SCINTILLATION - 4K (UHD)

The rhythm of our hectic lives often deters us from realizing we are still living in a natural environment. We have forgotten how to appreciate it, to live in it and with it. However as soon as you slow down and look around you, you reset this kind of instinctive awareness, the one that draws you to natural freedom. The best shows are not on TV nor in theater but merely outside. All you have to do is take some time and gaze. It’s upside? It’s free and never ends!

One of my life passions has been to try and live as much in communion with nature as possible, and try to spread this mindset around me through my films. It is exactly the purpose of this short film. The decision of a destination was not easy, and I had already visited Iceland in February 2017, but something inexplicable about the island of fire and ice dissuaded me from going anywhere else. I needed to be alone in an environment that would bring me back to my natural roots and enable me to roam free while taking a deep breath. This would in turn give me the inspiration- the spark I needed for this film. ‘Scintillation’ is the spark of light, the ignition we all need to start our day and to keep our lives going.

Iceland has a very special way of generating and transforming light. The rampant cloud clover gives abundant rain, but also unique cloud entanglements each casting different colors and brightnesses onto the mineral landscapes. It is not rare to cross paths with sudden rainbows or majestic blood-red sunsets. The omnipresent water also gives a good opportunity to witness the scintillation when it is reflected or refracted. However in my opinion, night time is when things start to get really interesting. Being an astrophotographer, I might sound biased, but when the night falls, everything finally slows down: there comes the real opportunity for you and me to watch, listen, breathe and feel. The night is far from being scary, it is rather the only time of day where everything is bathed in darkness, enabling you to witness the subtile and mesmerizing changes in lighting. Moreover the starry sky has its way of putting you back down on Earth and makes you appreciate our place in the universe. Are you not tempted to step outside yet? Well this might change your mind…

There are many way of capturing the aurora borealis, but it has now been done beautifully over and over for the past decades as sensors got better at handling low light. I wanted to try new techniques and perspectives. For example I am fascinated by how well you can actually see the milky way when the aurora fades away. That is why I attempted to show the winter part of the northern hemisphere milky way above head and its red nebulas (North American nebula) slowly rotating behind the pink and green bands of coronas. I love how the lights cast colors on top of celestial objects like the Big Dipper or the Andromeda Galaxy. I also tried to focus a lot on aurora reflection in water. I originally wanted to work a lot with ice and aurora but a severe storm prevented me to do so, I will certainly keep it for next time. On the other hand, the aurora got so bright several times (especially on September 28th 2017) that it shortly blows out the highlights and gives a real explosion feel. The whole landscape was momentarily illuminated, revealing lakes, vegetation, rocks and waterfalls that would normally be extremely dark. A good example in the movie is Öxarárfoss bathed in green light! I could not believe my eyes, and neither could a fellow photographer I met there. One after the other, the bands successively grew from the north into an arc over head and exploded into coronas displaying bright hypnotic pink and green heart-shaped pulsations. In about 7 days, I was able to witness almost all the different shapes and colors of the aurora borealis and I am sharing it with you here! This unforgettable trip led me to travel about 3000 km in all directions, chasing clear skies and auroras, sometimes raking up 800km in one day just to find small patches of starry sky. I spent almost all of my time hiking and shooting, and gathered a total of about 50 time-lapse sequences and around 10.000 pictures. I sometimes only slept a few hours each night to get a maximum of pictures, because you never know when clouds are going to roll in! I met with a lot of cool people on the way but I tried to avoid crowed places to really get the sentiment of being in communion with mother nature. I believe it is mission accomplished and I am confident that my film transcribes well this vibe. I do hope you enjoy watching it and encourage you to step outside and take time to experience the nature around you more often, even if it feels like you don’t have time. It is more empowering and revitalizing than a vacation to the Bahamas, at least for me!
More on the story at adphotography-online.com Thanks for watching!

Видео SCINTILLATION - 4K (UHD) канала Night Lights Films - Adrien Mauduit