The Lighthouse Project
of the Oregon Coast
“And here it was, during the time which followed, that I learned the real meaning of stillness. ”
The Lighthouse Project is a limited edition series that I started in hopes of exploring more of Oregon’s Coast. It has now since expanded into something much more than what meets the eye. I will be visiting each of the eleven lighthouses with the intention of photographing them with my Yashica-Mat 124G medium-format camera. I feel that using film is the only way to evoke the emotion that I feel when capturing these moments of solidarity while doing justice to the historic sites. As a member of the United States Lighthouse Society, I will be making donations at each of the lighthouses I visit. Every time you purchase a print, I will donate part of those proceeds to the USLHS as well.
The photographs will be realeased from each of the trips as I feel ready. It will take me some time to visit each of them and I do not have dates set for each of the trips. They will just happen spontaneously, just the way I like it.
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Lilly-Gray, her father, Rob and sister, Alexandra.
The Beginning
Ocracoke Lighthouse, North Carolina
July 2009
Photo by Staci Hoell
In September of 2018 I came out to Oregon for my third harvest at the winery and stayed. I spent most of my first winter in Oregon fly fishing, wandering aimlessly in the woods and planning trips for the spring and summer. One of the trips I planned was a season-long adventure continuously going to the coast to photograph all the lighthouses of Oregon. It would take me from May until July. I thought it would be a grounding experience to help establish my roots here in Oregon and help cope with the move and all of life’s changes that were happening. The spring was here before I knew it then summer and then harvest at the winery. Life gets busy and that’s okay as long as you remember to stop and catch your breath. And I finally caught mine after Christmas when I made several trips to the beach just to breathe in the air. And let me tell you, I sure did miss home.
Growing up on the coast of North Carolina had a very large influence on me. I feel a very powerful magnetism to being near the ocean. The ocean always eases my mind and makes me feel at home when my soul feels restless. These trips are more to me than just a drive and shooting some photos; they are intentional times of isolation for healing and self-discovery. Time for me to breathe.
On December 28, 2019 the project came to life.
Please, don’t hesitate to donate.
Yashica-Mat 124G
When I first cooked up this idea for the Lighthouse Project, I didn’t know that I would end up doing it with film. I have been shooting with the same Canon 50D dslr since I was sixteen years old and it has gone everywhere with me. So, for nearly half my life (that’s crazy to think), I have been shooting with the same exact camera. Along the way I have collected a few other cameras, one of which is this Yashica-Mat 124G. It was still in the box when I got it. I was 20 years old and had never shot medium format before. It was quite the learning curve!
A few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2019 I decided to buy some film for the Yashica. I quickly realized I had forgotten how to load the film, the battery was dead for the light meter and I needed to give it a good cleaning.
After all those things were done, I blasted through a few rolls of different brands of 120 film to see what I liked best for my style of photography and was ready to rumble.