Highland Light, North Truro, MA
Nikon N90, 80-200 f2.8, Sensia 100
Highland Light, North Truro, MA
Nikon N90, 80-200 f2.8, Sensia 100
I have always enjoyed the sight of a lighthouse. It must have had something to
do with growing up in the Boston area, whos harbor has abundance of lighthouses.
I remember taking the Boston Harbor
cruises with the late Edward
Rowe Snow, author of over 100 books on New England and the sea. On Saturdays
and Sundays he would lead cruises out to the harbor islands and tell stories of the
early days of the lighthouse keepers.
Lighthouses are a favorite subject of artists and photographers, but I've often foundthat
it's difficult to take a good lighthouse picture. It takes both planning and luck.
The planning comes from the scouting of the scene, and trying to figure out how to
eliminate the clutter that surrounds many lighthouses and detracts from the image.
Luck comes with the weather and the light. Some of the best lighthouse photos I've
seen were taken either during storms or right after a snow fall.
This spring, during my annual venture to Cape Cod, I put forth a concerted effort
to photograph three of the Cape Cod lighthouses: Chatham, Nauset, and Highland Lights.
Here's the results, along with photographic notes and a number of related links.
Chatham Light, Chatham, MA
The shape of Cape Cod has often been described
as that of a bent arm, as if you are "making a muscle." Chatham is located
at the elbow. The front of the lighthouse faces southeast, so if you want a good
shot, get there before 11 AM. Photographing Chatham Light presents the photographer
with a number of logistical problems. First, the lighthouse and it's photogenic adjacent
building are located on Coast Guard property, surrounded by an ugly chain link fence
and overhead power lines. The building itself is located on a dune that's elevated
from the public area, so a straight shot of the lighthouse is going to require that
you tilt the camera back, thus ruining the vertical lines of the image (unless you
use a view camera or perspective control lens). There's parking along the road in
front of the lighthouse, facing Chatham's barrier island and Monomy Peninsula. There's
a steep dropoff from the parking lot to the beach and not a lot of room to stand
back for a better perspective. Two choices are to bring a ladder or stand atop your
car. In either case, it's a windy spot and difficult to hand hold the camera (all
these shots were hand held). This first shot was made with a Nikon 90 and Nikon 80-200
f2.8 zoom lens on Fuji Sensia 100 at about 11 AM. I was able to gain some hight by
standing on a bench, but I really needed to be higher. Under the circumstances, I'm
happy with the shot.
Back in the town of Chatham, you can have lunch and browse the shops, including an
interesting antique telescope shop and a photo shop that specializes in aerial views
of Cape Cod.
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Nauset Light, Eastham, MA
Nauset Light in North Eastham is the most photographed,
painted, and sketched lighthouse on the Cape. For decades, the colorful lighthouse
rested at a nearly idealic site, high on a cliff over Nauset Beach. Also at the site
is the lightkeeper's house, a classic example of Cape Cod architecture. But years
of steady erosion took its toll on the site, and recent catastrophic collapses of
the cliff face mandated that the lighthouse be moved or lost to the sea. Thanks to
the tireless efforts of the Nauset
Light Preservation Society, the light and its oil house were moved in 1996 to
a safer location back from the cliff. I attended the relighting ceremony on the evening
of May 10, 1997, and shot these photos the next day. And I recently read in the Cape Cod Times Newspaper that an
agreement between the owner of the lightkeeper's house and the National Park Service
will result in the keeper's house being reunited with the light on its new site.
Although the site is not as photogenic as the original one, you can get some good
shots with a little planning. To appreciate the beauty of the old site, take a look
at the Nauset Light Preservation Society's excellent web page, which documents
the history of the lighthouse, the problems of erosion, and the moving of the light.
Maybe stop by their Online Gift
Shop page and buy a t-shirt to help the society pay for the monthly electricity
bill.
Highland Light, North Truro, MA
Highland Light was moved back from its precarious cliff side location in 1996
by the International Chimney Company, the same company that moved Nauset Light and
Block Island's Southeast Light. I always had a hard time photographing Highland Light
in its old location, again because of clutter: an old chain link fence, powerlines,
and parking lot. But at its new location, it sits by itself (at least for the moment)
next to the Highland Golf Course. Now you just have to eliminate the golf carts from
the frame.
On the first day I visited Highland Light, it had been
raining all day. But about 2 hours before sunset, the weather was breaking to the
west. My thought was that if I got lucky, the sun would come out to the west and
illuminate the lighthouse against a dark sky. I arrived on sight only to find the
road to the lighthouse closed for repaving prior to its relighting ceremony. So I
pulled off to the road side about a kilometer from the lighthouse, grabbed my N90/80-200f2.8
combo, and searched for a good spot. The weather was breaking as fast as the sun
was setting, so I decided to trek across the golf course to the west. This was a
great (lucky) decision, because the course is probably 10 or 20 meters below the
elevation of the lighthouse base, providing an up-looking perspective but clear enough
line of sight to stay further back and thus not introduce distortion. As the sun
went in and out, I shot off an entire roll hoping that the beacon would be facing
the camera simultaneous with good sunlight. This frame was the best shot. The film
was Fuji Sensia 100.
Later that week when I returned to Highland, the light was not nearly as dramatic,
and kind of boring.
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Final Thoughts
After reviewing my shots on the light table, I concluded that the best lens for
photographing these three Cape Cod lighthouses (in the Nikon repertoir) is the 80-200
f2.8 AF zoom. It enables you to selectively extract the lighthouse image from the
surrounding clutter, and it forces you to stand back to better perspective control.
It's best to stick by the long end of the lens and then use the zoom to fine tune
the image. The images shown here were shot with the older version (push-pull-twist
zoom/focus) of the lens; a month after returning I sold this version and bought the
new one with the tripod collar. This will be my ideal lighthouse lens.
Related Links.....
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