The Painted Night

My wife Sandra & I headed to Whistler from our home in Ucluelet in anticipation of an impressive aurora borealis show on the night of May 11/24. Having lived in Whistler for 26 years, and shot the aurora dozens of times there, I wanted to experience the potentially big show from my old home town. After spending the day scoping shooting locations, I decided we should begin the night on a spot looking north overlooking Alta Lake. We got there early, settled in, watched as other people arrived, checked social media and saw that eastern North America was indeed experiencing a very impressive light show, and then as it got dark we began to take test photos, looking, hoping for a hint of colour.
And there it was! Close to 11 pm, the sky went wild with colour, people started to scream with delight while Sandra & I kept shooting. BUT it was sooo large a show, being all around us & overhead, we were able to only capture a fraction of what was happening. So after 30 min we headed to another location to try to capture my #1 bucket list shot for Whistler - the aurora dancing over both Whistler & Blackcomb Mountains (which I honestly thought I’d never be able to do!). As we drove to the new location, I was quietly hoping that the light show wouldn’t be over by the time we began shooting again … it wasn’t!
We spent the rest of the night (ok I took Sandra home a bit early at 1:30am) shooting photos & time lapses of this seemingly (to me anyway) ridiculous bucket list shot. And while the cameras were clicking away capturing times lapses, I was looking up appreciating & absorbing the wonder of this moment. While dawn came too quickly I knew that I had just experienced my best night of aurora ever!
I plan/hope to create a longer version of this incredible 'painted night' - stay tuned! And please watch this in 4K if you're able.

[@wendyanderson7782]

Love this David, ❤❤

[@lyricalyoga23]

❤ Wow David !! Thank you for sharing your gift of photography!! Beautiful! Also the music 🎶

[@canuckcoffeecanada]

Wow! Saw this in Victoria B.C. - in 60 years of sky watching, I’ve never seen something so humbling. Thank you for your work! ❤❤❤

[@DavidMcColm]

@@canuckcoffeecanada 🙏🏻 much appreciated! It was a pretty amazingly beautiful night 🤙🏻