Cape Neddick Nubble Lighthouse

Author's Comments

The Nubble has been photographed so many times that the challenge is no longer finding the composition. The composition is given. The lighthouse sits on its small island exactly where it has sat since 1879, the keeper's house with its red roof catching whatever light is available, the channel between the rock and the mainland doing its quiet separating work. What you are after, then, is not the picture but the moment. I have stood at Sohier Park at dawn in February with my hands going numb inside two pairs of gloves, and I have stood there in August at sunset with two dozen other photographers lined up along the same railing. Both have given me frames I am glad to have. But the Nubble I keep returning to in my own files is from a December evening when the keeper's house was strung with holiday lights and the sky behind had gone that particular cold blue that only happens in the half hour after sunset in winter. The lights came on. The blue deepened. For about four minutes the exposure balanced perfectly between the warm windows and the cooling sky, and then it was gone. Long exposures work here because the water around the island is almost never still, and smoothing it out lets the rock and the structure do the talking. A wide lens will give you the classic frame. A longer lens will let you isolate the lighthouse against weather, which is often the more interesting photograph. Come in a storm if you can. Come in fog. The iconic shot is already made. What is left is the version that belongs to the hour you happened to be there.

Gallery