The Dancing Aurora

In early May 2024, Albert experienced a once-in-a-lifetime event which resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime photograph. In his own words, Albert recounts how it came about.

Last Friday I was able to take photos I thought were only possible in my dreams. As a professional landscape photographer, I have seen my fair share of beautiful northern lights in the arctic. But I’ve always dreamed of seeing a strong aurora display in the Netherlands. With the current solar maximum cycle I knew there were chances, but most of the time when the aurora shows itself in the Netherlands, it’s just a green glow on the horizon.

I have always wanted to photograph them above the iconic Dutch windmills. Yes, people that know me know I have a thing for windmills. I have photographed them from every possible angle. Countless of mornings with beautiful morning fog, the Neowise comet in 2020, the milky way rising above them and of course capturing them every year as a backdrop for the Dutch tulips.

In February 2023, there was an extremely strong aurora display that reached the Netherlands. I was lucky enough to capture that as well on the North coast of the country. Up until last weekend, that was my most spectacular aurora photo from the Netherlands.

But that all changed last Friday. Earlier that week there were already very optimistic forecasts with high KP values predicted for the days that followed. (The KP index stands for 'planetary K index' and gives us information about the intensity of geomagnetic activity.)

But I didn’t get too excited yet. These forecasts are often not super accurate, meaning that the activity can be less, at the wrong time, or most often in the Netherlands - blocked by clouds. It was only up until the day itself, Friday 10th May, that I was getting more excited.

The forecast now showed massive KP values from CMEs that were about to hit earth. KP8 was predicted with a G3 or G4 geomagnetic storm, which is massive. This is quite rare and doesn’t happen often. And then there was the cloud forecast, which was quite optimistic for a change. Yes, high clouds were showing, but from experience up north I knew that if the aurora was strong, high clouds are not really that much of a problem. I was hoping to capture something like February 2023, or maybe even better with a bit of luck. But nothing prepared me for what was coming.

That Friday the KP values skyrocketed during the early evening. It was still bright outside but values were showing KP8 with an aurora oval I had never ever seen in my life. The bright red part stretched across almost all of Europe, which is absolutely insane. The earth was being ‘attacked’ by this extremely strong geomagnetic storm. These were values that were almost never seen before.

I was now getting extremely hyped and when it was getting dark I quickly drove out to find a spot with windmills to shoot from and already prepared several options. I first drove to the famous white windmill ‘de Vlinder’ (literally translated: The Butterfly) where I also captured the Neowise comet a few years ago.

I didn’t like the orientation of the windmill - yes, that’s a thing! Windmills rotate towards the wind and this one was rotated in a way which was not to my liking. I drove to another one nearby, but the aurora orientation was off here and I couldn’t find a position. I was with 2 friends, Ronald and Klaas, discussing which ones to go next. The location we ended up was about 15 minutes away in a little village Hei- en Boicop. It’s a location we have shot before, with 2 windmills: a little baby and a big one. And we knew that with a bit of luck, we could get both in the frame with the aurora.

Planning and options for these kinds of shoots are the most important part to success. We were on time at the windmills, set up our gear and simply waited. At first, there was just a big green glow in the sky. This was already spectacular as I had not seen such strong green glow in the Netherlands. But the strong pinks were not there yet. We were just waiting and chatting when suddenly the spikes appeared in the sky and within no time the whole sky was full of moving aurora curtains.

I have been to Iceland, Norway, and Greenland so many times and have seen so many auroras in my life. But I would never think I would be able to see something like this in my own homeland, let alone above our beautiful windmills. I was absolutely in awe. I just kept shooting and enjoying the moment, and I later found that on the above photo the spikes were the most intense. Not only in detail, but also colour: pinks, blues and greens. A rainbow of colours.

To take all these shots I used my trusted Alpha 7R V with the FE 14mm f/1.8 GM lens. All the images were captured with the lens wide open at f/1.8 which kept the shutter speed reasonably fast at around 1 second. Why the 1 second exposure? To capture as much detail in the pillars as possible. If the aurora is moving, you want to use a shorter shutter speed to capture details. If you use a long shutter speed, the aurora will be washed out. This is no problem when it’s not much, but in this case, a fast shutter speed was required for an optimal result.

An aurora like this is something normally only seen in the polar circles. It was one of the most beautiful moments in my photographic career and absolutely unreal. Even when writing this, I still have a hard time believing I experienced it.

And I was not the only one. The internet was flooded with aurora photos that night and the following morning from all over Europe and the US. I had never seen anything like this in my life and it was great to see so many people were able to enjoy the aurora that night. In the end, it was even seen from some parts of Africa!