Northern Lights image puts Yorkshire snapper in line for top award

Giles Rocholl, 53, of Tadcaster shot more than 3,500 images during a week-long photography trip to Iceland in February.

He waited for four hours in temperatures of -10C on Valentine’s night before capturing a potentially award-winning image of a green band of light streaking across the night sky over the lagoon at Jokulsarlon..

The photograph – taken on a Nikon D810 camera with a wide-angle lens supported by a Gitzo tripod – has been shortlisted in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year award.

Freelancer Mr Rocholl, a former Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post photographer, said: “If you look really closely at the picture there is a couple stood on a hill looking up at the Northern Lights.

“When I got there I didn’t think it was going to be much of a night. It’s just a case of being patient and getting cold feet. You never quite know what you are going to get with the Northern Lights, that’s why it’s so magical.”

The winners will be announced on September 15. An exhibition of the winning images will be will be displayed in a free exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Centre from September 17.