Alone

Photo Friday

Lone tree growing on slopes near Mt. St. Helens. This slope was not cleared by loggers. Instead, the forest that used to exist on this hillside was blasted away during the major eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1981.

Aurora Borealis

A couple of years ago, while on a flight to Europe, I enjoyed a spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis over Hudson Bay. I grabbed my old digital camera, shut off the flash, set it for about 1 second exposure, and attempted to take a picture of the Aurora. When I uploaded the photo at home, it looked like a dark photo with a very pale -- almost not visible foggy patch angling across the image. Didn't look anything like the Aurora I had seen. I'm not sure why I even saved the photo, but I did.

This weekend, for some reason, I ran across this photo again and decided to try to enhance the lighting with Photoshop Elements. I used the Auto Levels command, and voila -- the beautiful green curtain-like Aurora appeared! Not bad for a night-time hand-held shot looking out the window of a commercial jet!