Perched on a limestone bluff where Lake Erie meets Sandusky Bay, Marblehead Lighthouse is the oldest lighthouse still operating on the Great Lakes. Congress funded its construction in 1819, and builder William Kelly raised the fifty foot conical tower in 1821. The light first shone in 1822, guiding ships through the passage between the Ohio mainland and nearby islands.
The Coast Guard took over operations in 1946, and the beacon was automated in 1958. In 1998, ownership of the tower passed to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, making it part of Marblehead Lighthouse State Park, where visitors can still climb its 77 iron steps and take in the view across Lake Erie.
Bucket List Item, Checked
This one was a long time coming. I’ve wanted to get to the bay area and photograph this lighthouse since…forever. The plan was to capture this scene at sunrise, so we left home around 2:00am and headed north. The wife and kid went along for the ride. It was a nice, quiet drive in the dark.
Not that I was expecting a big crowd at 5:30 in the morning, but we had the park to ourselves for a little while until a carload of teenage boys arrived. One of them was lugging around a camera and tripod, apparently on the same mission I was.
I’m not 100% happy with the shot (I rarely am). I was hoping for a more dramatic sky full of looming clouds, but when you drive 3 hours in the middle of the night, you take what you can get.
For the nerds: I used an Induro carbon fiber tripod with Benro geared ballhead. My trusty Nikon Zf was fitted with the Nikkor Z 14-30mm lens. This is a 3-bracket HDR converted to black and white in Lightroom.
Finally, a word on composition. People often ask me for tips on how to take better photos, and this is one of the fundamentals: The Rule of Thirds.
The Rule of Thirds is a composition guideline where you divide your frame into nine equal rectangles using two horizontal and two vertical lines. By placing key subjects along these lines or at their intersections, you create more visually dynamic and balanced photos than by centering everything.
It doesn’t have to be exact. In this image, the waterline and windows are near the horizontal lines, and the structure itself is along nearly the full length of a vertical line. The top window of the lighthouse is near an intersection.
The sky is transitioning from dark to light, bisecting the entire image along the dotted diagonal line. This composition is also light on the left side and dark on the right, bisecting the image again.
These aren’t part of the Rule of Thirds, but illustrate the difference between color and black and white photography. When photographing in black and white, you have to train your mind’s eye to think differently.
Most digital cameras can superimpose a Rule of Thirds grid in the viewfinder and screen. It’s a great compositional guide to help take better photos.
