Portland Head Light Access

At Dawn? The park shows their open hours as 10am to 4pm, and it appears to be a gated area for both parking and foot traffic, from what I can tell from The Google. Does anyone know if one can (legally) access the grounds, either by car or by walking there, in the wee hours near sunrise? Thanks!

The Portland Head Light is located inside Fort Williams Park. The park is open from sunrise to sunset. They are very firm on these hours and will not open the gate early and will close the gate promptly at sunset. You will see photographers lined up in their cars outside the gate. There is a small lot in front of the lighthouse with less than 10 spaces available, so if you get there early enough, snag one of those spots. Otherwise, you'll have to park in the other lot. The other lot isn't that far of a walk, it'll just add a few minutes. Which normally isn't a big deal, but when you want that sweet light, minutes count.

I was shooting after the sun had set one evening and got locked in the park. Luckily, there was a huge tour bus and they opened the gate for them and let me and one other vehicle out. So, I would leave promptly as instructed.

The hours you are referring to is access to the Museum. But I assume you were asking about the opportunity to photograph the lighthouse???

Many thanks! I had seen enough more recent photos that seem to indicate that low light shooting was possible from within the park's boundaries. Good to know that they can cater to photographers and early/late visitors.

As it happened, we lost a half day when we visited last week and didn't have time to take in the Head Light at all. We did get to visit Nubble and Whaleback in some good light though. What a busy place Nubble is getting to be!

Heading that way this weekend for 9 days. Can't wait and I am hoping to get here!

Sadly, we are an hour or more away at sebago lake, so not sure if I'll be able to get there early enough.

Sunrise tomorrow 6/30 is 5:03 AM and sunset is 8:26 PM so hold them to the opening of sunrise to sunset!

By the way there is a wonderful guide to photographing the lighthouses of Maine at https://luminous-landscape.com …116-maine_lighthouses.pdf. If you follow the content for the Portland Head/Cape Elizabeth (see Cape Elizabeth Light on page 4) you can get some pretty decent images.

^ WOW! Thanks for that lighthouse link! VERY helpful - though too late for my trip

What lighthouses we got are in this gallery:
http://www.davidwattsp​hotography.com …Coast-New-Hampshire-2016/

Previous trip's are here:
http://www.davidwattsp​hotography.com/Vacatio​n/Shootout2009/

Robert Hitchman has almost 140 such guides and you can buy them individually (as PDF's) for about $8 to $10. See http://shop.photograph​america.com/ before your next trip.

I just came back from my trip to Portland. I went to the park around 4:35am to catch the 4:55am sunrise and the entrance gate to the park was already open.