Fort Worden State Park

Author's Comments

The bunkers are the surprise. I came for the lighthouse, which is what most people come for, and the lighthouse delivered exactly what I expected of it - white tower, red roof, the Strait of Juan de Fuca opening behind it toward the Olympics. A photograph I have made before in other places. What I had not expected was how much time I would spend among the concrete batteries above the beach, the empty gun emplacements with their rectangular openings framing the water like deliberate compositions someone left behind for me to find. September is the month I would recommend. The summer fog has thinned, the light at golden hour comes in low and sideways across the bluff, and the concrete takes the warm tones in a way that feels almost geological. The bunkers face out toward the water and the Olympics rise across the strait, snow still holding on the higher peaks well into fall. Stand inside one of the emplacements and the opening becomes a frame. The mountains sit inside it like a painting hung in a derelict room. Point Wilson is best worked at the end of the day, when the lighthouse catches the last of the sun and the strait goes silver behind it. But give yourself the morning for the bunkers. The light is colder then, more architectural, and the concrete reads as what it is - a history that did not have to be used, slowly being reclaimed by salt air and grass. There is a quietness to the place that I did not expect from a former military installation, and that quietness is most of what I came home with.

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