Long Beach Bar Portrait
The town of Southold, New York has arguably the highest concentration of lighthouses in the country with eight, and seven of those remain active. At this point in the project we’d captured all but two active lights in the town. The Long Beach Bar Lighthouse is locally called “The Buglight,” one of several in New England with the same nickname. Based on our experience capturing other lights in unfamiliar waters, we contracted a local boat captain who knew well the changing tidal currents. We took the ferry out of New London while towing the inflatable on a trailer with the idea of using it to row ashore onto the tip of a five-mile peninsula near where the lighthouse is located. It sits about two hundred feet from the shore of a sandy beach. The currents were extreme on the night of our visit and the captain thought it safer to land his center console boat onto the beach to drop me off while Sean stayed onboard to light the scene from offshore. As they pulled away I placed the dimmed LED light up on a dune and began shooting. The Milky Way made a strong early summer presence above while I shot from the water’s edge. At one point I waded out waist deep to attempt a closer angle but the incoming tide restricted getting too close. The lighthouse was first built in 1871, was destroyed by arsonists in 1963, and the present building was rebuilt in the early 1990s with funds raised by local residents. It was reclassified by the Coast Guard as an active aid to navigation in 1993.
Orient, New York June 26, 2017 10:23pm 67° 10-15mph wind
Nikon D4, 14mm lens, ISO2000 f2.8 20secs
