About the Image(s)

Hillsbrough Light

5 exposures
Nikon D850, Nikkor 24-70mm lens, Tripod, Cable
Base Image: ISO 100, f4, shutter 10 seconds
Light Beams ISO 640, f3.5, Shutter Speeds .4, .7, 1 second

This is a project I’ve been thinking about for several months and finally decided to do try and make it happen. I was going to try this when I was at Cape Hatteras, but the light is a non rotating light that just flashes. (the literature I read said it was a rotating light) This shot requires a rotating beam. Thus when I got back to south Florida I went to Hillsbrough. The Hillsbrough Light House is about an hour drive from home and then about a mile walk along the beach which, by the way is delightful stroll in the dark, with the sounds of the sea lapping the shore. I purposely chose a night with clouds (to reflect the light beams) and a night with almost no wind so the sea would be as calm as possible. My base photo was taken at 10 seconds to flatten the sea (on the left) and to capture the waves as they broke on the beach. I didn’t want the white of the waves to be completely smooth and milky but to have some texture and detail to create an interesting leading line. I needed 11 attempts to get the water the way I wanted and chose the shot just after the break of the wave. I was also counting on this shot to get a noise free shot of the break water in the background, plus the sand and the lighthouse. I wanted a rotating beam to capture the light rays and while this light rotates it is unfortunately not level. Note how the beam rises to the left and dips to the right. This changed the type of effect I was hoping to achieve. I was hoping to get a perfect triangle of light facing left and a mirroring triangle facing right. So stay tuned I’ll be trying this again at another light house. The rays shown here were captured using the various shutter speeds listed above. The small rays were captured at .4 seconds and work up to 1 second for the larger beam. The beams cannot be captured at long shutter speeds like 10 seconds because the light diffuses. To capture the beams in various different position requires timing and multiple attempts. Altogether I took over 80 exposures. When I got home I batch processed the set in Lightroom then chose which beams I liked the best and exported them to Photoshop where they were layered and then blended together. I’m pretty well satisfied with the results.