The Silent Jetty
As part of a multi-night trip to Yallingup, my brother and I decided to drive down further to Cape Leeuwin lighthouse to try some nightscapes viewing south with the lighthouse as the foreground feature. Yallingup was mostly cloudy by the weather forecast showed clear further south.
However, when we got there at night time there was one big issue with this particular lighthouse - it spills alot of light. Well, obviously - one might say. The issue isn't so much the beams of light that is projected by the lighthouse as these sweep overhead, but rather between the projection lenses of the lighthouse there is a gap where the bright source of the light spills out omni-directionally. These immediately saturates the image - making it almost impossible to get a good nightscape.
Disappointed, we started on our way back to base camp, but my brother searched on Google maps and spotted a jetty in Flinder's Bay that was at a reasonably good angle to take nightscapes into the ocean and sky from. So with nothing further to lose we detoured to the jetty.
The jetty wasn't a bad spot at all. There is a bit of light from the house behind and further up the shore which casts a pale light over the jetty and the waters, but otherwise its reasonably dark enough to get good shots of the Milkyway. Considering the alternative, this was definitely worth the diversion - and one of the few spots in Western Australia where you can shoot from a jetty looking to the east!
