On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Christopher Mathews
Shortly after submitting my first batch of aurora photos, I got an email asking if there might be a few more to share. As luck would have it, there are!
Aurora season in Iceland begins in August and runs through May, but the lights tend to be especially vivid around the equinoxes in September and March. Unfortunately, terrestrial weather sometimes clouds the skies and hides the lights from view, so you’re not guaranteed a glimpse of the magic.
Unless you emigrate here, of course. That’s how I did it.
Mount Kirkjufell is perhaps the most photographed mountain in all of Iceland. It appeared as “Arrowhead Mountain” in the HBO series “Game of Thrones” … though not quite like this.
When the aurora is particularly energetic, distinct structures ripple through the night. If you’ve been raised on Hollywood special effects, you expect sound effects – but the lights are utterly, eerily silent.
Moonrise in a sky already full of light.
Lady Aurora casts a pastel glow over an ice-bound lake.
The sun sets quite late in early September and the stars are often hard to see, but sometimes a special kind of starlight shimmers above the mountain ridges.
This image, taken near the entrance to the Hellisheiði geothermal power station on the Hengill volcano, shows the aurora above the city lights of Reykjavík and the distant searchlight beam commemorating the life and music of John Lennon.
Another view of the Imagine Peace Tower. This memorial to John Lennon was dedicated by his widow Yoko Ono and is lit each year from his birthday, October 9, until the anniversary of his assassination on December 8.
A trio of Icelandic horses ignore the lights overhead to check out their visitor. The first two wanted to be petted; the third fellow tried to eat the camera.
Van Buren
Magical. Even better than pt.1.
Mary G
Wow. Spectacular. With horses. Thank you.
Rusty
Wonderful pictures. Maybe sometime you can share what motivated you to emigrate!
eclare
Otherworldly.
Antonius
How difficult was it to emigrate? My wife and I love Iceland and have seriously been looking at options to leave the US.
raven
My cousin is at Tierra Del Fuego to shoot the eclipse and they got clouded out. From their pictures they are having a good time anyway.
Betty
Never tire of seeing this amazing light show. How hard has it been to learn Icelandic?
KSinMA
Beautiful.
Wag
Excellent photos. Again, thanks.
cope
These are stunning photos, thank you. Besides being silent, the other thing about aurorae that is often misrepresented is that they don’t change shape as quickly as typical time lapse aurora images would lead one to believe.
I consider myself lucky to have seen two aurora displays from the contiguous US. Thanks again for digging these out for us.
Miss Bianca
Just out of curiosity, how did you manage to emigrate to Iceland?
You know, curiosity. Because I like the Northern Lights. And Icelandic horses.
ETA: I see I’m not the only one curious! : )
dm
For all the kudos, no one has yet complimented Christopher for the tremendous effort it took to photograph Icelandic landscapes with no sheep in them.
(Well, Kopavogur was easy, I expect.)
No name
@Miss Bianca: Make it three ?
SkyBluePink
All pics are awe-inspiring-
but the moon and Aurora- beyond magical-
J R in WV
Wonderful photos.
I wish Chris would tell us more about the tools and techniques used for the photos. Exposure length, lens length and type, etc, etc. That would be a huge help to anyone intending to travel to any northern areas to photograph the aurora, horses, volcanoes, tower of peace, etc. etc.
But maybe I’m the only person curious about that.
pat
@J R in WV:
You are not the only one interested in the details of the photo shooting.
I’m also curious how long it takes to learn to even pronounce some of those words, let alone speak the language.
Bet everyone is pretty good at English anyway.
J R in WV
On our first trip to the Old World, we were in Spain and our adapters were too short, as the hotels all had their outlets deep inset inside the wall for safety, so we needed a plug to fit between the power outlet and the adapter we had brought. I had a Google tablet, with a very early version of translate, which I had downloaded with Spanish and French before we left.
So we asked at the hotel’s front desk about the nearest electronics shop, which was just a block away. They were very nice, and astounded and amazed by Google translate, which allowed me to tell them what I needed, and for them to tell me how much it would cost. Was a treat, the plug was only about $7 in Euros, also too. I think we got the family price just for being so amazing…
Also was able to navigate around Tuscany with the Android tablet that replaced the Google device when it’s battery died. That device was eaten by a new dog who had never lived inside before we adopted him. I suspect the mouth feel was very disappointing as he only ate shoes after that… electronics were right off the menu! Am now on my second Android tablet, the third tablet. Am hooked on Kindle books, so much lighter than paper books!
currawong
The Aurora Australis has apparently been pretty spectacular here this year too though it happens way past my bedtime. I’ve seen plenty of pictures from Tasmania of it and even some from around here.