In 1978 Van der Vlugt graduated in photography from the Hague MTS (community college) with a series of coastal landscapes. This theme continued to captivate him. Just as the American Joel Meyerowitz recorded the American shoreline in his classic Cape Light, the Dutchman did the same in the Netherlands. He went in search of the glow of dawn, the dusk, as well as the lights of the night in places such as Hoek van Holland, Terheijde, Kijkduin, and Katwijk.