Keep Looking Up
The images on this page are a small selection of photos I’ve taken of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) since 2013, mostly across Iceland but most recently some from my back yard (local park) here in Oxford. My trips to Iceland started when me and my husband decided to visit the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival which is traditionally held at the end of October / early November each year, we loved it so much we kept returning and during these trips we saw and photographed the aurora on 6 different occasions. In 2023, for the first time in 10 years (barring 2020 of course) we couldn't go to the festival, but in a strange twist of kismet, on the weekend of the festival the northern lights turned up here in Oxford. On hearing the alert I took my camera to Cutteslowe park and got lucky seeing the atmospheric phenomenon known as a STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) which shows as a strong pink/purple band in the photo immediately below this.
A small selection of these are being exhibited in May 2024 as part of the Oxford Photographers Artweeks exhibition. You may notice that some are taken in urban and unglamorous locations, which I've chosen to show as whilst maybe not as visually dramatic as traditional landscapes, go someway to dispel the myths that you must be in complete darkness and miles away from human activity to see or enjoy the northern lights., you just need to keep looking up.
