e-510 12mm 1/160 f/7.1 iso 100

Built in 1876, the New London Rear Range light is poised somewhat inland among the dunes on the beach near French River, Prince Edward Island. Long since automated, it still has a small keeper's residence as part of its structure, though it's doubtful anyone has lived inside in decades. This light along with its front range, a skeleton tower located about 300 meters seaward are lit seasonally as a navigation aid into French River.

I've kicked things off with the New London light as it's a telling example of just how different the east and west coasts are. Were this a Vancouver Island light, one not razed years ago and replaced with a stick with a strobe like so many have been here, not only would it be surrounded by a 10 foot barbed wire fence covered in signs telling you to stay away, it would also be covered in graffiti, fence notwithstanding. In fact, of the 29 light stations I visited on PEI not a single one, whether with an interpretative centre and gift shop or in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no one watching, had any trace whatsoever of graffiti, and many of them are wearing the same coat of white paint they did 30 or more years ago. Refreshing.

29 stations, a little over 2000km on the car around and between them. Some are big and some are especially small, some are touristy, some decommissioned and pretty much abandoned, all are automated and many are a little hard to find. I got to go all the way up to the lantern room of a half-dozen or so, and all along the journey I met some fascinating people and saw close to the entirety of the great big island that is the tiny little province of Prince Edward Island. I don't think I'd want to winter there but in the summer it's hard to imagine a more beautiful place.

On the technical side, many of the photographs to come are on the very cusp of ultra wide-angle. As such, while I've accommodated for genuine lens distortion in all of them, in probably none will I address perspective distortion beyond what I did when actually framing the shot in the viewfinder. No one any time, anywhere has wished for a perspective-control (tilt, shift) lens more than I did this past week, but in the absence of such I composed to either minimize or make the most of it, and I hope you agree with me that where it's apparent it's not a distraction, and occasionally, to my eye anyway, an asset.