Akrotiri lighthouse on the southern cliff

The Faros at Akrotiri is a low white keeper's house with a stubby tower, built in 1892 on the bare headland that closes the caldera from the south-west. There is nothing else out here: a dirt turning circle, a few metres of dry grass and volcanic soil, then the cliff. The caldera and the volcano lie to the north-east, the open Aegean to the west and south.

The appeal is subtraction. Everything else on Santorini is layered with buildings, pools and other people; here the frame is one white tower, sky and sea, and a couple can be placed anywhere in it. In March and April the headland is green with wildflowers, in high summer it burns down to ochre and grey — two completely different looks from the same coordinates.

The light story is simple and better than Oia's: the sun sets into open water, not behind an island, so the whole sky burns and the tower takes a hard orange side-light. In midsummer the sun sets north-west, which puts it beyond the caldera rim and lights the tower from the right; in winter it swings south and sets almost straight out to sea. Stay past sundown — the lamp comes on during blue hour, and there is nobody left to photograph around.

Practical: the compound belongs to the Navy and its gate stays locked, so every frame is made from the ground outside the fence, which is where the good angles are anyway. The cliff edge is unfenced and the soil crumbles, so keep well back from it. There is no café, no shade and no toilet, wind is constant, and the last kilometre of road is narrow — allow twenty-five minutes from Fira and arrive with time in hand.