Like many people, I have for a long time harboured a dream to see the northern lights “properly”.  For me, this dream was kindled by a kindly man called Ron Livesey, who coordinated aurora observations for the British Astronomical Association.  In my early teens, after my parents moved to the north east of England, I would exchange letters with him about how to see the northern lights and noctilucent clouds; at the time I had no joy with the former, but I had some success with the latter, even when they weren’t such a well observed phenomenon.

In late 2021, I decided I needed to do something about the repeated “I’d love to see them properly one day” response I’d give when people asked if I’d ever seen the lights.  Having got into landscape astrophotography only a year before, it seemed logical that I’d plan a trip to capture images of the aurora as well as see them with the naked eye.  Research of locations had me examine Alaska (too far), Iceland (too high a risk of cloud) and the far north of Norway (possibly just right).  I settled on Senja island, off the north west coast of Norway, within the Arctic Circle and fairly accessible from the UK.  

A week before my trip, the whole affair was thrown into some jeopardy when my best mate and travel partner fell ill. We decided to leave it to the last minute to see how he was, and on the day before our flights, he called to properly pull out as his whole family had now succumbed as well.  I started to readjust to the idea of going solo, but it was likely some of the more extreme mountain-top shooting locations were now off-limits - I’m a competent hiker, but it wouldn’t be fair on my family to head into unfamiliar wilderness alone at night!

But then in a flash of inspiration my wife Esther suggested she might be able to come instead.  I looked blankly at her, failing completely to comprehend why she’d want to tag along on an essentially nocturnal “holiday”, with only a peripheral interest in the night sky, no suitable clothing and only very basic accommodation booked. And besides, with two school-age kids I just didn’t see logistically how it would work. An hour later, she’d convinced her parents to drive over from the other side of the country that same day and look after the kids for the week (for which I’ll be forever grateful), we’d navigated the needlessly complex process of switching passenger names, and we were looking forward to a completely unexpected trip together. 

On our third night in Senja, we'd scouted a couple of locations during the day.  We noticed this pretty stream some way from one of the mountain passes we'd crossed on the way to the quaint little island fishing village of Husoy. We managed to find a rutted track that we could just about get the car up that took us to a nice meander in the stream near a locked-up hut and we decided to come back that evening.

As soon as we arrived there were some lovely arcs of aurora in the sky. Esther set up her chair and started to sit back and watch the show, while I headed to the bank of the stream to shoot my first set of images looking north.  I loved how quiet everything was and these tall, graceful pillars danced gently and silently high above our heads, and for a fleeting moment the arc of the aurora seemed to mirror the sides of the valley.  Little did I know what was about to happen, which you can read about in The Many Colours of Heaven.