Heceta Head Lighthouse is a well-known landmark on the Oregon coast. It is also an excellent location for sunset photos, as the lighthouse is often in the foreground.

For this photo, I shot from a hiking trail that winds just behind the lighthouse. I composed the photograph to put the two light sources (the sun and lighthouse lamp) near each other as the sunset. I also put my camera just above the lighthouse light beam as it rotated toward me so that the lighthouse would highlight the foreground at my feet.

Because of the high contrast between the two very bright light sources and the darker foreground, I quickly shot a series of manually bracketed exposures of the same scene as the sunset, including an exposure for the foreground just as the lighthouse beam rotated beneath me.

I opted for an f-stop that would create a starburst effect with the sun. As the sun set, I chose several exposures from one series for the best composition and blended them to create this image.