Why? To photograph a lighthouse.

On their wedding trip in 1987, Bob & Sandra Shanklin traveled to New England, and among other things, photographed a few lighthouses. The first one was picturesque Portland Head Lighthouse. It was love at first sight. They started searching for more lighthouses that very day. At an age when most people are thinking of retiring, the Shanklins started a whole new and exciting project.

Bob contends that lighthouses are a virus with no known cure, and at that very first lighthouse, the bug bit both of them. Since then the couple have traveled over all the coasts of the United States looking for lighthouses.

The Shanklins call themselves "the Lighthouse People", and they feel they have earned the title. Some years ago the Associated Press did a story on them. The story was printed in newspapers all over the United States. At that time they had photographed around 200 lighthouses and so, had only a good start on their project.

Whenever they were in an area, looking for a lighthouse or trying to find transportation to a lighthouse, someone would come up and say, "Aren't you the Lighthouse People?"

The Lighthouse People are photographers Bob and Sandra Shanklin. After that first trip to New England, it became a goal, a cause, an obsession to photograph all the lighthouses in the U.S. In their calculations, there are about 670 lighthouse in the U.S., some of them major, some minor. They have photographed them all including Alaska and Hawaii.  They have just published their first book of full color photographs:
 "Lighthouses of the Hawaiian Islands".

The Shanklins have had wonderful adventures on their quest. According to Sandra, "They almost always are in beautiful places, and there's always good seafood near a lighthouse." Some lighthouses are like their first lighthouse, Portland Head Light, easy to reach. You can drive right up and view or touch them. Many others take a special effort just to view, like  Ship Shoal, Louisiana. Ship Shoal is over 10 miles off the Louisiana Coast, in the Gulf of Mexico. The Shanklins had to charter a seaplane to take them there and to the six lighthouses at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The plane ride to Ship Shoal was the most miserable plane ride Sandra had ever taken. Louisiana had a cold front come through, with record cold temperatures for December. The plane was not heated. The pilot said his planes almost never need heat. The sun was shining but the wind was blowing, the flight was rough. Sandra got airsick and stayed airsick for the whole three hour flight. She was barely able to lift her camera to take the shots. She had so looked forward to seeing the last one, Ship Shoal. She was able only to shoot two shots. After that she was too sick to take more photos, or even to care.

The lighthouse is on the highest peak of the Island which is basically a mountain sticking up out of the Pacific. There is no place to dock. Bob, especially, wondered how their party would get ashore. First of all, everyone was transferred from the trawler they took from Sausalito, to a nine foot Boston Whaler. Just three people at a time would fit in the Whaler. With the boats pitching in the ocean, going from the trawler to the Whaler was not an easy task. Then, to the Shanklin's surprise, as they got near the cliff, a ring buoy called a Billy Pugh was lowered down to them, and just a few at a time, the group had to put their gear on the netting of the ring buoy and jump onto it, timing the jump as the boat raised on an ocean swell and came up to the Billy Pugh. The ring buoy or Billy Pugh was raised up by the crew of scientists ashore and swung with a derrick to the top of the cliff, where a botanist was waiting to escort the party. The scientist told the party precisely where to place each footstep so as not to crush a rare plant or the nest of a burrowing bird. It was an exacting climb up the path to the lighthouse at the top. Adding to the adventure, everything was covered with bird guano, including the path and the metal handrail beside it.

Getting back off the Island was even tougher, as a storm was moving in, the Pacific swells higher, the wind blowing the ring buoy back and forth over the little Whaler that was riding up and down the twelve foot waves. They made it, but both felt it was one of the most difficult things they had ever done. Sandra says they are glad they did it, but not sure they'd want to do it again.

In the summer of 1995 the Shanklins flew into Boston to finish photographing the lighthouses of Maine. After going with the Coast Guard to photograph Isles of Shoals, Whaleback, Ram Island Ledge and HalfWay Rock, they headed to Owl's Head, Maine and the airport there, where pilot Mike Ball took them on a 5 hour flight to photograph all the offshore lighthouses they hadn't shot before. Steadily heading north, they photographed many island lighthouses, . The further north the plane flew, the foggier it got. As the plane circled over the Little River Lighthouse at Cutler Maine, the lighthouse was barely visible, making photography difficult. From there, the plane headed out into the Atlantic to the farthest offshore lighthouse in that area, Machias Seal Island. The fog thickened and the Shanklins despaired of photographing that lighthouse. They wondered if they would have to return to Maine sometime again, just to photograph Machias Seal. The fog was below them in hills and valleys, like a mountain range. Just as they arrived at the place the lighthouse should be, the fog opened and there stood the red and white lighthouse below them, bright and clear.
This serendipity happens to them very often. Bob says it means they are doing what they were meant to do.