The sixth of the seventh

AND THEN IT ALL BEGAN

In 1991, I was a fledgling pro photographer (or thought I was) when a friend asked me to go and photograph the lighthouses on the Chesapeake Bay.  She asked, not because I was any kind of fantastic photographer but rather, because she needed someone else to pay for the boat to take us around.  Simple economics.  At first I declined, knowing what the cost was going to be even before we found a captain to put up with us.  To make a long story shorter, we found a guy with a tow boat that went about fifty miles per hour and left the next day from the port of Rock Hall, MD.

Thus began my so far 21 year odyssey with lighthouses.

Sandy Point and Sandy Point light house is about ten miles south and on the opposite shore as where we began.  It lies just north of the western side of the twin spans of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge at Annapolis.

This is the first of the 250 some odd lighthouses I have visited and photographed on the East Coast.

It looked much better back then and now is pretty run down.  At least it looks so from the bridge.  The Coast Guard no longer maintains these things and they have for the most part simply aged.  It takes a lot of money and elbow grease to keep these things up.  This one is a caisson type light.  So named for the circular base which was placed in the bottom of the bay and then filled with all sorts of rubble to form a solid platform upon which to build the house itself.

We ended up photographing twenty five lighthouse over the course of three days and subsequently produced five state posters which have been selling since those early days.  They are now historical documents in their own right.

The above is the second edition of the first Maryland poster which is now out of print.

If you have an interest in purchasing, just email me at skipw@sc.rr.com

I wrote the following shortly after making the picture.

Like the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, the Original Sandy Point Light was on shore on the western side of the bay just north of what is now the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  The original light, completed in 1858, was both lighthouse and keeper’s house....with the lantern placed on the roof of the house.  A fog bell was added in 1863, but in 1874 the Lighthouse Board noted that the bell and light were ineffective as the shoal extended so far out into the bay as to render them virtually useless.  For approximately eight years the Board asked congress to appropriate anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 to build a new light on the edge of the shoal in the bay proper. 

Finally, in 1882 congress appropriated $25,000 and construction was started on the caisson.  The lighthouse is built on a Caisson, or cylinder, some 35 feet in diameter and sunk three feet into the sandy bottom of the bay.  The red brick keeper’s house and lantern was built upon the caisson.  The light was electrified in 1929 and automatic operation began in 1963.  A one second white flash is exhibited every six seconds and the foghorn tolls every thirty seconds.

This light is located offshore just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge which connects Kent Island, MD and the Annapolis area. It can be viewed from the bridge itself or from Sandy Point State Park on the western shore of the bay. The bright red paint really makes this landmark stand out on a clear, sunny day.