I was very lucky recently to be able to photograph the Bruny Island Light, with the light on… not something that happens very often these days, as the light has been decommissioned, and replaced with a dinky solar powered light, that has no character (but I suppose does the job required of it).

The shot was taken on a beautiful cold clear night, 100 seconds at f7.1, ISO 1250, with a 15mm lens on a Canon 5D mk 2 body. The beams spear out into the night, and are recorded so well because the light was not rotating, so as not to confuse the local shipping! The Southern Cross is directly above the light tower, in an upright position, with the Milky Way stretching across the sky. The side lighting on the tower comes from the automatic light tower on the adjacent headland, and inconsiderately only lights the lower two-thirds of the tower. I added a bit of fill-light to the tower using my head-torch.

Many thanks to Andy, for the opportunity to make this photograph!

See more of my work, including limited edition prints not available on RedBubble, at dougthost.com