On Assignment: Wingsuiting under the Aurora Borealis

Note: 2026 kicked off with an incredible amount of travel, which is why this is the first blog post of the year. I have only been home a total of five weeks at this point and there will be a lot more to share from all of the adventures and assignments I have been on.

Every once in a while an assignment comes together with electricity buzzing through the entire crew—the athletes, photographers, cinematographers, producers, athlete managers and the entire crew see the magic of the moment and realize that the sum is greater than the whole. My latest assignment with Red Bull and the Red Bull Air Force skydivers was one of those rare gigs where everything magically came together. For this assignment we were tasked with documenting Jeff Provenzano, Jon Devore and Mike Brewer as they wingsuit skydived under the Aurora Borealis, otherwise known as the Northern Lights, up near Palmer, Alaska. 

This project has been in the works for a long time. Jeff called me three or four years ago with the seed for this idea. He wanted to finish his last skydive in all 50 states and Alaska was the last one left on the list. His idea was to skydive under the Aurora Borealis, which meant a skydive in winter in Alaska—at night. He came to me to help figure out the technicalities of capturing that scenario. After a few days of thinking about it, I got back to Jeff and told him how I thought we could document it with still photography. His next call was to Jon DeVore, the captain of the Red Bull Air Force skydive team. Jon helped figure out the logistical aspects of pulling it off and building the team to do it. Ever since that first call with Jeff, I have been scheming on how we could capture the images. Hence, this has been a collaboration from the start. 

In the last few years we have had plane tickets, lodging, rental cars and everything booked on a few different occasions only to have it cancelled the night before we were supposed to fly up to Alaska. In each case, the weather changed suddenly or the Aurora forecast fizzled out and the trip was cancelled. Red Bull spent a serious amount of money just paying for cancelled flights, hotels, and rental cars over the last few years. When I got the call from Jon DeVore in mid-March that we were going to head up a few days later and give it a go I was somewhat in disbelief. On the flight up to Alaska the cloud cover looked dodgy and the Aurora forecast wasn’t as solid as we would have hoped for, but as can be seen in the image below of the helicopter parked next to our lodge with the Northern Lights ablaze in the sky it miraculously all came together.

In my work over the last 16 years or so with the Red Bull Air Force I have asked various team members to fly remote cameras and create images because I cannot physically do what they do and because I am not a skydiver. Even if I was a skydiver, I still couldn’t do what these athletes do—even if I had been skydiving at a high level for the last ten years. It is a true collaboration between photographer and skydivers who take my input and mix it with their skydiving skills and their own photographic intuition and with the team we come together to create something wild and unique. 

For this assignment, there were two methods I dreamed up for documenting this historic flight—as no one had ever (as far as we know) skydived below the Aurora Borealis. As usual in adventure photography, the best images are almost always those created closest to the subject. Hence, my first plan was to have a remote camera mounted on the helmet of a third wingsuit skydiver who would jump with Jeff and Jon. As for the technical aspects of this, the idea was that Mike Brewer would fly the camera and literally create the images by biting down on a “tongue switch” connect to the camera and running into his helmet. The Idea was that Mike, Jon and Jeff would fly together with Jon and Jeff formed up next to each other with the Aurora streaming down above them. In terms of the camera settings, the camera was set for a long exposure to let in enough light to show the Aurora Borealis, and then I found a very small flash, which would be mounted on top of the camera. That flash would go off at the end of the exposure to illuminate Jon and Jeff and also freeze their motion (because of the very short, fast flash duration). In my mind, there was always going to be a bit of motion blur in the image. Because the sky divers were flying at terminal velocity (approximately 120 mph) the Aurora would be slightly blurred and the skydivers motion would also be blurred because they can’t stay perfectly 100% in line as the one-second exposure plays out. This first idea seemed easy to pull off and I had high confidence that we could get this set of images.

As shown above, the camera I chose to use for the air-to-air images was my trusty old Nikon Z6 and a Nikkor Z 20mm f/1.8 lens. The original Z6 came out in 2018 and I have used it on several nighttime assignments—most notably with the Marine Special Forces (aka MARSOC) where we photographed them by moonlight on a mock mission each night for six days in a row. The resulting images from that MARSOC assignment showed me that the Z6 is an exceptional camera in low light and at high ISO settings. Hence, it would be an ideal camera for this project and the fact that it was also one of the smallest and lightest weight cameras I owned was a bonus for Mike Brewer, who would be flying the camera. A few years ago, I purchased a used Nikon SB-400 speedlight specifically for this project, which would also be mounted on the Z6. The SB-400 is the smallest Nikon speedlight that I could find and it hasn’t been manufactured since the early 2010s. Luckily, Nikon still has exceptional TTL speedlight functionality even with its newest mirrorless camera offerings. That SB-400 was the key to these air-to-air images. In the images above, I also have a SmallRig cage mounted on the camera, which we decided to take off to save weight when we mounted this rig on top of Mike Brewer’s helmet. I also used a liberal amount of gaffer’s tape on the flash and the camera body to make sure the flash–which had a fairly cheap, plastic body–didn’t fly off mid-flight with all of the air pressure at 120 mph.

The second plan was similar but perhaps even more complex to pull off. As the photographer on the ground, I would try to capture the skydivers as they came in for a landing under canopy. The Red Bull Air Force doesn’t just plop down when they land, they are using smaller parachutes and typically come in at sixty-to-eighty miles per hour swooping over the landing for a hundred feet or more before skidding to a stop. For this image, I would put my camera on a tripod, use a long exposure for the Aurora and then use a powerful flash to again freeze the motion of the skydivers and illuminate them against the green skies above. The trick with this was timing the image so I didn’t clip off the beginning of the swoop or the skydiver at the end of the exposure. Having to use a long one to two second exposure made it very tricky to initiate the exposure at just the right moment so that the skydiver didn’t go off the edge of the frame.

Originally, this assignment was a still images project because of the difficulty of capturing video of the Aurora Borealis. If you search the internets, there are very few videos of the Aurora. Typically any video you see of the northern lights is made with still photography and then that series of long-exposure images are put together to create a time-lapse video. The reason for this is that most Aurora Borealis light shows are not all that bright. On occasion you get some bright northern lights but that is the exception rather than the norm. In the two or three years we have been waiting for everything to line up some of the upper echelon decision makers at Red Bull changed out and video became a request for this project as well—since video tends to do better than still images on social media. This presented a huge technical issue as capturing video would require a fairly bright Aurora. To capture the video side of things, veteran cinematographer Collin Harrington was brought in to figure out the logistics and make it happen. 

Once we were onsite, the skydivers did a daytime wingsuit skydive to get themselves situated and test out the landing area in daylight. On that skydive, we also had Mike Brewer, who would be flying the cameras test out my Nikon Z6 and the bite trigger to make sure everything worked as planned. Before they took off in the helicopter we all had a group safety meeting and discussed the landing plan to help coordinate the landing images. For the under canopy images, I needed the skydivers to make a long straight landing so I could judge their height and speed to line up the motion blur images as they came in for a landing. As can be seen in the images below it was a cloudy afternoon when we were testing the camera, the flight and the landing zone. There were quite a few things to figure out on the skydiving end of things and a lot to make sure would work on the still photography end of things as well. This daytime skydive was critical for all of us to literally get everything lined up.

As it started to get darker Mike, Jeff and I headed out to the back porch of the house we were based out of and started testing the camera exposure and flash settings. One of the key things we had to dial in was the lighting on the skydivers themselves. We had them put LED strip lights into their wingsuits so that the camera could focus and so that Jon and Jeff could see each other in the sky. What we found out right away was that the dim LED lights were still too bright. Originally, I wanted them to be white lights, but we found out that by switching the LEDs to red that the light was considerably dimmer. Hence, we went with the red light. Even with the red lights, the camera was struggling to focus on Jeff as he walked towards camera and with a three second exposure we were getting a lot of light bleed from the LEDs. I figured the motion blur of the LED lights would trail the skydivers in the air so I wasn’t too concerned with that but it certainly looked a lot different than the images I had thought through before arriving on site. Of more concern was whether or not the camera would be able to focus on the skydivers. The small Nikon TTL flash did help out with that as it popped a pre-flash off at the beginning of the exposure to figure out the amount of light required to illuminate the subject—and this also helped establish the distance for the autofocus as well. I dialed in the exposure settings and turned down the flash exposure compensation to -1.3, and then we just had to hope everything would come together up in the sky. 

While we were testing out the still camera and the flash settings on the back deck, Collin Harington was also testing out the video settings to see how it might look. If he hadn’t been out there with us figuring out the exposure for the video cameras then I would have not clued into one very critical technical aspect of my whole concept. About a half hour after we dialed in the camera settings, I realized that Colin’s video camera eliminated a lot of the red-light haze because he was using a faster (i.e. shorter) shutter speed. He and I talked about this at length trying to problem solve the haze issue. Once I figured out that the shutter speed could lessen that issue Mike, Jeff and I went back out on the porch and tested the theory. It seemed to help but honestly, I wasn’t sure this whole plan I had worked out was going to work.

Later that evening, it was clear that video would be the first priority as it was technically more difficult to capture the Aurora on video than it would be for the stills and the Aurora was slated to be brighter and more consistent that first night. Luckily, the clouds parted around 11:30 PM and we could see a decent Aurora forming. Shortly thereafter, it was decided that stills would go first instead of video. Since we had the camera already set up it was just a matter of changing the camera out on top of Mike’s helmet. But as the skydivers walked out to the helicopter, I was internally quite skeptical of what we might get and a little worried my plan might not work at all. 

As painful as it is for me as a photographer to say, these air-to-air images (shown below) are not my images—I have to give all credit to Mike Brewer—and of course Jeff and Jon as well, who are the heroes of these air-to-air images. These are Mike Brewers photographs (the air-to-air ones). While in the air, Mike Brewer saw something I couldn’t imagine before the flight and as a talented photographer himself, he changed up the game plan because he saw the Aurora was closer to the horizon rather than straight above them. He flew just below and to the side of Jeff and Jon to force the Aurora into the background of the images. So not only was he flying in extremely cold temperatures—close to -21 F (-29.4 C) when they exited the helicopter—but as soon as they were up to speed going 120 mph the windchill was over -100 F (-73 C). It was Mike’s on the spot rethinking of the composition, his incredible ability to place himself where he needed to be and Jeff and Jon’s abilities to hold position that all came together to create these air-to-air images.

Once Jon, Jeff and Mike landed we headed inside to check out the images and warm up. Mike handed me his helmet with the camera on it—and I pushed the playback button to start reviewing images. I had gotten through three images of varying light patterns—which were basically abstract art gibberish–when the video crew asked us to hold up so they could film our reactions to the images. I looked at Mike and we both had the same thought, “Oh, crap, what if there is nothing on here?” A few minutes later myself and the skydivers—along with the Red Bull Producers also looking on—starting going through the images. Those first three abstract light streak images kept us in suspense and then the first flying image came up and Mike and I were instantly blown away and much happier. We were going backwards through the images so the farther along we went the closer Mike was to the wingsuit skydivers—and the better the images got. The motion blur of the red light made it look like the skydivers were on fire flying under the Aurora Borealis. Having the red LEDs in the wingsuits is something none of us had thought about but it worked out beautifully in hindsight. The images turned out quite different than the images I had in mind—but they were even better than anything I think any of us could have dreamed up. That right there—the planning, the execution, and the surprise after we created the images—and seeing something we could not have imagined is what has made this project so exciting for all of us involved. Instantly, the buzz spread to everyone involved in the project. It felt like we had just pulled off a magic trick–and a project that seemed nearly impossible to pull off was now suddenly a reality. 

The first air-to-air image above was the best image and the shot where Mike Brewer was closest to Jon and Jeff. But there were other wild images as well. The second image above, the horizontal image as they left from the helicopter, was so wild I had to have a discussion with Mike as to what is actually happening in the image. The light streaks in that image are from the helicopter and the streaks are because Mike, Jon and Jeff are falling away from the helicopter. The red and green colors around the helicopter are motion blur blobs from lights on the helicopter itself. Apparently, and I did not know this beforehand, helicopters have different colored lights on them when they fly at night so that oncoming flight traffic can tell which side of the helicopter they are approaching. Hence, the green and red lights. The weird plating on the bottom of the helicopter is because the lights on the helicopter are blinking off and on. This image in particular shows the Aurora but also surprised me in so many ways as there is a lot I could not have anticipated.

In addition to the air-to-air images, on this same skydive, I was in position to create a motion-blur swoop landing image–as discussed above. Both Jeff and Jon swooped in straight above my position and I wasn’t able to reposition the camera quickly enough but Mike Brewer came in just as we had discussed and I was able to get the swooping image you see below. For this image, I had an assistant hold my Elinchrom FIVE strobe about 100-feet (30 meters) to camera right and we turned the flash down all the way. The flash was set to TTL mode as we could not predict the distance the skydiver would be from the flash. Even with the flash turned all the way down the subject in this image is quite bright–just on the edge of being blown out. But, the wicked fast flash duration of the strobe–a little over one eight thousandth of a second (t0.1)–froze the motion of the skydiver at the end of the exposure just as I had planned. On that first jump this was the only usable image I got from the ground. Knowing I had this one swoop motion blur image made me feel a whole lot better as we walked back into the lodge to look at the air-to-air images described above.

Once we had gone through the images captured on Mike’s helmet, I showed off the one image I got from the landing. For that image (shown above) we used a similar concept of a long shutter speed to show the Aurora and a powerful flash to illuminate the skydiver as they came in for a landing. The timing to make this work—and the skill of the athlete who was at that point freezing from an epic flight—all had to come together. In three attempts we got this one image of Mike where everything aligned just perfectly. The lights blurring behind Mike with the Aurora right behind him was the icing on the cake. The fact that this image was created on the same skydive as Mike’s incredible air-to-air images kind of blows me away. Everything we wanted to get (save for the portraits of the team) essentially came together in the span of two minutes on one skydive. And that was the only skydive we would get for the still images. 

Once the athletes were down it took them a while to warm back up. Now the emphasis turned towards capturing the same scenario on video. Sadly, the Aurora faded over the next few hours so we were up until 3 AM waiting for good Aurora to capture the video. There was one decent spell of Aurora but it was not deemed bright enough so we called it a night at 3:30 AM. The buzz around the still images was so high that everyone was talking about how this might end up just being a still photography project. But we still had another night of Aurora the next day and the team held out hope that we could capture what we needed in another 24 hours.

The next day the team did another skydive over the Knik Glacier just up the road from our lodge. Jeff, Jon and Mike landed on the toe of the glacier and it made for some wild images with them landing just outside of an ice cave as shown below. We did a few group portraits there as well since it was a very unusual place to see wingsuit skydivers. In the group image below, is Jon, Jeff and Mike as well as Amy Chmelecki (in the pink jacket), who is also a team member of the Red Bull Air Force and who ran ground logistics for this project.

Later that second evening, the Aurora was lackluster at best. It wasn’t looking good for the video crew. It was our pilot, Ryan from Alpha Aviation Alaska, who saved the day and walked into the packing room and told the team to get ready to take off. We had been checking the Aurora every ten minutes all night so we were a bit surprised by Ryan’s call to action. He was a local and had flown a lot in Alaska so he had some intuition (or information we didn’t have) that the Aurora was about to kickoff. Following Ryan’s call the team headed out to the helicopter and just as he predicted there was a two minute spell of brighter Aurora that allowed the team to jump and get video of the wingsuit skydive under the Aurora. You can see some of that video footage in an Instagram post shared by the Red Bull Air Force–click on the image below.

Once the video was captured, the post-production team jumped into action and shortly there after we watched the footage as a group on a giant TV in the lodge. Everyone involved in the project was absolutely ecstatic that we were able to pull this ridiculously tough assignment off and capture not only the still images but also some incredible video footage as well. I was also elated that we got the video as I felt pretty bad for Colin, the cinematographer brought in for this project, who was unable to get anything the first night. The video just capped off the entire project–and everyone was so buzzed by the magic of the evening that it was difficult to go to sleep that night.

While the video post-production guys were working up the video I had one last image I needed to create to wrap up the stills portion of the assignment. We could not go home without a portrait of the wingsuit skydivers under the Aurora Borealis. Hence, I set up the Elinchrom FIVE battery-powered strobe and dialed in some settings for a group portrait just off the back porch of the lodge. Once we had it dialed in we brought the skydivers out in their full kit and had them pose down for the final group shot. As can be seen below, they were a bit amped up because at this point they knew we had pulled off a project that had been a dream for three years or more.

This assignment and this collaboration was a long time coming–and from the start a group of individuals (all of whom are close friends after working together for so long) came together to solve all the logistics and technical issues to make it happen. And on top of that, this collaboration created a set of images that have never been created before and we managed to even exceed my own concept and expectations. Often you dream up an image and have that in your mind as the ultimate image. It is extremely rare in my experience to go well beyond that image you created in your mind. And by exceedingly rare, I mean it almost never happens and in thirty years of working as a pro photographer there are only a handful of times I have seen it happen. This was one of those times.

This assignment has also been a huge source of inspiration not just for me but also for the team, who are now dreaming up even bigger, more challenging projects to go after. For myself, it is inspiring to see a near impossible project come to fruition and also get a taste of that photography magic that rarely happens–even when photographing dozens and dozens of assignments each year. That magic can be a turning point in a career and has already given me a lot of inspiration to keep on pushing my creativity in both personal projects and assignments.

Creating images that are nearly impossible to pull off is what really gets me excited—I love pushing into unknown territory and working with a team to create something completely new in the photographic space. That has only happened a handful of times in my career and it very rarely happens in the photographic space but there is magic in those endeavors. A huge thanks to Red Bull for this assignment and to Jon DeVore, Jeff Provenzano, Mike Brewer and Amy Chmelecki as well as Jay Brooks for making this all happen. Additionally, to all of the Red Bull in-house managers and producers, it took all of us to pull this one together and I can’t wait for the next adventurous assignment like this one with Red Bull. Congratulations to Jon, Jeff and Mike for being the first humans to ever wingsuit skydive under the Northern Lights.

Lastly, for more on this incredible assignment, you might check out the article that PetaPixel wrote entitled, Red Bull’s Mid-Air Photo Shoot Combines Skydivers and the Aurora Borealis. The author of that article, Kate Garibaldi, did a great job of relaying the details of that assignment.