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Jul 10, 2022
My first blog post "My Aurora Experience" shared the story of my second time in Iceland (in 2016) when I had the incredible opportunity to photograph uniquely intensive, bright displays of the Aurora borealis, all available here on my website. The day I landed (September 27), the solar activity had increased so dramatically above Iceland that it created spectacular formations of the Aurora across the night sky, more intense than they had seen in 10+ years! The second night, it made international news when the government of Iceland decided to shut off the lights in the capital city of Reykjavik for the first time ever to allow people to see the ultra-intense spectacle of the northern night sky.
But in this post, I wanted to share about another rare and unique experience I had on September 28, 2016, the second night of this spectacular event - the night I photographed an angel in the northern lights.
The night began with a stunning sunset (see photos of this in my Sunsets and Sunrises section) that faded to black, soon to be filled with stars. We went off to dinner after the sun set, then got warmer layers of clothing on and went back outside. Gradually, thin wisps of green light began to spread across the night sky (see my image of "Aurora Over Budir Church, Iceland" taken at this time), then building and building over time and seeming to condense into the shifting curtains and shapes of green and purple that I was blessed with the opportunity to photograph. Without light pollution in the way, the sky was even more stunning.
After taking quite a few photographs as the lights danced, I wandered a bit across the landscape surrounding the historic area of Budir and Budir Church, setting up my tripod to capture scenic aspects of the landscape with the Aurora-filled sky above it. The sky was lit up so incredibly with the vibrant green glow, shifting and changing so quickly, that I decided to angle the camera upwards towards a single bright area in the sky, just to capture that one bright spot. It was so bright and so incredible with the dancing green light that I wanted to capture just that...
I knew it was an interesting photograph, seeing the stars and the bright green across it in the little preview on my camera, but I just immediately went on to change the angle of the camera on the tripod again and pick my next composition. I came back with over 50 photographs of the Aurora from that night. Loading them onto my computer, I felt my excitement building as I got to see the stunning patterns and textures of the lights. Then, I came across this image.
The Angel of the Lights, original unedited version
Immediately, I felt my breath catch in my throat and my jaw drop. All I could do was stare in amazement at the perfectly humanoid features of this space of light in the night sky. I called my mom that night, to tell her what I had seen and what had happened, the wonder of the moment and my excitement for the images I was bringing back to share with others... And particularly about the image of an angel I had captured. I felt emotional as I explained the wonder of the lights that had seemed alive, akin to the ancient tales of the northern lights being the doorway between Heaven and Earth, filled with the spirits of the ancestors. The emotion overwhelmed me as I told her how, in exactly the one spot I had happened to point the camera, the incredible scene of a beautiful face with hair streaming behind her and a great expanse of bright Aurora wings had appeared!
This was one of the first images I began to process in Lightroom from that night. I edit my images in Lightroom just enough to represent the natural beauty of the original scene as best as I can, to really show nature's beauty. When I finished working on it, I could see the details of her angelic form even more clearly. This image is now available on my website here.
I never imagined coming back with such a fantastical image, such an incredible expression of spiritual power in nature. It even shows the details of an eye, an eyebrow, nose, mouth, facial features, hair streaming behind her head, an upper body and torso, and wings behind her formed of pure light. Even the edge aspects of the Aurora formation in the image appeared like light beams streaming off of her, like one would see in a painting of an angel. Seeing this, I could only imagine what the ancients of the arctic may have seen to inspire their stories of the spirits in the Aurora - and I could only imagine what wonders of the spiritual world exist within the natural beauty of our physical world. In the way that I reach out to the Universe with my intent to capture the healing touch of nature's beauty, I wonder if perhaps an angel could have heard me and come to soar through the Aurora that night. I wonder if I was guided by a higher power to aim my camera at that particular spot so as to capture her beauty, and bring it back to share her with all of you.
The next year, I decided to include this image in the back of my first short novel, "Conversations with an Angel." A couple of years after that, I also wanted to include it in my second book, "When You Realize How Perfect Everything Is", co-authored with my grandfather, Dr. Bernie Siegel. This book is filled with many of my photographs, all in black and white, so I had to edit a new version of this image in black and white, especially for this book. And when I did, I found another amazing aspect of this image: the angel's hair is braided.
With the black and white contrast, I was able to see even further detail of the fast-shifting, glowing aspects of the Aurora! I was able to see, just behind the angel's head, details of a braid with twisting strands of light! There is even a wider spot at the end of the braid where the hair would hang loose and blow in the wind!
This blew me away even more. Adding even more detail to an image of the Aurora that had already looked like a picture of a person soaring through the night sky, this newer find truly shows the power of the spiritual world, as it shines bright and share its beauty with all of us.
In this same night, I also photographed two other less-detailed photographs of angels in the Aurora. In this one, the white shape of an angel in a dress with wings extending up behind her, bordered in purple, can be seen floating in the sky above Budir Church. When white appears in a photograph of the Aurora borealis, it shows a spot where the Aurora was brighter than what the settings of the camera were designed to work with, "blowing out" the detail of the Aurora's shape and just showing the light itself. However, no other aspects of the Aurora are white or overexposed. Therefore, I feel that this area was brighter for a reason - a spiritual, angelic one.
I also photographed this formation of the Aurora over the Icelandic landscape, with a loose outline of an angelic form floating in the sky, standing out brighter than the rest of the Aurora around it. Some of my clients have said that they see a faint outline of wings, while to me, the purple appears like a long train of a dress surrounding the angel. This one is even less detailed than the others, but still stands out to me as a special, spiritual image from this evening.
My first image shown in this blog, "The Angel of the Lights", will forever be one of my most special and meaningful images in all of my portfolio.
Thanks for taking this time to learn about this special evening and profound experience. If you would like to bring "The Angel of the Lights" home with you as a print or merchandise item, I hope she will bring you peace, inspiration and Light for many years to come.
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