Green Cape Lighthouse

Light washes up the white tower of Green Cape Lighthouse, the illuminated face cutting a sharp vertical against a deep teal sky thick with the dust lanes and starlight of the Milky Way. Shot from low ground on the headland, the tower leans into the galactic arc overhead, its shadowed side fading into the dark of the cape below. Photographed late on the night of 28 August 2016, on the far south coast of New South Wales.

The tower was designed by NSW Colonial Architect James Barnet and built between 1881 and 1883, an octagonal concrete structure 29 metres tall on a square base, one of the earliest large concrete lighthouses in Australia and the tallest in New South Wales at the time. It was first lit on 1 November 1883 with a Chance Brothers first-order lens, visible 19 nautical miles. On 30 May 1886 the paddle-steamer Ly-ee-Moon struck the rocks at the base of the cape and broke apart in calm conditions; 71 of the 86 people aboard died, and the keepers later recovered 24 bodies and buried them in a small cemetery nearby. The original light was taken out of service on 17 March 1992 and a steel lattice tower took the duty from 1994. The concrete tower was dark when this frame was made. It was re-lit in February 2026, with an LED beacon turning inside the original lens.