I should note that I write these blogs at night, then post them in the morning. “Today,” therefore, actually translates to “yesterday!”
Springtime on the Outer Banks begins today, so I may not be able to manage a daily blog, and if I do, they will be short. Our hours are long, as they should be for a photographer. After all, we want to catch not only the first light before it breaks the horizon, but light at the end of the day.
When one thinks of the Outer Banks, one often has visions of lighthouses and Blackbeard, the famous pirate of Ocracoke. We can’t conjure up the old pirate — although some say his ghost still roams — but we do visit lighthouses along this some-200-mile-long stretch of narrow, barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. For our workshops, we only traverse 114 miles of the 200, but that 114 miles is rich in photographic fodder.
Everyone, of course, wants to visit the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, that iconic, coastal sentinel, tallest in the nation at 208 feet, and instantly recognizable because of its black-and-white, spiral stripes. Many want to visit Ocracoke Island where Blackbeard established quite a reputation and where the oldest North Carolina lighthouse is located.
Then, there are the twin lighthouses, Bodie and Currituck, whose twin status is masked by their totally different paint treatments — one natural brick, the other 22′ alternating stripes of black and white.
Some of the lighthouses are open for climbing, but many of our participants are fascinated by just looking up the interior of some of these magnificent towers. Arnie and I have fun showing some of our group how they need to contort their bodies and tripods in order to get the best shot for what they envision.
Occasionally, I get to slip in and grab a quick shot, as you see here.
Part of the trick of knowing where you need to be in order to get the shot you want is studying your subject first. Will it be a horizontal or vertical shot? Do you need your wide-angle lens or your telephoto? What are the potential hazards in the scene.
Then, you often have to wait, as in this case, for people to move so they are not in your shot. This does not mean, however, that you never want people in your photograph. Quite the contrary, as I will illustrate in the next blog.
For this image, however, people would have been a distraction. So, while some of our group found their positions and refined their tripods for me to check, I ducked in, got into some godawful, nearly-unattainable position, and did this quick shot.
For those who follow this blog, you may recognize it as one I have shown in color, but the light and graphics lent themselves, I thought, to this black-and-white, sepia-toned rendition.
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