Curtis Island Light

Author's Comments

I almost did not write about this one. Curtis Island sits at the mouth of Camden Harbor, small and white and quiet, and part of what makes it worth photographing is that almost no one talks about it. You see it from the waterfront if you know to look. You see it from the deck of any boat heading out past the breakwater. The lighthouse itself is modest, the kind of structure that does not announce itself, and that restraint is exactly the point. I have made my best frames of it from Laite Memorial Beach in late September, just before the sun drops behind the western shore. A telephoto compresses the distance and pulls the island forward against the water, and at golden hour the white tower goes faintly pink while the spruce behind it turns almost black. There is a particular minute when the light hits the lantern room and nothing else. You have to be ready for it. If you have a kayak, the closer view is its own kind of photograph, more intimate, less iconic. But I find the distance flattering. The island reads better as something glimpsed than something approached. Summer evenings are crowded on the harbor and the boat traffic is constant, which sounds like a problem and is actually a gift. A schooner crossing the frame at the right moment is the photograph. Wait for it.

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