This is the story of Salem’s lighthouses, which will be the easiest to visit during Salem’s Quadricentennial (400th Birthday) celebration.

I covered Hospital Point Light in the First article, The Soul of Salem: A Quadricentennial Guide to the Five Guardians, and my second article was: The Marblehead Lighthouse: The Skeletal Guardian of Salem Sound. In this article we will talk about some different places to photograph both of Salem’s Lighthouses.

Fort Pickering Lighthouse

Fort Pickering was first lit on January 17, 1871, shining a fifth-order Fresnel lens 28 feet above sea level, and has been guiding seafarers into Salem Harbor ever since. There was a Lighthouse keeper’s house which sat further back on Winter Island and was connected by a wooden walkway.[1] Today the light is electric and automated with a solar powered battery.

Locations to view and photograph Fort Pickering Lighthouse

First up, you can explore locations on Winter Island. There is a cost to drive onto the island from Memorial Day thru October 31st (cost $10-$15 depending on day of the week). The first location is the edge of the parking lot or the beach and rocks just below the parking lot.

You can get out there for dawn and, 90% of the time, you’ll have the place completely to yourself—save for the folks camping on the island in tents and RVs.

If you are not a morning person, you can shoot for the late afternoon or early evening (the cost doesn’t change) and a lot of what you find will be weather dependent. If a storm passes overhead and heading out to sea (west to east) then you could get lucky with luminescent clouds or a shelf cloud hanging over Marblehead’s side of the harbor.

You might also catch the moon rising in the east and put the two together. If you are interested in seeing more of my captures of this lighthouse, follow this link. But all of these shots were shot from one side or the other of the parking ramp. If you wonder why I call it the ramp, it’s because this is where Coast Guard PBYs would taxi from the hangar and down the ramp into the harbor, as seen below.

Here are three more angles that you can explore. There is a couple paths that will take you up on the hill above the Lighthouse and you of course can shoot with Salem’s Lighthouse in the foreground (pic #1). You will find steps down from there and you will find at low tide you can crawl the rocks and get a water level shot. In the last one above, I was walking one of the other trails on a very foggy day and I could just make out the lighthouse above the hill.

I really enjoyed the ethereal feel to this one so much that I made it into a painting that I feel catches the mysterious nature of a lighthouse on a foggy day. Bring the mystery home: View prints of Ethereal Sentinel here.

Derby Wharf Lighthouse, the 2nd of Salem’s Lighthouses

For those of you visiting Salem, you will find that it is extremely easy to walk around; 95% of everything downtown is within a single mile. (Winter Island is two miles from downtown, making it an easy walk or drive). You can also take the trolley (Purchase tickets in the visitor center on New Liberty Street) and learn all about Salem that way.

Derby Wharf is right down on the historic waterfront. You can get a town map and directions at the Visitor Center on New Liberty Street (across from the Peabody Essex Museum) And it is a short walk down to the waterfront. You will see opposite Derby Wharf is the Custom House, The Hawkes House, and The Derby House. (Behind the Hawkes House is the Narbonne House)

Once you’ve done the Rangers tour of the Custom House and maybe the Derby House (2 doors down) you will be ready for the walk down to the lighthouse. I enjoyed taking a walk out to it daily whenever the weather permitted (even when it didn’t).

Do you enjoy lighthouses, here is my article on Nubble Light in York Maine

When it comes to photographing Derby Wharf Light, your perspectives are naturally shaped by the harbor. You can capture it straight-on from the historic second floor of the Custom House, stand on Derby Wharf itself, frame it from the sandy beach to the left, or look across from Central Wharf, which sits a bit shorter in the harbor. But as you walk out, you’ll quickly see that the ocean has a perspective of its own

As seen from over on the small beach, standing on Derby Wharf itself, and over on Central Wharf

The walk out along the historic stone pier is well worth every step. Whether you catch Derby Wharf Light at a dramatic King Tide or enveloped in a quiet morning fog, it stands as a beautiful testament to Salem’s maritime soul. As we celebrate the Quadricentennial and the nation’s 250th anniversary, there has never been a better time to pack your camera gear, head to the coast, and discover these historic guardians for yourself.

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Credits & Sources

[1] lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=481

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