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You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / Iceland / On The Road – Christopher Mathews – Iceland – The Lights of Darkness, Part Three

On The Road – Christopher Mathews – Iceland – The Lights of Darkness, Part Three

by WaterGirl|  December 10, 20215:00 am| 19 Comments

This post is in: Iceland, On The Road, Photo Blogging

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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.

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Christopher Mathews

A few more views of the northern lights from various sites in Iceland.

An unfortunate trick of evolution is that human color vision degrades significantly in the dark.  Seeing the green and purple glow of the aurora generally requires either very good night color vision – which not everyone has – or a very dark night.  It helps to get out of town and to resist the urge to check your cell phone.

Cameras don’t work the same way and can capture the lights in all their glory even when it’s not totally dark.  Thanks for letting me share their magic with you!

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three 7
Þingvallavatn lake, Republic of IcelandOctober 10, 2021

Pastel lights on the shores of Iceland´s largest natural lake.  This was at the beginning of a particularly powerful geomagnetic storm; unfortunately, the clouds closed in a few minutes later, hiding it from view.  Aurora hunting is not for the easily-frustrated.

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three 6
Just off Highway 360, Republic of IcelandJanuary 7, 2021

The answer to the age-old question “how you gonna keep ’em down on the farm” may be to install some special lighting.

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three 5
Strandarkirkja, Republic of IcelandMarch 16, 2019

The aurora forecast for this particular evening was not particularly good.  As this busload of tourists discovered, the forecast was incorrect.

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three 4
Hafnir, Republic of IcelandJanuary 10, 2021

The aurora whirls above a small village just south of the international airport.  It was very cold, but somehow I didn’t really mind.

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three 3
Just off Highway 1, Republic of IcelandSeptember 27, 2020

This former ski lodge, now undergoing renovation, may look familiar: it’s where Ben Stiller got his skateboard in the 2013 movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three 2
Near Borgarnes, Republic of IcelandFebruary 2, 2017

The skies light up over the town of Borgarnes, about an hour north of the capital city.

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three 1
Above the Steingrímsstöd power station, Republic of IcelandOctober 24, 2019

Industrial light – and magic!  Lady Aurora visits a hydropower plant in southern Iceland.

On The Road - Christopher Mathews - Iceland - the lights of darkness, part three
Hraunborg, Republic of IcelandSeptember 25, 2021

Jubilant and chaotic, the people of Iceland put on a wonderful fireworks display every New Year’s Eve.  Nature handles the other nights.

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Reader Interactions

19Comments

  1. 1.

    satby

    December 10, 2021 at 5:58 am

    These are wonderful! Thanks for sharing.

  2. 2.

    JeanneT

    December 10, 2021 at 6:04 am

    Thank you for posting these – just stunning!

  3. 3.

    JPL

    December 10, 2021 at 6:12 am

    Wow!

  4. 4.

    Betty

    December 10, 2021 at 7:04 am

    Yes, magic. And a different show every time!

  5. 5.

    debbie

    December 10, 2021 at 7:14 am

    I know it sounds trite, but how awesome these photographs are! Every time I see a photograph of the Northern Lights, I can’t help but think about what the first people who saw them must have thought they were seeing.

  6. 6.

    delk

    December 10, 2021 at 7:44 am

    Amazing.

  7. 7.

    MazeDancer

    December 10, 2021 at 7:58 am

    Just remarkable photos!

  8. 8.

    stinger

    December 10, 2021 at 8:22 am

    Informative and entertaining copy, and glorious photos! You seem to have more stars in your sky than I do here.

    How is that not-a-P pronounced?

    Also, nice website.

  9. 9.

    eclare

    December 10, 2021 at 8:26 am

    I can’t decide which photo I like best…

  10. 10.

    Ramalama

    December 10, 2021 at 8:29 am

    So vivid. I love these photos and know that the live version is much more intense.

    I once came across an aurora borealis, but I didn’t know it was. I’d been in a news blackout. It was summer. I had to commute regularly long distances back then from rural Quebec to Boston. Trudging to my car in the wee hours I saw spotlights that looked like they were coming FROM WITHIN THE SKY. From behind it. And it freaked me out. I didn’t know. I tried every possible explanation in my head. There’s a spotlight that welcomes people to Montreal every evening. But we lived too far for that. Or did we. Maybe a larger town was having a party. Fireworks? No one even in Montreal would party like that on a Tuesday morning at 4. Unless it was a festival? There was 20% of me that thought it was an alien event. And I don’t watch sci-fi that much. I slunk to my car, sort of convinced the world was ending. But I didn’t want to wake my partner because she is crabby in the mornings. I drove off, like I always did, skulking, unsure, and then I hit the highway. And forgot all about it until the next barbecue the following week when all the francophones were talking about the sky and the boréales, and I realized I had witnessed something amazing but was kind of terrified. I also got into trouble with my partner. “You think the world is about to possibly end and you didn’t WAKE ME?”

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    December 10, 2021 at 8:41 am

    I have teared up every morning this week that we have been lucky enough to have your photos.

    Are the northern lights like snowflakes?  Never the same twice?

    Incredibly beautiful.  Even your photo captions are little little vignettes.

    You have truly touched my heart with this series.

  12. 12.

    Christopher Mathews

    December 10, 2021 at 8:59 am

    Thanks for all the kind comments and I’ll try to answer everyone’s questions when I get off of this glacier. :)

    Iceland – it’s always an adventure.

  13. 13.

    Ramalama

    December 10, 2021 at 9:29 am

    @Christopher Mathews: Does anyone ever slip up and call you “Tweety?” Just wondering.

  14. 14.

    J R in WV

    December 10, 2021 at 9:37 am

    Camera make and model? chip size?

    Lens size, aperture, focal length, etc?

    Exposure lengths?

    ISO setting(s)?

    Tripod make and model? Any device to capture sky details over time?

    I think that’s most of the technical issues I would be curious about. Bill In Glendale, did I leave anything important out?

  15. 15.

    Kristine

    December 10, 2021 at 10:35 am

    Wow–think you so much for posting these.

    I’ve never seen northern lights. Hoping that someday….

  16. 16.

    Christopher Mathews

    December 10, 2021 at 4:02 pm

    @Ramalama: Not yet.  Although I did find when I was in DC during the ‘aughts and had to call over to the Hill, I got remarkably prompt service.  ;)

    @J R in WV:   I generally use a Canon 6D Mk.1 body – it’s got a full-frame sensor, which lets me get full use of my lenses.  My go-to lens is a Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 prime.  I’ve used other gear on occasion: sometimes you just gotta go with what you got.  The photo at the Hellisheiði power station posted yesterday, for example, was taken using a Canon 90D APS sensor camera and a Sigma Art 18-35mm f/1.8 zoom.

    I typically shoot at around f/2 using ISOs between 2000-3200 depending on the brightness of the aurora and other objects in the frame.  Exposures can be as little as .3 seconds or as long as 8 seconds, also depending on the strength of the lights.  I like to shoot shorter exposures when I can because you capture more of the “structure” of the aurora.  You can usually distinguish between short exposures and long ones by looking at how many stars are in the image: a lot of stars means a longer exposure.

    I’ve had a number of tripods.  When I’m hiking, I use a carbon-fiber travel tripod by Peak Design.  When weight isn’t an issue, I’m very fond of the Manfrotto 322RC2 ball head because it allows me to quickly recompose my shots – useful, as the aurora is constantly flowing.

    @WaterGirl:  Yup.  It’s always different, although there are degrees of difference.  A weak show is a weak show and there’s not that much difference between them.  More powerful shows though can be wildly different, even from one moment to the next.

    @stinger:   The Þ is called “thorn” and it’s one of two letters for the “th” sound in Icelandic.  You usually see it at the beginning of words, and it’s a harder “th” than it’s cousin ð, aka “eth.”

    Hope I got everyone’s questions!

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    December 10, 2021 at 4:36 pm

    @Christopher Mathews: Thank you again for this series!

    Hopefully this won’t be your last one. :-)

  18. 18.

    sab

    December 10, 2021 at 5:48 pm

    All the jackals are sick of hearing how much I love Dorothy Dunnett’s work, but your photos, aside from being amazing on their own, also show a bit of her amazing descriptions when her main character Nicholas went to Iceland on a brief illicit sidetrip and almost got eaten by the local volacanos. “Unicorn Hunt.” Only a few chapters in the book, but she certainly did an amazing job of describing how Icelanders lived (always on the edge of disaster, being and farming and fishing  so far North, plus volcanoes.)

    The amazing light, not like anywhere else in the world

    ETA He was, like everyone, illicitly cod fishing.

  19. 19.

    stinger

    December 11, 2021 at 8:18 am

    @Christopher Mathews:  Thank you!

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