Oregon's oldest lighthouse

Cape Blanco Lighthouse (infrared)

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse - All Rights Reserved

The Cape Blanco Lighthouse is Oregon's oldest continuously operating lighthouse AND its most westerly.  Poised on the point of a bluff six miles north of Port Orford, Oregon, with no protection from south, north or west, the winds can be fierce.  The fresnel lens was lit for the first time on December 20, 1970.  The lighthouse is still active today.  You can learn more about this exquisite lighthouse here http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=125

Besides being Oregon's oldest and most westerly lighthouse, it is also elegant -- with beautiful lines and textures.  From any angle, it presents an intriguring, strong, beautiful face to all who visit her.

This photograph was made during the workshop David Lorenz Winston and I co-led in August.  When we arrived at the lighthouse, it was enshrouded in fog, barely visible from the road.  The fog lifted, allowing us to photograph it with fog swirling around it and then completely clear of fog.  In all kinds of weather, the lighthouse at Cape Blanco never disappoints. 

While this is very much a photograph of the lighthouse, the addition of the people interacting with the lighthouse -- one entering, one leaving -- was important to me.  For my eye, other photographs made at the same time but without people lack the power and emotion of this image. 

About this photograph.  This is an infrared (invisible light) photograph made with my newly-converted Nikon D90,  using my 14-24 mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens at 21-mm (35-mm equivalent = 33mm). Minimal post-processing: I converted the image to grayscale and increased the blacks, clarity & contrast to enhance the black-white contrast.