Nights in Tombstone can be exciting. Let me paint you a picture.
It’s 12am – my alarm goes off and I wake up in a tent in complete darkness. Two hours of sleep in. I’m exhausted from a day of walking, but I’m also curious and excited. I pull back the tent fly, and peek out to be greeted by dancing streams of green overhead. All feelings of tiredness evaporate in a second and my next moves become calculated. “What’s the quickest way to put myself together, get out of this tent, and into the night?” I fumble with my clothes and jacket, trying to gage the temperature – I don’t know how long I’ll be up or where I’ll be, but I want to stay warm after getting out of that wonderful sleeping bag. I get out of the tent and stand up – I can really assess the northern lights. Now comes decision time – where to shoot? “Did I plan a spot earlier in the day? What direction has the best light? Do I know any views that look that direction? How far is that river again? I don’t think it’s that far. I’m going for it.”
At night? It was that far.
When I eventually got back to the tent, I was greeted by my hiking partner (Dean) getting dressed. Me – “Where were you headed?” Dean – “To look for you! You’ve been gone for hours and you didn’t tell me where you were going – it’s 3:30am!” Crap. I’m going to owe him a beer for being a bad hiking partner.
Anyway, this image was created from exhaustion, snap decision making, and poor communication. As is tradition when the excitement of the northern lights catches you half asleep. In the end I was happy with how it turned out!