Greg Molyneux Photography

Author: Greg Molyneux

  • The Technician

    The Technician

    100mm high key macro photograph of a honey bee feeding and pollinating a purple coneflower blossom.
    The Technician — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/160

    Photo making is a task I invest significant time. 2020 marks year nine in my photography journey, and what an unexpected trip it has been. Beginning as a desperate distraction from depression, it has morphed into a real passion spanning the better part of a decade. I look back and ask myself what has changed since such a somber beginning? How has my perception shifted since my early days as a lost soon-to-be 30 year old with little clue how to use a camera?

    For years I thought of myself as a technician. An individual proficient in making appealing photographs. Something of a process driven camera operator churning out landscape and nature photos per the rules. Viewing myself as a proper photographer, let alone creator, took many years of inner wrangling. I was a guy who followed procedure and protocols to produce a good clean image. There was nothing more to it. Follow steps one, two, and three, and a good photo you will be. As ever labels and semantics tripped me up, and I refused to think of myself as something more than a well trained individual who executes a task list. Anyone can do this, and creativity is no factor.

    This view, pedantic and self-limiting, was a silly exercise. Over time I eased up on these pointless restrictions. Why put myself in a box? Or the better question, why exclude myself from other boxes? It’s foolish. After several years I grew inured to the photographer label. Being called a photographer didn’t leave me vexed and uncomfortable, with a furrowed brow looking over my shoulder for someone else with a camera . We must accept what is.

    Fast forward to the past few years, and I finding growing comfort traipsing into creator territory. Might I be creative? That’s all cool and artsy sounding, so can it be true of a self-professed technician? Here I submit my writing as evidence. Even though my clear renown, such as it is, is as a photographer, it is my writing that brings the most intrinsic joy. This creative act is far less natural to me than making photographs. There is no technical process for me to follow. No clear roadmap for success. This is a wholly feel-based enterprise, and I am certain that leaves learned readers with a proper taste for grammar cringing.

    English class was not my thing as a youngster, and this remained the case throughout high school and college. I showed neither promise nor interest in writing. And yet, for the past few years, it is far and away my favorite form of personal creative expression. The words I write to accompany each photograph I share means more to me than any photo I make. Do not get me wrong, it feels great to have a photo meet with broad community appeal. Those likes, shares, and thumbs up feel good! But nothing pleases me more than a person talking about what I wrote. This praise removed the technician from the uncomfortable box he placed himself in. So allow me a giant thank you to every one of you who takes time to read and resonate with my words. Your time and attention is a gift amidst this tripped up world, and I thank you all.

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  • Courage to Grow

    Courage to Grow

    100mm macro photograph of one purple coneflower with its blossom forming a crown. Processed in a low key blue hued monochrome.
    Courage to Grow — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/250

    Challenges move as a summer wind. Storm clouds smoke to the horizon. Roiling cloud tops bubble and push to the sky, a fierce beacon girded in unyielding white. It makes a stark contrast to the gray underbelly paved in turmoil beneath. An archetype of the inevitable, the storm will rise. The gust front heralds its great coming. A flush of wind and the onslaught gale meets to the crack of thunder, our souls left scoured in the windswept rain. Life and land buckles, the seas pick up, and our world holds fast.

    And then, as if in an instant, the power yields. The wind sits, the clouds break, and the late day sun works through, driving a shaft of light to chase off the din. Passed is the storm; subdued fear left in its wake. The world wakes up—resilient and renewed. Bathed in rich light all is brighter, thoughts are clearer with purpose resolving in sharp contrast. Our spirit tempered and charged. Battered by the storm and buttressed by a resolve before unknown, left purified in the waters of renewal we find the courage to grow.

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  • Of Land

    Of Land

    14mm wide angle sunset photo at Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh. Pinks, yellows, oranges, and blues color the sky over green marsh grasses.
    Of Land — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    I stand upon thee shaken and uprooted. Winds of change erode the tenets of false truths exposing past misdeeds naked and afraid. Rampant theft and wanton expansion laid bare. Am I up for it? Do I possess real strength? Am I worthy of the challenge? A force for good? Will I cling to comfort, run for cover, and drape myself in the familiar linens of false prophets? Or will I see Others, hear their pain and adapt? Land is stable, of this we know. Yet slowly, near imperceptibly it shifts and moves without stopping, transforming the long view into something new. Do I have the courage to grow? Of Land, surely He would know.

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  • I Remember

    I Remember

    14mm wide angle sunset photograph of colorful pastel clouds overtop green salt marsh and reflected in the tide pool.
    I Remember — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    I remember sunset. I hold her grace. I see her green her beloved salt marsh, festooning her summered wetlands with pastel gossamer. Knowing, she looks up at herself and I see. Centered in all this color I remember. I remember a heart that beats to new rhythms still comforted in the familiar embrace of the melody. I remember sunset. I remember why I am here.

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  • Upright

    Upright

    100mm portrait orientation macro photograph of single a purple coneflower blossoming. Soft bokeh smooths the background with pastel and green colors.
    Upright — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 800 | EXP 1/125

    To remain upright in the best of times is not easy. To remain upright in the face of turbulent times is an imposing challenge. Besieged and bombarded our roots tremble as we hazard to withstand an unrelenting barrage. When little is easy stress takes hold in response to trauma and toxic stressors undermine our stability. Yet we must stand. We must challenge ourselves to dig in, to strive and overcome. To reject the convenient inclination to devolve to our base selves and turn on each other. In so doing turning on our better selves. Ask yourself, am I taking care to take care? What do I need to remain upright amidst 2020’s withering fire of such unrelenting fury—both natural born and self-inflicted? Let us stand together in mutual promise to fortify and support our better selves, and keep seated the scourge who lies beneath. In this way we stay upright together, leaning and holding our brighter selves as one. And if you don’t want to hear it from, well, listen to Bill and Ted.

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  • This Is Not Important

    This Is Not Important

    14mm wide angle sunset photo capturing stunning pastel colored cotton candy clouds draped over a bright green salt marsh.
    This Is Not Important — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    The moment is important. The movement is important. Tectonic forces shift as fault lines give way to the titanic pressure born of our nation’s original sin. Righteous activists are drawing back the iron curtain concealing a four century legacy of enslavement, oppression, colonization, segregation, and forced separation. A reckoning is upon as, and long may it reign until we address and redress the trauma, theft, and death wrought by racism is all its insidious forms.

    Ignoring the moment is not ok. Denying the moment is not ok. Choosing to undermine the movement is active participation in amoral treachery and doles out tangible harm against our BIPOC brothers and sisters. This is the time to listen, to learn, to understand, and to empathize with our fellow citizens long denied access to the many freedoms we take for granted. This is not the time to insist in our righteousness and double-down on our own spoon fed, sugar-coated worldview with history written by the winners. I am a privileged cis-gendered heteronormative white man born in the United States in the late 20th century. I hit the birth lottery. Sure I have worked hard in life and struggled at times, but I’ve earned so many undeserved free passes because I look the part and fit a certain role. This is not ok, and to deny it is heretical.

    So what am I going to do? I am going to sit. I am going to listen. I am going to learn. I am going to accept the painful stories our Black brothers and sisters are sharing across the internet. The issue of racism and the violence it engenders is being met head on, and I will not stand in the way of this challenge. In the United States we love to highlight all our past glory. I get it, I, too, am passionate about our founding mythology. It is long past overdue we spend equal time peeling back a hidden shame so unconscionable we built power structures to bury it. We ask of people to be introspective, to probe and understand our failings so we can address them, correct them, and grow. Why do we not apply this same logic to our national story? Denying America’s failings makes zero sense, and it only leaves us weaker and morally bereft. Worse yet, it leaves our most vulnerable and oppressed exposed and endangered—and in too many cases dead at the hands of those whom pledged to protect.

    We are only as free as the most oppressed and disenfranchised among us. Freedom is a cudgel of oppression up until the moment it fully liberates and embraces us all. We must challenge ourselves every moment of every day to live up to our highest ideals. The self-evident truth that every person is created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Can we finally make this a reality for all Americans? And in the event I was not clear: Black Lives Matter. Full stop. End of discussion.

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  • Blue Notes

    Blue Notes

    14mm wide angle landscape photo made low key at blue hour. Soft pastels color up the sky above an oxbow lake feature of the Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh.
    Blue Notes — 14mm | f/22 | ISO 100 | EXP 2.0 sec

    It is in evening blue light when the day’s last comings glow, ebbing slow each night as the final light of day goes. It is a soft kiss, a gentle embrace as day shares love with her partner night. For a few moments the two poles dance together, igniting passion in the pastel embers of yearning. It is devotion writ large, a passion play painting tenderness on nature’s most dramatic stage. Ensconced our lovers intwine but twice each day, and they are here to teach us whenever we choose to learn.

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  • Green Sight

    Green Sight

    35mm square format photo of a lilac blossom. Shot wide open at f/1.4, it features soft focus and smooth bokeh, cross processed to a green hue.
    Green Sight — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6400

    Were I to see into the future would I make this photograph?

    Would we do anything were we to see it beforehand? More so, would we have in our possession the power to stop ourselves? When and where would we even want to?

    Does our seeing a thing stop us from tracking it? Does our knowing a thing irrevocably change its course? Does its future sprout a new one?

    How can we know when our future is here? When the heart lifts and the gifts are easy, and you well know a place you’d swear you knew before.

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  • Out of Exile

    Out of Exile

    14mm wide angle landscape sunset photograph of the Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh as it begins to green.
    Out of Exile — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    A weary traveller, chastened and humbled returning from isolation made his way out of exile to this sacred place of restoration and life. To the marsh he’d seen so many times before. The same marsh he’s photographed for more than eight years with dutiful care. To this holy marsh where centeredness and peace comes easy. It is at this place he bears witness to its cyclical grace of death and rebirth marked by its annual rise and fall. The comings and goings of its grasses, the arrival and departure of migratory sea birds, the summer flourish of bugs to feed the ecosystem, and all manner of life in between. It is the marsh of his youth that will god willing serve as the marsh of his golden years. It is the marsh to which he will always return when called out of exile.

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