People come from all over to visit East Coast lighthouses. Now, a Nova Scotia man has found a unique way to share the treasured beacons with the world.
Larry Peyton is a drone enthusiast who is photographing the region’s lighthouses.
“It is fun, it's an addictive kind of hobby,” says Peyton.
Peyton’s small, but mighty aerial camera allows him to take images only seen from above.
“I think what's neat is you drive by, you're in your hometown and you're driving and you see the same places all the time, you don't think twice about it. But, you know when you're flying through an airplane, you always want to press your face against that window because it just looks so different and this is the perspective that the drone gives me, is just that press your face against the window and look,” says Peyton.
Peyton’s hobby has turned into an ambitious endeavor.
“I'm trying to capture all the lighthouses in Nova Scotia that are still standing.”
Peyton says he was inspired by a community in Cape Breton that is working to save their treasured beacon from extinction.
He decided to document lighthouses with his drone in hopes of saving others.
“They're not just important to mariners, it's not just important to our history, but it's also culturally representative of who we are,” says Peyton.
Peyton began the project in September. He estimates there are 175 lighthouses in Nova Scotia and he plans to capture every one.
So far he has captured 35 different lighthouses and the project has taken him to the most northern and southern points of the province.
“Cape Sable, that place is absolutely astonishing, wild sheep and beaches like the Caribbean and a society that has done so much to get that lighthouse preserved,” says Peyton.
Some of the lighthouses he has recorded are well-known, others well worn.
Peyton says too many are decaying, neglected, or gone.
“It's where people raised their kids, it's where people worked hard, worked their fingers to the bone, and to think that technology is just taking that away, it’s, no, they still serve a purpose.”
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kelland Sundahl