I've linked to the unbelievable Alaska photos of Norio Matsumoto for a long time. Today's Juneau Empire has a profile of Matusmoto by I-Chun Che: "To capture the aurora".
This is what you do to get good pictures:
"...this is a man who has chartered a plane to fly to the southwest fork of Kahiltna Glacier [in Denali National Park - Ben] for the past five winters and stayed there by himself for one or two months...
Matsumoto normally spends the first five days making a snow cave. As his skills have improved over the years, his cave is now big and fancy with stairs leading to a bedroom...
"The cave is about 20 degrees below. It's actually pretty warm when it's 40 degrees below outside," Matsumoto said.
When the weather is nice, he stays up all night waiting for the peak of the aurora borealis. He uses Nikon FM2 and F3 cameras because they don't need batteries. He has to hold his breath when looking through his viewfinder because his breath might freeze the camera.
When snowstorms sweep through the glacier and visibility is low, he reads books he has brought from Japan. He keeps a journal... For entertainment, he once hammered nails with a frozen banana through his books."
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