the cold and the wind, and stare up as the sky delivers its most unearthly show. 

I am humbled. I am nothing. Spears of green and red build and wobble. Plasma vortices writhe and dance. A corona circle, like the eye of a fierce cosmic god, forms above me, gazing down from the heavens. On this deserted beach, this show is only for me. Never before, I realize, have I truly experienced the northern lights. I may never again.

Tonight is legend.

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