Grant Sheehan Shines New Light On New Zealand's Lighthouses

Grant Sheehan's latest book, Lights in the Landscape, is a spectacular photographic journey from New Zealand’s most northern lighthouse at Cape Reinga to our most southern in Foveaux Strait.

The book shows not only the lighthouses themselves but also the landscape around them, capturing the wild beauty of the coastline, the often unpredictable weather and the wildlife that live in these mostly isolated areas.

For Sheehan, the trip around New Zealand to photograph and research the lighthouses was “a pleasure and a privilege”. Growing up in Nelson, Sheehan had been fascinated by lighthouses since he was a boy, finding them “close yet distant, reassuring but strange, and a touch magical”. Lights in the Landscape brings this sense of wonder and beauty gorgeously to life.

Sheehan's photographs showcase the iconic buildings within their sharp textural landscapes, captured in light conditions that range from dramatic stormlight to stunning nightscapes with skies filled with stars. Accompanying text gives a short history of each lighthouse, plus technical details for photographers and directions for travellers.

Lights in the Landscape also includes a brief history, with portraits, of the last keepers that manned the lighthouses in the final days before automation. It is published on 30 November 2013 and is available online from www.lightsinthelandscape.com/ and in all good bookshops.