The first time I saw the Aurora Borealis, I was out driving around for some astrophotography shortly after getting my first camera in 2017. I remember pointing the camera east into Glacier National Park, and remarking – as I waited for a 30-second exposure – the strange amount of light pollution coming from the north. The north, in that case, was just more of Glacier, and those skies are as dark as can be. When I finally checked the exposure, I saw the green and purple glows taking over the left side of my screen. I was ecstatic, and spent the rest of the night frantically driving around to different spots I'd tried before for astrophotography.
The high of that night was unreal, and not many people had been out for a cold night of photography either – I felt pretty special to have captured it, even if I was a pretty big novice when it came to using a camera.
On Friday, of course, capturing the northern lights wasn't a unique event. Not for me, or anyone else in Washington State, or even in southern states (people online have shared their photos from the southern states of the US!).
Upon hearing of the huge predictions for solar activity on Friday, I deliberated over where to go – north or south. Given how far south the storm would range, I opted to go to Mt. Rainier. Despite living in the Seattle area for over two years, I hadn't spent much time in the park since getting my butt kicked while climbing via the Emmons Glacier route in 2018. I'd visited with my dad one other time, but hadn't done much in the way of exploring. This seemed like a good enough excuse.
Unfortunately, traffic slowed my excitement – it took me four hours to get to the park, and only two to return the next day – but soon enough I'd made it to Paradise in time to appreciate the last light of sunset.
I opted to start shooting at Reflection Lakes, just a mile or so from Paradise, knowing full well there wouldn't be much in the way of reflections. Snow still piled high on either side the road, only small patches of water lay open in the lakes.
My favorite shots of the night are along the Nisqually River, which flows from the Nisqually Glacier on the mountain's south side. Perched awkwardly along boulders in the midst of the river, I tried to balance photography with simple appreciation. It's thinking about exposures – the right shutter speed for the sky, focus stacked and properly exposed images for the foreground, tripod placement, etc – while also trying to remove the activity of photography occasionally. Trying to ignore the camera, and the need to capture what I'm seeing, in favor of just *actually seeing*.
I hope I did my best in that regard. I'll always have photographs from nights like this. But in time they become images from a different time, almost like they were captured by someone else but they happen to have my name and handprint on them. They live on my hard drives, but they become more abstract.
But I will always have the personal feeling from these exciting nights, the fast shuffle back to my car, the muttered "holy shit" comments to myself, the cheeky grin as I sit in the snow and take a break from my camera.