During early March went for a Sunday drive along the Maine coast to the Nubble Lighthouse. Along the way saw Perkins Cover and a house with a beautiful ocean view. Hope you like the photos.

For this photo shoot took a Canon EOS-1V, Canon 35mm f/1.4L II, and Kodak Ektar 100 film. Also brought a tripod, 16-stop ND filter, remote shutter release, and a Sekonic L-208 Twin Mate analog light meter. The reason I brought a light meter was so I could monitor changes in light that occur during long exposures, especially during the early or late afternoon hours. This way I could make changes to the exposure time during the period when the photo is being taken.

The Nubble Lighthouse is about 1.5 hours north of Boston and by the time I arrived it was around noon. You can get a good view of the lighthouse from Nubble Point. However, at this time of day the side of the lighthouse that faces Nubble Point is covered in shadows, so decided to head north for lunch with the plan to return in the late afternoon when their was better light.

 After lunch went to Perkins Cove which is near Ogunquit. Since this was the off-season most places were closed, but this is a great place to enjoy a seafood lunch, do some gift shopping, and walk along the beautiful Maine coastline.

It was low tide, so walked over the rocks and down to the beach. The house on the hill caught my eye and thought this was an interesting angle.

With the afternoon sun getting lower, headed south along Shore Road to the Nubble Lighthouse. Along the way say a modern-looking house with a beautiful ocean view.

When I arrived at Nubble Point in the late afternoon the light was bathing the lighthouse in beautiful soft yellow light. Left the car park and walked carefully down the rocks to the water front since wanted to get an “eye-level” view of the lighthouse. This was my first shot, but really wanted to get more depth to the photo, so walked back several feet.

By the time I set-up for the next shot, the light was getting more “golden” and the colors in the reflections getting more intense. Really like the depth to this photo, with the light leading you from the rocks in the foreground, to the reflections in the mid-ground, and the lighthouse in the background.

Before moving onto the next shot, here’s some background on the Nubble Lighthouse. The lighthouse is located on a small island off Cape Neddick, near the entrance to the York River and was established in 1879. It is constructed from cast iron lined with brick and the tower is 41 feet high. The present optic is an automated fourth-order Fresnel lens. Now back to the photos.

As mentioned above, I wanted to try some long exposures to create an ethereal look by making the ocean waves look smooth. So set-up the shot above on a tripod-mounted camera as follows (its actually easier then it sounds)

• Set the aperture to f/8
• Focused on the lighthouse using AF, then turned the AF off, since didn’t want the focus point to change later when using the remote cable release
• Metered the scene using evaluative metering
• Adjusted the shutter speed to get the correct exposure
• Screwed on a 16-stop ND filter
• Closed the viewfinder shade to prevent stray light entering the camera
• Used an iPhone App to calculate a time of about 5 minutes that was needed for the correct exposure
• Pushed the shutter button using a remote cable release
• Used an external light meter to monitor for major light changes which would be corrected on the “fly” by adjusting the exposure to be longer or shorter than the calculated time

I think this was the shot I was most eager to see after the film was developed and the negatives scanned. Was really happy with how the photo turned out. Although, I’m not sure if I like the normal or long-exposure better?

In either case was really happy that I was able to photograph the Nubble Lighthouse in such beautiful afternoon light. Thanks for reading the blog and sharing my experience.