Norah Head Lighthouse – NSW Central Coast Lighthouse

The NSW Central Coast contains many beautiful photography locations, but Norah Head Lighthouse would be among the best places to visit with your camera.

Like so many other lighthouses in NSW, Norah Head Lighthouse is well-kept and painted a clean white colour with a navy blue border that runs along the bottom of the structure. It is an excellent place to visit, with parking close by, the beautiful historic Lighthouse Keepers Quarters that you walk past and, of course, this stunning lighthouse.

I have visited many lighthouses now, and Norah Head Lighthouse is undoubtedly one of the more impressive. That is nothing against the other lighthouses in New South Wales, as they are all spectacular in their own way. This comment is more regarding the impressive size of Norah Head lighthouse.

On my last visit, I found myself appreciating this fact and the many details arrayed on the lighthouse’s exterior. It is similar in appearance to Macquarie Lighthouse, located at Vaucluse near Sydney, for those that have been there.

You would never believe it is well over a hundred years old, having commenced operation back in 1903.

How best to photograph Norah Head Lighthouse

There are two areas to photograph Norah Head Lighthouse from, described below. While you could cover both of these areas in one visit, I encourage you to take your time and make this one of those locations you plan to return and visit.

As you will read, both areas offer interesting and different compositions that allow you to capture some great landscape photos.

Up close to the lighthouse

Photographing Norah Head Lighthouse up close can be fun but challenging.

I enjoyed using the trees, path, and white fence that flanks the headland as leading lines to draw viewers’ eyes towards the lighthouse. It also gives the foreground of your photos some visual interest. I found it best to capture this by walking past the lighthouse and shooting back towards it.

However, depending on how far past the lighthouse you go, you will want a wide-angle lens or to shoot vertically. This is due to the limited space you have to work in, and it can be an awkward composition to fit everything in as you would like.

The other place to photograph Norah Head Lighthouse up close is on the large grassed area to the left of the path and lighthouse.

On the first two occasions I visited Norah Head Lighthouse, this area around the bottom of the lighthouse was chained off to the general public. However, if this is the case when you arrive, there are plenty of other alternatives.

From the beach below

The beach at Norah Head is another great place to explore with your camera. From down here, you can capture the traditional beach scene, including the various rock pools and beach rocks. This will mean that Norah Head Lighthouse will appear above a shrub line (if you can call it that) high on top of Norah Heads.

Two of the photos you see in this review were taken from down on Norah Head Beach. While these images are okay, I have seen some absolutely stunning photos taken from the beach that utilise the rock formations and inlets to great advantage.

Connecting the two areas is an attractive wooden staircase. This staircase can be used as the main foreground element or as an additional detail when capturing the lighthouse.

The photo you see above was taken on my first visit to Norah Head Lighthouse in 2013. Looking at the photo now, I have probably overdone the HDR a little. Lol! However, the photo shows you what is possible when capturing this location from the beach. If you look at it in layers, you have the rocks, beach, headland, lighthouse and sky. Everything that you need to craft some great landscape photos. (HDR Image, Nikon D300S, 10mm | Sunset | October 2013)

The best time to visit Norah Head Lighthouse

Norah Head Lighthouse might be one of the first photography locations that I have reviewed in which this is not a simple ‘sunrise’ or ‘sunset’ response. Several time and weather considerations go into deciding a good time to visit this location. And then you also need to hope for some good luck!

Sunset might be the best time to visit

I feel that sunset suits Norah Head Lighthouse a little more than sunrise when looking to take landscape photos at this spot.

The sun would set to the left of the lighthouse if you walked towards the buildings from the car park. Or if you are standing on the beach, it will set behind the lighthouse. During this time, you will have a better opportunity to get more impressive landscape photos of the two areas described in this article.

I made mention above about the stunning photos I have seen taken from the beach, which captured the lighthouse above. These have all been taken with a colour sky created by the setting sun.

The only disadvantage to visiting this location in the evening is how busy it can get. Norah Head Lighthouse is a popular tourist spot for all the reasons that make it a great photography location. So you will need to be patient or decent with the clone tool in Photoshop or both. 🙂

It is still worth visiting Norah Head Lighthouse if you can only get there for sunrise.

As I write this, an idea I have had is that if you only have one day to visit this lighthouse, you could check it out at sunrise and sunset. You could look to photograph the lighthouse from atop the heads in the morning. Then return in the evening to capture Norah Head Lighthouse from the beach.

This also plays nicely into my advice from earlier, in which I recommend you visit Norah Head Lighthouse at least twice anyway.

Visit at low tide

If you plan to capture the lighthouse from the beach, no matter what time of the day, I recommend checking the tides. You will want to time your visit when the water is retreating to reveal more of the beautiful beach rock and pools that look spectacular in the foreground of your photos.

I don’t feel that it would be a deal breaker if you couldn’t visit at low tide. So it is more simply something to be mindful of.

Double-check the wind speed

The other element which is worth double-checking at this particular location is the predicted wind speed.

On my most recent visit, I checked the weather forecast the night prior, and everything looked suitable for a spectacular sunrise. I did a general search of the wind speed and noted that it was around the 10 km hour mark for the Hunter area. Thinking that wasn’t too bad, I set out the following day, only to arrive at the location and nearly be blown off my feet as I got out of the car.

The windspeed was above 40kms an hour, which made snapping any good photos impossible.

Once I jumped back in the car and did some further investigation, it appears that Norah Heads is more susceptible to windy conditions than most other locations on the NSW Central Coast. There is a weather station there, so using an app like ‘seabreeze’ or similar should help you avoid these types of windy conditions.

I was fortunate to get the image you see at the top of this article that morning. It took a fair bit of work in Adobe Photoshop and blending various exposures to get it to that point.

Travelling to Norah Head Lighthouse

Norah Head Lighthouse is located in the suburb of Norah Head and situated on the New South Wales Central Coast. If you were looking to drive from Sydney, it is roughly a 1-hour and 30-minute drive heading up the M1 motorway. If you travel down from Newcastle, you can expect a little over a 1-hour drive.

Once there, you are greeted by a good size car parking which does tend to fill up during the day. However, I think that you would have to be pretty unlucky not to get a parking spot. The parking is also free.

A path is situated on top of the heads and leads from the car park down past the lighthouse and to the flight of stairs that will take you down to the beach. The flight of stairs, while large, aren’t hard to traverse. So overall I would say that this area is easily accessible.

My second trip to Norah Head Lighthouse was in 2015. I remember it being an uneventful sunset, with the cloud coming over and blanketing the sky, which killed any chance of colour. I also think that the tide was a little lower this afternoon, and many beautiful rock pools were showing. So it wasn’t all bad. (HDR Image | Nikon D750, 24mm | Sunset | February 2015)

My final thoughts

Out of 10, I rate the Norah Head Lighthouse a very respectable 8 as a landscape photography location.

It is an excellent lighthouse to take pictures of and, I think, one of the better sunrise photography locations on the NSW Central Coast.

I still feel like I am yet to capture a good photo of Norah Head Lighthouse, either from atop the headland or below. This is despite having been there a number of times. So this is a photography location I would love to revisit the next time I can travel up to the NSW Central Coast.

I hope this location review of Norah Heads Lighthouse has been helpful. 🙂

Thanks for reading.
Rob Potter