There are nine historic, government-built lighthouses on the Oregon coast. We have visited and photographed all of them, some more than once, except Yaquina Bay. Here’s my three favorite from this trip.

Yaquina Head, Coquille River, and Cape Blanco are 159 miles apart and about a 3 1/2 drive about mid-to-southern coast. I highly recommend all three.

Yaquina Head lighthouse is Oregon’s tallest at 93 feet. It is 153 years old. This is a popular lighthouse with a lot of visitors and a small parking lot. The visitors’ center parking lot is nearby, but it’s a bit of a walk and it is often windy.

My photographer’s hint is there are two good compositions to capture the lighthouse with no or a minimum number of people. First, at the small parking lot, walk down the platform at the south end of the lot and shoot back toward the lighthouse with the hillside as your foreground. Many times during the year, this hillside is full of wildflowers. Your second best bet is to use the small hill on the left front side of the lighthouse and crouch down and use the hill to block the people. You will lose a bit of the house, but the tower will look great and the house will be suggested.

At first glance, Coquille River lighthouse is a short, stubby, homely little thing. But keep looking and walk around it and you’ll see great compositional options. My favorite spot is behind the lighthouse amongst the dunes with the very long beach grass. If the wind is blowing, as it was yesterday, I just use a long shutter speed and let it look blurry.

Finally, Cape Blanco is my favorite lighthouse even though it is known for notoriously strong winds and fog. It was no different today as it was completely shrouded in fog as we parked our car a quarter mile away and made the trudge up the hill in 25 miles an hour wind.

We were rewarded 30 minutes later with clearish skies and just a 15 miles an hour wind. This lighthouse is my favorite because it is a classic lighthouse design, it is less crowded than other lighthouses because it is so far south, and it is surrounded by tall tufted hairgrass and Pacific Reedgrass.

Again, it was super windy, so I just let the grass blow and used a slow shutter speed to blur it.