Sandstone Aurora

I've never seen northern lights in person. Mom's told me that I did as a child in Iowa, but I have no memory of it. From the start, this picture reminded me of the images of the aurora posted in this gallery throughout the winter, where I really like the movement and color of the lights.

While not sunspot related like the northern lights, the swirling lines of different colors in this image have their genesis in the sun nonetheless. It's the shadow and varying degrees of reflected sunlight that gives the different colors, though I'm always a bit surprised by how the hues differ so much from the brown/tan sandstone that is the rock's natural color.

Granted, I've edited the image to play up the color differences. Justin Reznick's picture posted earlier this week perhaps shows a more natural interpretation of the colors, though it should still be obvious that there's a lot of great color available in the scene with which to work.

I was quite surprised at seeing Justin's image. I started working on this version last Sunday, slowly tweaking it for a few days as I viewed the print in my living room. It was taken in November 2010. I hadn't gone to Antelope Canyon in over a decade and thought myself quite clever to have found a somewhat unique image. Not only did Justin crush my concept of exclusivity, but did so with impeccable timing by posting ahead of me.

Oh well. I think post-processing allows each of us to put our own spin on the same light. Justin and I had no knowledge of each other's picture, and I think it somewhat interesting how we each arrived at our own interpretation.

Since I last posted, I've had a pseudo-computer crash needing to reload software and recalibrate the monitor. The print of this image looks like I want, but I'm having trouble getting the image to look right in the new version of Firefox (4.0). It seemed I could get a better print match with FF 3.x. I don't think I've quite figured out the right color management settings in this new version. If anyone has any reference for these, please let me know.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this image and how it looks on your monitor. Always appreciate the feedback and frequently incorporate it into the image.

5D2, 28-200@70, f/18, 1.6 seconds, ISO 400