Lighthouses

It can be tough to find interesting leading lines when it comes to lighthouses. I see a lot of walls, steps and pavements being used to guide the eye into a picture. Here, however, the photographer has been a lot more inventive, using the fishing nets to take the eye into the frame and then guiding us up the body of the lighthouse. Using an aperture of f/11 has helped to keep everything nice and sharp.

Plenty to like here: the sweep of the path leading into the picture, the splash of orange/red on the roof, the wonderful cloud formation and, of course, the lighthouse. Sadly, the quality of the file simply won’t allow heavy processing, so it has suffered here. The composition is promising, but the file quality needs addressing.

The rocket-shaped lighthouse at Portishead lends itself well to the star trail treatment here. The photographer has done a fantastic job of lining up the North Star with the peak of the lighthouse, and the halo of rings created by the long exposure works brilliantly clipped at the sides by the portrait format. Crucially, everything that should be sharp is.