I feel a bit like a moth to a flame. The rotating light at Montauk Point Lighthouse is mesmerising. I could watch it for hours. Felicity and I return to it with cameras charged and ready.
The current light is a modern affair: light, bright and small. Its refracted light flashes every 5 seconds and can be seen for 19 nautical miles.
Gone are the days of hand-cranked whale oil-fuelled lights that can be found in the museum at the foot of the Lighthouse tower.
During my trip, Felicity finds a recent article published in the New York Times about the Montauk Point Lighthouse Keeper who is retiring after over thirty years tending the light.
There is an incredible collection of previous lenses and lights, including the innovative lenses by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel. The Fresnel lenses were developed in the early C19 and are designed for maximum aperture and focal length of the light whilst cutting down on weight and volume of glass. In Theresa Levitt’s book A Short Bright Flash, she charts the development of this invention which revolutionised lighthouses world-wide. The principles are still used today in modern-day lenses.
It is incredible to see the dancing of light caught in the lens up-close and I spend some time filming and photographing it, mesmerised by the moving light and rhythm of the silent rotation of the light.
