The northern lights glimmer over Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. Photography Tyler Leipprandt hiked the Empire Bluff Trail in the dark to set up for the photo on an overlook. The photo was a ten second exposure. (Provided by Tyler Leipprandt | Michigan Sky Media)Neil Blake/MLive.com

EMPIRE, MI - Sometimes when you’re a photographer, the chance to capture a bucket-list Northern Lights photo pops up unexpectedly during an already-packed schedule. Tyler Leipprandt, founder of Michigan Sky Media, felt this skywatching pull earlier this month. He’d just come home from a trip out West and had a day or two of downtime before his planned trip to St. Ignace to take pictures of the Labor Day Bridge Walk.

But the skies over Northern Michigan were dancing with auroras on Saturday, Sept. 3. The next day, he checked the forecast: clear skies and a good chance of another magical show. He left his Traverse City area home for a trip to the bridge Sunday night - but gave into the Northern Lights pull and did a 40-minute detour to Sleeping Bear Dunes’ popular Empire Bluff Trail.

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“It’s been my dream to catch the Northern Lights there. For me, that overlook is my favorite,” Leipprandt, 36, said of this open-view spot midway along the popular trail. Everyone likes to rave about the wide waterfront view at the trail’s end, but this midway spot offers great views of the towering sand dunes, Lake Michigan, South Bar Lake, and parts of the tiny town of Empire down below. It’s a popular spot for summertime selfies.

But before he could get there for his shots, Leipprandt had to navigate the trail that runs from the bluff climb’s parking lot through backdunes and heavy forest - all by the weak light of his phone, since in his haste he’d forgotten his headlamp. And he was moving fast up the trail. In the parking lot around 11 p.m., he’d checked the aurora forecast and found it predicted good color - in three minutes. “I was trying to book it as fast as I could,” he said.

He’d photographed the Northern Lights before, but it was nothing like this. Layers of green and purple lit up the sky. Picturesque “picket fence” beams of light formed in a row overhead. These auroras were so intense, you could see them with the naked eye. His camera captured the brilliance even better, in an image that’s now been liked thousands of times on Michigan Sky Media’s Instagram page.

As he told his followers on Facebook: “At around 11pm, the Sleeping Bear Dunes woke up and put on the most incredible show for almost an hour. I sounded like a broken record player, as I was saying, “OH MY GOSH!”, every few seconds as the Aurora was so vivid, the pillars were so tall, and the sky was literally dancing as I have never seen before.”

After his detour, he continued on to St. Ignace, arriving about 3:30 a.m. Monday. Just in time to take a nap before he captured a time-lapse of the Bridge Walk.

Leipprandt didn’t start his career path with a plan to take breathtaking images of auroras, star trails, lighthouses and Michigan islands. In fact, for the first decade he was much more of an inside guy. He taught fourth and fifth-grade math for years before becoming an instruction technology consultant for an intermediate school district. But then he caught the drone bug. He loved the idea of flying them - and showing people what that footage revealed.

“I picked up a drone and kind of fell in love with the Michigan landscapes,” he said, adding he had no formal photography training.

Seven years ago, Leipprandt got his start as a drone pilot and launched the work that would become Michigan Sky Media. Two years ago, he left his education career behind to focus on this growing photography and videography business. His client list is diverse. He captures images for Michigan’s state park system, for school districts, private companies, does real estate tours and weddings. He even films and edits video for a hunting show on TV.

Now that the Northern Lights at his favorite Sleeping Bear spot have been crossed off his bucket list, what’s next? Leipprandt thinks back to a photo he saw once. It was a shot of a Rose Bowl game, from the vantage point of a photographer who’d been flying in a plane overhead. Captured in the image were a fly-over by a stealth bomber, fireworks, the American flag and a packed stadium ready for a football extravaganza.

“My dream would be recreating that with Spartan Stadium or The Big House,” he said. “Now that would be cool.”

To check out Michigan Sky Media’s other work - and print offerings - see the company’s website, its Facebook page or Instagram account.

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