I’ve noticed that my mood and photographic opportunities are directly related. When a long time passes without any good photo sessions, I start to get depressed. Then a day comes that I get no less than two reasons to exercise the camera and suddenly I’m as happy as ever!

It was overcast yesterday but late in the afternoon, the clouds started to part. I was sure that the swans would still be where I found them on Monday because it’s probably the biggest area of open water around here. The light wasn’t so good and it’s a bit of a backlit scenario shooting the swans in this location, but since there wasn’t that much light… well then the direction didn’t really matter. I was happy to be shooting anyway, after the let-down that was Easter.

The sky kept getting more and more clear, which was just perfect because there was a good chance of aurora. I got out before it even was completely dark yet and I needed to take some test exposures to see the green glow in the sky at all, but it sure was there, and the darker it got, the more evident it was to the naked eye. It was high up, arching from east to west, but it wasn’t really moving, so I didn’t get any nice patterns. However, the opportunities to shoot aurora this winter have been so few that I’ll take any green glow I can get, and I’m almost sure that this was the last chance. It will get overcast tonight again, and the nights are getting shorter and shorter. I would like to say, better luck next winter, but of course we are now heading towards the Solar Minimum. I did get to see some great aurora though and even if I still don’t have the ultimate aurora picture that I dream of, I’m happy!