My favorite childhood memories include watching the light beams radiating in the late evening from the Umpqua River lighthouse in Winchester Bay, Oregon. As the lighthouse rotated, with just enough mist in the air, the beams could be seen sweeping across the trees behind the lighthouse and then out over the Pacific Ocean from the lighthouse perch overlooking a stretch of the Oregon sand dunes.
In March, 2025, my son and I visited the lighthouse on a trip along the Oregon Coast. I captured this image of the Umpqua River lighthouse with a Canon EOS R6 Mark II camera and Canon RF 24mm f1.4 L VCM lens. The low-light capability of the camera and the wide aperture of the lens allowed me to make the most of the available light. In order to capture the broad dynamic range of the darkened trees to the direct light radiation from the lighthouse, two separate exposures were required which were then merged in Adobe Photoshop.
To celebrate this image, I also created a T-shirt design to go with it. I gave these shirts to all my kids (and myself) for Christmas–they’re great shirts.
This image is now available as a fine art print in the shop and the shirt is available there, too.
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