Stonington Lighthouse Museum

Author's Comments

The lighthouse itself is the easier photograph. Granite, squat, honest. It has stood at the end of the point since 1823 and it looks every year of it, which is part of the appeal. But the photograph I keep working toward at Stonington is not really of the tower. It is from it, or beside it, looking out across Fishers Island Sound at the hour when the water turns metallic and Watch Hill becomes a low blue line on the eastern horizon. September is the month I would choose. The summer boats have thinned, the light has lost its harshness, and the wind off the sound carries the first edge of fall. Climb the tower if the museum is open. The 360 from up there is the kind of view that asks you to slow down and turn in a full circle before you raise the camera at all. To the south, open water. To the west, the Connecticut coastline trailing off into haze. To the east, Rhode Island. It layers in a way that flat coastline rarely does. When the museum has closed for the season, the rocky shoreline around the base is still yours. This is where I tend to end up. Low tide, late afternoon, the granite of the tower catching the same warm light as the granite at my feet. There is a continuity to it that feels like the whole point of the place. The lighthouse and the coast are made of the same stone, and at golden hour they briefly become the same color.

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