Macquarie Lighthouse (Sydney)

Apr21

I took these images of Macquarie lighthouse in Sydney from 5th to 7th November 1987, months later than images in preceding posts.

Macquarie lighthouse and cliffs by day
6 November 1987
Arca-Swiss monorail 5×4″
90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon
Low-res scan from book

The original Macquarie lighthouse, built in 1818, was Australia’s first lighthouse, although an iron basket had been erected nearby on a tripod in 1794, initially burning wood and then coal from 1797. The lighthouse was commissioned by Governor Macquarie and designed by convict architect Francis Greenaway, who warned at a very early stage that the sandstone used would soon crumble. Several large stones fell from arches in 1823 and starting from that year, a succession of iron bands were wrapped around the lighthouse for support.

Macquarie lighthouse and cottage by day
6 November 1987
Arca-Swiss monorail 5×4″
Low-res scan from book

When it became necessary to instal a larger optic, they replaced the lighthouse, building a new one beside the old. This is what you see today, dating from 1881. The design closely follows the original lighthouse, apart from a larger lantern room at the top. My guess is that the lighthouse cottage behind it also dates from 1881.

Macquarie lighthouse at night

The lighthouse at night, as lit by various lights. The original slide was technically compromised, fogged and with banding in the sky. Rescuing it produced some strange colours so that a high-contrast black and white was the only feasible option.

The first lighthouse keeper was Robert Watson, who had been a bosun on one of the ships of the First Fleet.

Macquarie Lighthouse in Fog
5.35am 6 November 1987
Arca Swiss Monorail 5×4″
90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon
f11 30 seconds, Fujichrome 50

Here we can see that when the weather closes in, visibility is low and it is difficult to see the lighthouse. I wanted this image to go into the book to make that point but was overruled.

In 1857 the sailing ship Dunbar foundered at the base of this cliff, notwithstanding the presence of the earlier lighthouse. A total of 121 passengers and crew drowned. There was just one survivor who managed to reach safety at the foot of the cliffs and he was not discovered for two days.

Brass and marble flag on lighthouse floor with staircase, 12.45pm 6 November 1987
Arca-Swiss monorail 5×4″
f45 6 seconds, 65mm Schneider super Angulon, Fujichrome 50.

The lighthouse contains a few remarkable architectural embellishments. Here is the New South Wales flag on the floor at the entrance of the lighthouse.

Macquarie Door handle
6 November 1987
Arca Swiss Monorail 5×4″

This is a brass door handle inside the lantern room.

Macquarie lens
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 fisheye

Here is the bulb and fresnel lenses inside the optic, which was large enough to stand up inside. Lots of fisheye distortion here.

Macquarie and Cliffs during night 6 November 1987 Arca Swiss Monorail 5x4" 90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon f6.8 20 minutes, Fujichrome 50

Macquarie and Cliffs during night
6 November 1987
Arca Swiss Monorail 5×4″
90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon
f6.8 20 minutes, Fujichrome 50

The weather had greatly improved during the day and this was an important lighthouse so I stayed to try again for another night. This was the night of the full moon, which is the source of light for these exposures.

Macquarie and Cliffs during night 6 November 1987 Arca Swiss Monorail 5x4" 90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon f6.8 40 minutes, Fujichrome 50

Macquarie and Cliffs during night
6 November 1987
Arca Swiss Monorail 5×4″
90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon
f6.8 40 minutes, Fujichrome 50

The white lines in the sky are star trails. In the distance are ships anchored or moving. The waves are washing in and out during the long exposure.

Macquarie and Cliffs during night 6 November 1987 Arca Swiss Monorail 5x4" 90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon f6.8 30 minutes, Fujichrome 50

Macquarie lighthouse and Cliffs during night
6 November 1987
Arca Swiss Monorail 5×4″
90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon
f6.8 30 minutes, Fujichrome 50

To get to this position, I climbed over the railing and down to a platform where I had been the previous night and where I was not visible from above. I stayed there the whole night, trying different exposures from time to time.

Macquarie and Cliffs at Dawn 5.20am 7 November 1987 Arca Swiss Monorail 5x4" 90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon f11 1 minute, Fujichrome 100

Macquarie and Cliffs at Dawn
5.20am 7 November 1987
Arca Swiss Monorail 5×4″
90mm Linhof Schneider Angulon
f11 1 minute, Fujichrome 100

So here we are, and it’s half an hour before dawn on the morning of the 7th of November 1987. This is the image displayed on the front cover of the book.

Norah Head

Apr13

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.

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.

Sugarloaf Point

Apr10

Seal Rocks
Mamiya 645

This is Seal Rocks, providing an obvious reason to built a lighthouse nearby. It gets its name because it is home to the northernmost colony of Australian fur seals and it is also popular with surfers. This view is not from the Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse, though, but from a viewpoint nearby. Note that the far object in the water, at the right near the horizon, is a ship not a rock.

The building of a lighthouse was recommended here in 1863. At first the favoured location was Seal Rocks but a marine board party in 1873 was unable to land on the rocks and decided to build the lighthouse on nearby Sugarloaf Point instead. The lighthouse was built in 1875.

These images are from the 13th and 14th June 1987.

Subsidiary warning light
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 fisheye lens

Subsidiary warning light
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 fisheye lens

This is a subsidiary light in the lantern room of the lighthouse, casting a red light out towards Seal Rocks, which you can see through the window. If mariners could see this light they were probably getting too close to the rocks.

Through the optical system
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 lens

Here is a succession of views inside or through the optical system, which was large enough to stand up in.

Through the optical system
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 lens

This one is actually upside-down (because the rocks look the right way up).

Through the optical system
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 lens

Through the optical system
Nikon FE, 16mm f3.5 lens

Head keeper’s cotttage and beach
Mamiya 645

Not a bad view for a place to live. The red car might be my rental car, I don’t know.

Head keeper’s cotttage and beach at sunset
Mamiya 645

A similar view with the last rays of the setting sun….

Sugarloaf Point at Night
Mamita 645

It’s dark now, but with some light from the sunset still in the sky.

Sugarloaf Point Overnight
Arca-Swiss monorail, 5×4″

This is an eight-hour exposure, during most of which I was asleep. Long exposures on film were complicated by non-linear behaviour of film, so that you had to add extra exposure for reciprocity failure.

The light goes overhead so the fogging around the lighthouse is not merely due to the light; I think it’s probably diffusion of light through sea mist and fog. The line in the sky you can see is a star trail. If you click on the image for a larger view, you can see many more finer ones.

I’ve darkened this to make it look more like a night-time exposure. Night-time exposures can come out as bright as daylight if you want. The colour of the light is the same as daylight too, after all this is close to a full moon and the general lighting is moonlight reflected from the sun. When it’s very dark we perceive the light as blue. That’s because our eyes use rods and cones to detect light and in very low light, just the rods which see a reduced spectrum of colours. It’s not the colour of the light that changes, just our perception of it.

After closing this exposure, probably an hour before dawn, I climbed down the cliff to photograph the sea, cliffs and lighthouse from a rocky vantage point I had identified the previous night. Unfortunately, this 5×4″ slide fell from the clips in the commercial lab to the bottom of their processing tank, where it lay for some time. Only enough was left to show me what might have been. So I cannot show you that image.

Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse

Finally, here is the lighthouse in the early morning light. It does not need to be tall because it is on top of a cliff and it is a very fine specimen. It is one of the first lighthouses built by James Barnett, the preeminent lighthouse architect in New South Wales in the nineteenth century.

Murray Foote

Tag Archives: Moonlight

Macquarie Lighthouse (Sydney)

Norah Head

Sugarloaf Point