“Battery Point Light”

Location: Crescent City, California (2018)

Low tide at Battery Point Light reveals a harbor full of rocks on a clear mid-autumn’s morning.

The difference between low and high tide here is quite a difference. In this photograph, you can see all the rocks. (You can also see the isthmus that’s used as a road and connects the island to the beach.)

Tours of the lighthouse are possible – from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. – but only if the tide allows access to the island!

My time in Crescent City was limited. When I had first seen the lighthouse the previous afternoon, the tide was too high for a visit.

Not to be disappointed, I arose well before sunrise the next morning and headed to the wooden pier opposite of the lighthouse and looked for a place to set-up my tripod and camera.

From the inky blackness of night, the sky was beginning to transition to daylight revealing a magnetic blue that was quickly becoming lighter.

In the stillness of the morning, the revolving lens of the lighthouse would sweep across the harbor and reveal the treacherous boulders and rocks that littered the water.

It became hypnotic – staring at the lighthouse as the lens went around and around.

I wanted to capture that light before the sky became too bright.