Heceta Head Lighthouse is a well-known landmark on the Oregon coast. It is also a great location for sunset photos featuring the lighthouse in the foreground. For this photo, I shot from a hiking trail that winds just behind the lighthouse. I composed the photograph to position the sun and the lighthouse lamp near each other as the sun set. 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 several series of manually bracketed exposures of the same scene as the sun set, including an exposure for the foreground just as the lighthouse beam rotated beneath me. I opted for an f-stop that would create some starburst effect with the sun. I chose several exposures from one series as the best composition as the sun set, then blended the exposures to create this image.
