saeberg

The lights of the night

The last embers of the colorful sunset were slowly fading away, with the warm colors slowly dissolving to the deep blue of twilight. A savory dinner of pasta and bread, a luxury in a remote location like this, was settling in my stomach, a reward for the long late-summer day of hiking and exploring the unique landscapes of the Ring Road in northern Iceland.

As I lay soaking in a hot-tub in this remote corner of Iceland, I was ready to call it a night, when suddenly, the faint arc of the aurora appeared but for a fleeting instance. After two days of intense displays albeit above cloudy skies, I had all but lost hope of seeing this spectacle, but what I had witnessed over the next few hours lay forever engraved in memory, an ephemeral occurrence etched into permanence.

The dance of the aurora is spectacular, and its irresistable attraction lies in the seeing the slow but continuous transformation of this unique energy into shapes unimaginable: snake-like swirls change to wormhole vortices, to long arcs stretching to the horizon, to streaks of color and light against a dark skyscape. This is one such exposure of the aurora set against the hostel I was spending the night at

Saeberg
Iceland

When the sky sings

When the sky sings, it does so in spectacular ways: the crack of thunder, the roar of a hurricane, or the sizzle of a lightning. But when the sky lights up with the aurora borealis, what you see is a brilliant visualization of a magnetic storm, repl…

When the sky sings, it does so in spectacular ways: the crack of thunder, the roar of a hurricane, or the sizzle of a lightning. But when the sky lights up with the aurora borealis, what you see is a brilliant visualization of a magnetic storm, replete with twirls and swirls, loops and waves, of jets and microbursts.
Being able to witness a display so bright as to light up the entire night sky, and reflect in the bay in front of you is a unique feeling. The excitement and joy of that experience was so strong that the discomfort from the freezing cold conditions, or the general tiredness from the long day of driving across the country, all but melted away.
This is but one snapshot of a northern light display that lasted into the wee hours of the morning somewhere in the northern part of Iceland, a country I hope to return and travel again.

Saeberg
Iceland

The Vortex

After watching the recent Star Wars - Rogue one film, a friend of mine commented that she was so excited she wouldn't be able to sleep through the night. And that got me thinking about an experience I had had that left me that excited and palpitated - the Northern Lights show I witnessed over the skies of Northern Iceland earlier this year.

I remember that night as vividly as yesterday: a self-cooked meal a beautiful sunny evening on the grassy shores of a gentle fjord, followed by a relaxing soak in an open-air hot tub after a day of miserable weather, gave way to a cool night with clear skies. It was then that a faint glow appeared in the sky, becoming brighter and longer until it was a thick band of dancing green light that stretched horizon to horizon.

The patterns were ephemeral, the intensity continuously alternating, the color constantly shifting, but it all came together to present a visual spectacle that never bored me or the few other brave souls gazing upwards on that cold night. Even though the temperature dropped to single digits (Celsius), the photographer in me never fazed.

At one point, the glow appeared directly overhead, leading to an effect quite like peering into the vortex. The greens give way to the other colors such as purple, pink and red. This is one such exposure from that time.

Saeberg
Iceland

If you want to see this print, you can do so by purchasing my calendar from https://goo.gl/LGJYRk . All proceeds will go to NRDC and WildAid, two non-profits whose causes I am very passionate about.