Norah Head

/ Murray Foote

Continuing to proceed down the New South Wales coast on 14th June 1987, my next stop was Norah Head lighthouse.  It was built in 1903, the last of the New South Wales lighthouses.

Norah-Head-Lighthouse-by-night-6x45-Edit-Edit

Norah Head Lighthouse by night
Mamiya 645
Exposure somewhere between 10 seconds and a minute or two, Fujichrome 50.

It was a full moon, or just off and so here we see the moon behind the lighthouse.  If you look closely, you can see a few stars in the sky, moving just slightly during the exposure.

Norah-Hd-Wind-Indicator(_)#6584

Wind direction indicator
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 fisheye

This is a wind direction indicator inside the lighthouse.  I think it must have a geared connection to a wind vane on top of the lighthouse.

12 thoughts on “Norah Head”

  1. Pingback: From Dusk Till Dawn | Murray Foote

    • Thanks very much. I may have been slow to respond because I had to rescue your comment from spam. It’s so long ago that I don’t remember whether there’s any special detail to how I took it. It must be a fairly short exposure because the moon doesn’t appear to have moved. I took another at the same time of something like 20 minutes and the moon was a big slash against the sky but the Department lent that out many years ago and didn’t record who to.

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  4. Hi Murray. You know, it’s true, what your friend says above, that first picture looks so odd and perfect and unreal. It looks so clean and flawless, quite an odd effect. I really thought at first maybe you’d found or you had even made a model of the lighthouse, and then taken a picture of that!
    perhaps it was on a very long exposure or something and, oh I don’t know. Anyway, I had to look twice, very nice post, and super photos, as always. Always enjoy my visits here.

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    • Hi Arran and thanks. I can see what you mean but I’m not sure how it came about. Perhaps it’s due to the smooth highlight transitions of film coupled with the moonlight bouncing off the water in the background and the way in which the lighthouse is lit. Perhaps it’s due to the colour correction. The original image was quite green due to fluoro lights lighting the lighthouse and it’s not at all easy to correct for that in film. Not so much a problem with digital post-processing but since fluoro has a very narrow spectral range, then probably so does the colour-corrected lighthouse, which may contribute to the effect.

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      • Hi Murray, thank you, that is very interesting technically & artistically, it sounds from what you say like the smoothness of the image may be a combination of the factors you mention, it really is a curious effect, and not a little beautiful. Many thanks for filling me in, all quite intriguing. I have to say in general, always love looking at and learning about your fantastic lighthouse trips. Very best regards- Arran.

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  6. Pingback: Lighthouse Monochromes – New South Wales #2 « Murray Foote

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