Lynn WiezyckiAfter taking the whale watching boat from Bar Harbor and eating a hearty lunch at Paddy’s (see Part 4) we headed back to our home base. We did some quick downloading (except for me as both of my hard drives were full- epic fail on my part! – those extra CF cards came in handy) and then we all hit our beds. As the next part of our journey around Maine was starting at 1:30am! We awoke briefly in the evening to eat some dinner but went back to sleep until the appointed time. We left in the dark of night heading about 3.5 hours south toward Portland, ME to our first stop of our marathon day of shooting! Our first stop was at Nubble Lighthouse at the Cape Neddick Light Station owned by the Town of York, ME.
When we arrived at the Nubble Lighthouse the fog was so thick it was hard to see it at all. But as we setup our tripods and watched, the fog came & went in waves and the sunrise began to burn through.
Here is some info from Wikipedia on the history of this interesting lighthouse:
Cape Neddick Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Cape Neddick, York, Maine. In 1874 Congress appropriated $15,000 to build a light station at the “Nubble” and in 1879 construction began. Cape Neddick Light Station was dedicated by the U.S. Lighthouse Service and put into use in 1879. It is still in use today. Plans had been in the works to build a lighthouse on the site since 1837. The tower is lined with brick and sheathed with cast iron. It stands 41 feet (12 m) tall but the light is 88 feet (27 m) above sea level because of the additional height of the steep rocky islet on which it sits. Unusually, the stanchions of the walkway railing around the lantern room are decorated with 4-inch (100 mm) brass replicas of the lighthouse itself. The Cape Neddick Lighthouse stands on Nubble Island about 100 yards (91 m) off Cape Neddick Point. It is commonly known as Nubble Light or simply The Nubble. Cape Neddick Point is at the north end of Long Sands Beach in the village of York Beach. The lighthouse is inaccessible to the general public, but the nearby mainland is occupied by Sohier Park which offers a telescope with which to view the lighthouse and a gift shop with a “Nubble” theme. Nubble Light is a famous American icon and a classic example of a lighthouse. The Voyager spacecraft, which carries photographs of Earth’s most prominent man-made structures and natural features, should it fall into the hands of intelligent extraterrestrials, includes a photo of Nubble Light with images of the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal. Cape Neddick Light is one of the last eight lights in Maine to still have its Fresnel lens. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Cape Neddick Light Station on April 16, 1985, reference number 85000844. Although the origin of the little lighthouse adornments is unknown, there are many other stories about the Nubble Light. Among them is the story of the keeper and his wife who, in 1912, decided to take advantage of the booming tourist business at the York beaches. They developed a lively business ferrying tourists across to the island and giving tours. The trade grew so lively that the light was neglected and the keeper fired. Another keeper lived on the island with his 19-pound (8.6 kg) cat who was an attraction in himself, especially when he reputedly swam across the channel to visit mainland friends. It is not always summer, though, and another story lends balance to lighthouse living. The Nubble is such a windy spot that in the winter, the temperature dropped so low that the flow of lamp oil to the incandescent oil vapor lamp was impeded. The problem was solved in 1938 when the lamp was electrified. That same year, the outhouse was closed, and the keeper and his family also received indoor plumbing.
For more info on the history & future of the Nubble Lighthouse please check out their official website.
When photographing landscapes the light is everything! You have to hope & wait & look! I wandered around the area until I found a puddle that I could use for a reflection shot. I had to lay on the rock with the camera on the ground to be at the correct angle to get this shot! What we do for our art!! Then I found a person to add to the scene!
This fisherman was busy trying to catch his breakfast so he did not mind me adding him to my scene!
Waiting is the hardest part of photography but when you do it is sometimes well worth it!
And then waiting some more!
Don’t forget to create a panorama of these epic scenes! Cape Neddick with the Nubble Lighthouse is a great place for a pano!
This pano is 16 images taken with the camera in Portrait orientation, handheld, with about a 20% overlap of each image. It was combined in Photoshop using the Pano mode.
Also, always remember to turn around and see what is around an iconic scene!
This one is a bit artistic as I added the colorful sky! I used the new plugin Landscape Pro. It works pretty nicely as it also changed the light on the other parts of the image when I added the sky!
I used my Nikon D810, Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens on the Benro Travel Tripod and Really Right Stuff Ballhead for all of these images.
After a couple of hours shooting the Nubble Lighthouse from every angle we could manage we loaded our gear into the vehicles and headed for the next stop on our 25 hour Maine photography marathon! See Part 6 “Colorful Maine” coming soon!
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Please visit my gallery for these and additional images from Nubble Lighthouse!
That is all for now!
Lynn
Mary Presson Roberts