Northern Lights at the Farm

During the past two years while photographing the Northern Lights, I often thought about what it would be like to see the lights while visiting the farm.  The farm belongs to my brother-in-law and his wonderful wife, my sister.  We spend a few weekends there each November which can be prime Northern Lights season.  Chances of being there on a weekend, with the lights and clear skies can be slim, but last weekend it all came together.  The white snow reflected the yard light and with the near full moon and long exposures the scenes looked like they were taken in daylight.

Their beautiful red barn was the perfect fit with the lights.

Open pasture provided a clear opening to the skies.

It really was a cold and nasty night but I didn't have to wonder off too far for fantastic views of the farm and the Northern Lights

I did take a little walk down to the barn where a couple of horses came to greet me.  Trying to get them to pose still for a 20 second exposure was difficult but we almost got it right after a few tries.

 

Morning Fog

Our warm fall days and cool nights have been bringing wonderful fog to the morning commute to work.  Probably not the best for driving, but creating some wonderful photo ops.

Texture Tuesday

This week's theme at Kim Klassen's is an easy one.  Just use at least one layer of any of her textures.  Her new texture, Embrace, is easily one of my favorites.  Love everything about it.  I've been trying the past few weeks to do pretty, still life photos but since they're still a work in progress I dug up a few photo's from around Irma that I had passed on processing previously.  I thought Kim's new texture would work on them, so I used Embrace on all four photos.  For each one the texture has been rotated 90 degrees CCW. Hover your mouse over all images to see the before and afters.

This abandoned farm house is not far from my sister's. First a layer of Embrace with the blend mode of multiply set to 79%, another lay of Embrace with the blend mode of screen at 56%, then a few tweeks in levels and curves.

The lonely tree stands on the fence line in my brother-in-law's pasture. I've not seen it during the summer but apparently it's a Maple tree. First a layer of Embrace with the blend mode of overlay at 67%, then another layer with the blend mode of multiply at 38%, a few adjustments in Curves and Hue/Saturation and finally a Cyan filter to bring out the blues in the sky.

This building has always fascinated me when we drove by. Last month we were lucky enough to be able to go into the field. Turned out to be a granary standing on it's last wall. This time I used three layers of Embrace. The first at multiply 100%, the second at screen mode 74% and the third again at multiply mode 99%. A layer mask was applied to each layer to partially soften the texture in the center. Lastly a little adjustments with Curves.

We drove by this field of cows, early in the morning while there was still a light covering of fog.  Only one layer of Embrace was used set to multiply at 66%.  Finished up with Levels and Curves and added a warming filter as well as removing the fence line.

Hoar Frost in the pasture

Sunday morning nature treated us to an incredible display of hoar frost turning the pasture into a magical world.

Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday theme this week is the number 2.  Kim's texture Lifesgood was added to this photo of 2 trees.