e-510 300mm 1/400 f/7.1 iso 100

Way wide today, a 1:1 crop of the Chrome Island Lightstation from around 2km away on the shore near Deep Bay. One of the few remaining manned lightstations on the west coast, the reason I’ve used a template-popping width here is because it shows i think a lot about what a manned lightstation is about – starting to the right, from the light itself to the keeper’s home and various outbuildings to the speedy boat hanging ready for rescue from the davit far left, this installation seems just fabulous to me. Fabulous, but alas even in this hazy, miles-over-the-water-at-high-noon photo we can see Chrome’s Fresnel lens is long gone. Oh well.

I’ll be up close and personal with the chrome light later on this month, in the meantime, here’s a mystery light for you:

e-510 300mm 1/800 f/5.6 iso 100

With lunch in Quailcum Beach done, on the way back to the car, in the distance, well I honestly thought this was a mirage, but my travelling companion thought it was a lighthouse. Proving her wrong, I stretched the legs, put on the big lens and activated live view. And then I wasn’t so sure, so I punched up the magnification to 10x, which with the big lens is about 120x zoom, not digital zoom but optical to the pixel. It is a lightstation. Crow, anyone? Near as I can tell it’s Entrance Island, and while I’m not totally sure, it was profoundly strange that when researching this light one of my confirming pictures had an odd credit, last name matched mine, first name resembled who used to beat me up when I was younger and who got me started about 35 years ago on this whole photography thing. Oh, interweb. Link to that page (you’ll have to scroll, no anchors) here.