Point Judith is a small beachside town on the southern tip of Rhode Island, the kind of place known for seafood shacks, doughboys, long stretches of beach, and the ferries that run out to Block Island. The wider region is dotted with lighthouses, and Point Judith Light is the one that gives the place its name.
I was staying nearby, so on a fairly unremarkable evening at the end of June I set out to photograph the lighthouse. I walked down from the little village centre, past a run of interesting beach houses, and along the way met a man walking his two dogs — apparently a nationally famous pair. He happily posed them for me, though he didn’t want a photo taken of himself. I didn’t think to ask for their page. Fail.
You reach the beach by following the overgrown path along the fence line of the lighthouse complex. The compositions on offer aren’t great — the fences are high and you’re forced to shoot from a low position — so I carried on down the beach to find a cleaner line of sight.
I shot the lighthouse framed against the beach as the sun dropped. I used ND filters to pull a little movement out of the sea. I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s not somewhere I’d travel a great distance to shoot, but since I was already down here, it made for a great evening.
As I was packing up on the beach, the Coast Guard had two helicopters running rescue training out at sea. I managed to catch one of them in frame with the lighthouse — but missed it in a tighter composition, frantically pulling the ND filters off to get a fast enough shutter to freeze the rotors.
The last shot is a house on the street, taken on the walk back.
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