Lighthouses - I
Apr/12/10 21:28 Filed in: Photo
shoots
Being at the right place at the right time.
On one of my last trips along the norther East Coast in the U.S. I made it up to Cape Neddick in York, Maine. My destination was the Nubble light house. Since this was a rather spontaneous decision I made it there in the mid afternoon on a sunny Sunday - amongst busloads of other tourists. But being patient enough, I managed to capture the image of the Nubble Light house below.Although it looks rather unreal, this is done at the right time with the right equipment.
I have seen Cape Neddick Nubble Light in countless (more or less my style) paintings at the San Francisco Gallery and Framing shop (my friend Kristin Young owns that place) as well as in some Art Galleries on Cape Cod. And ironically enough, most of them show a sailboat sailing right in front of that red cabin in front of the Lighthouse. This is funny, since no boat can sail where it is shown in most paintings - there are rocks and a walkway to reach the little "island". But hey - if it looks better that way, why not, right? The Lighthouse and the grounds are closed to the public most of the year. I think there are a few events when tourists are allowed on the grounds. This circumstance allowed me to actually capture this image without having to deal with folks walking all over the place
Working the scene, I finally found a good spot to capture the Lighthouse from. Throughout the late afternoon I managed to capture some nice tourist style images of the setting. But I wanted to wait for the sunset. And the sunset came with all its might. The light turned out being beautiful. The sun was setting in the west, pretty much right over my shoulder behind me. So, I decided to try my polariser - and, what I then saw through the lens was just stunning. The faint pink hidden in the deep blue sunset sky suddenly turned into this purple pink colour that can be seen in the photograph. That was unreal and a feeling of utter excitement filled me when I kept on taking photos.
This image was shot at f/22 at 1.3 second exposure using my polariser.
After the drama of the sunset was over and the "blue hour" came around (the blue skies that show just after the sun has set for about 30 more minutes) I stuck around for a little longer. I got a few more nice photographs out of it, but nothing as striking as the image I am showing you here….
Sometimes (if not always) it is worth it being patient.