Lighthouses are one of my passions and seem to have a similar attraction to many more people. My first lighthouse I remember is Lyngvig Fyr (Lyngvig Lighthouse) on the West coast of Denmark, situated on the narrow headland between North Sea and the Ringköbing Fjord. It's a simply white lighthouse on a crest of dunes - and it was covered in scaffolding during my last visit in June 2006. Pure horror - how can they repair "my" lighthouse I had already visualized in sunsets or blue sky, but in no case with scaffolding?
My first pictures of Lyngvig Fyr date back to 1989 - the time I started fainthearted attemps of photography with my fathers Canon AE-1 - the first time I used a SLR camera in my life. Already at that time the Fresnel lenses fascinated me (OK, I am a friend of any technology in general) - especially in combination with the rainbow colors caused by light refaction of the huge lenses if you looked in a certain angle. A colors - as you might have observed serving my web - are a favorite element of many pictures.
As the ligthhouse's outside didn't appeal this visit and destroyed any possible picture, I concentrated on the interior - the spiral staircase and the lenses in any possible angle. The building work actually helped this type of photography, as I was nearly alone in the ligthouse - just before I left two people joined me - after nearly one hour of photography and enjoying the wide panormic view from the outer gallery around the lens head of the tower.
So in the end I wasn't annoyed any more about the catastrophy on the outside, but enjoyed my lonesome and active photography of the inside (and that I managed the stairways and gallery high above without too much fear - I have a good share of acrophobia if you don't know yet.
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Take the opportunities and forget the obstacles, |