Curtains of green, pink and violet light pour down behind a jagged peak, and a calm sea reflects the glow. Nicholas Buer's night photographs pair the great light shows of the sky, the aurora and the Milky Way, with solid ground: boulders, waterfalls, snowy mountains and shorelines.
Nicholas Buer, landscape and astrophotographer
Buer works as both a landscape and an astrophotographer. He has said that advances in DSLR cameras opened up the night sky for him, and that his first successful photograph of the Milky Way got him hooked. His method rests on patience and long exposures, waiting in one place until sky and land line up.
The Atacama Milky Way panorama
In January 2014 Buer made photography news with a single panorama of the entire Milky Way, shot in Chile's Atacama Desert on 6 October 2013. He took 30 frames, 15 of the sky and 15 of the ground, in about 15 minutes, working quickly because Saturn and Mercury were sinking towards the horizon.
Each frame was edited in Adobe Lightroom and the set was stitched in Photoshop. The finished image spans the sky from the Northern Cross to the Southern Cross and also shows the Moon, Venus, Saturn, Mercury and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Flamingos and donkeys were his only company. Buer has said he aims to bring out detail that is already there in the image.
What causes the aurora's colours
The aurora appears when charged particles from the Sun, carried on the solar wind, are funnelled by Earth's magnetic field into the upper atmosphere. They collide with atoms and molecules there, which then give off light.
- Green is the most common colour, from oxygen atoms emitting at 557.7 nm.
- Red also comes from oxygen, at 630 nm, high in the atmosphere. It is usually faint and strongest during intense solar activity.
- Blue and purple come from molecular nitrogen low down, often along the lower edges of the curtains during strong displays.
Most auroras appear in a ring around 67° north and south latitude, the auroral oval. Geomagnetic storms push the oval towards the equator, which is when the lights reach places farther south.
Why the foreground matters in night photography
Buer's pictures show why a strong foreground lifts a night image. Rounded boulders lead the eye into the frame, a waterfall gives scale, and still water doubles the colour of the sky. Long exposures smooth that water into a mirror, while a low horizon gives the aurora or the Milky Way most of the frame.
To try it yourself, scout the location in daylight, use a sturdy tripod and check the aurora forecast before heading out. Dress for long, still hours in the cold.
For more northern night photography, see Mikko Lagerstedt’s night landscapes or Daniel Zvereff’s infrared Arctic work.
Related reading
- Mike Taylor’s Maine Aurora Photography and a Change of Direction
- Dustin Farrell’s Time-Lapse Landscapes
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