Greg Molyneux Photography

Author: Greg Molyneux

Back on the Fire
Back on the Fire — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Two sunsets in one week? Two sunsets in one week! This is like three months photographic output at my paltry 2018 pace. Photography has been on the back burner this year yet I am keen to get back on the fire. As it was earlier this week, I made a last minute 8:00 p.m. decision to drop the apathy and get out to the marsh. Standing in my driveway I saw Mammatus clouds were setting up over head. It looked to hold through sunset. To my gear I bolted.
From there it was the usual drive out to Cedar Run Dock Road. Engaged in rapid knee bouncing to exercise the am I going to make it in time? low grade anxiety. I arrived in 12 minutes in a world of peak green. At a salt marsh imbued with the emerald glow of life and energy. Nothing beats it when a pastel sky sets up over top casting a subtle pink veil over the sea of green landscape. Especially when the pink tones reflect powerfully in the small pools of brackish water cutoff from the main estuary flow. The pink and the green compliment each other so well rendering a scene made to transfix.
Getting back into the sunset flow and returning to the basics that brought me this far I set up low on the marsh. Tripod and camera a little more than a foot above sea level, nestled in a patch of eel grass. Once I’m dialed in it is little more than bracket city from there—making exposures and day falls to night. The fire is back and the pace will quicken.
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June 2, 2018
The Turn Around
The Turn Around — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I am glad I got off the couch. Exhausted, I arrived home from work at 7:00 p.m., turned on the Yankee game and immediately fell asleep. I did at least catch Brett Gardner’s first pitch dinger. Fast forward forty minutes and I woke up on said couch. So began the stay here you’re so warm and cozy versus the no, go out and make a photograph battle.
The latter won out—and thank goodness. With a quick scramble for suitable clothes, I grabbed my gear and stashed them in the trunk. I made my way east to Cedar Run Dock Road listening The Order of the Phoenix. I cannot get enough of all things Hogwarts these days—albeit more than a decade late.
Over the next four miles I was oscillating between sunset anticipation and sheer disdain for Dolores Umbridge. Checking the clock obsessively in between to calculate how much time I’d have to set up. I was cutting it close to sunset.
With a few minutes to spare I was on the marsh and making the most of a quality early simmer pastel sky. Cotton candy coloring overtop a rich green carpet of fresh marsh growth. I am glad I got off the couch.
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May 29, 2018
Wisteria in Black and White
Wisteria in Black and White — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/500
Those who have been following along for a while may note I don’t go in for straightforward photo titles. A literal labeler I am not. Yet here I am breaking my own rules with a boring name. Sometimes it is what it is; I beg you allow me this exception.
This photograph has several notable attributes that excite my artistic sensibility. It’s black and white. It presents a strong visual contrast between light and dark. Wisteria blossoms are its primary feature. There is a strong allotment of negative space gives all the elements room to breathe. And finally an abstraction blurs enough of the frame to call the mind to parse out what it thinks it sees.
I recognize this is a far departure from my colorful landscapes. Sometimes we need to put away the calling cards and dial up our passions even if they are less mainstream. It’s the cryptic and weird that makes me feel more creative. So scratch that artistic itch sometimes and be not concerned with Instagram likes. Portraying less concrete subjects in a presentation falling outside perceived norms is art. Art as an end in and of itself free of any other expectation. So get out there and get weird.
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May 15, 2018
Light Play
Light Play — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/400
Soft gold lingers. Midas’ hand set gently upon wine dark leaves. A ruddy remnant of the enchanted wood. The familiar maple stands firm. A trusted friend with a gift for listening. Relieved and uplifted at once you sit beneath its boughs. Evening light touches down on tired shoulders, lending patience, love, and support. Through a connection that dives beyond words and conscience thought the maple hears. A knowing companion free from judgement and avarice. Another year older, another year stronger it stands ready to see you higher than ever before. Your friend grows strong beside you. Its sinew working into your bones grafting its fortitude within you.
You have learnt much from this tree. A guiding hand of steady silence year upon year. An living monument to patience and strength. Shared with each storm and gale, lessons of flexibility and acceptance transfer. The tree knows how to weather the worst. How best to take it head on, branches open, free of tension and fear. Only when the driving winds have passed are you left with a stronger, healthier tree. Forged by nature, shaped and hardened for more. This is the teaching it passes on to you. It is when you gaze upon soft golden light suffusing its ruddy aura you remember.
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May 14, 2018
See You Again
See You Again — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Stirrings on the marsh. Signs of life are springing up along Cedar Run Dock Road. Ospreys are back, herons are skulking, and tender sedge is starting to pop through. The great browning has seen its end.
After a slow start to spring, fresh warmth has made its way to Ocean County, New Jersey, this week. It’s a welcome feeling hitting the marsh in minimal clothing with a warm breeze kissing your face. It’s made all the better when the warm pastels of summertime color the sunset sky.
My photo output has waned woefully in 2018 and it’s bumming me out. I’m not sure if it’s only a phase or an inauspicious sign of things to come. While I hope I get back on the grind, churning out quality photo content on the regular, there is a growing chorus of doubt in certain corners of my conscious. I can hear the small voice whispering here it is, another hobby ready to drop. We’ll see. Maybe it was just a phase and this is the beginning of a turnaround?
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May 5, 2018
Jane Says
Jane Says — 10mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/5003.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/500
I bought my home from my parents in October 2009. Built in 1993, my parents put in much work to cultivate a lovely yard through the years. Cue up yard work montage footage full of old clothes and dated hairstyle. And yes, I bought the house I grew up in. Under my ownership I have made great work undoing their great work. A once proud yard has fallen into disrepair under my watch. Where once there was lush grass there is the lingering remains of fescue. Where plants and flowers once thrived there is the unkempt overgrowth of perennials. All flanked by an uncontrolled spread of weeds. A groundskeeper I am not.
For whatever reason a shrub that had been for years on the brink, has returned to its former glory. A least in part. A Jane magnolia, photo above, has undergone something of a renaissance in my side yard. It has flowered up better than at any point in the last four years or so. With it injecting a most welcome infusion of purple to the yard. It’s a pleasing contrast to the yellow explosion of otherwise out of control forsythia marking the property’s edge. While the wheels have come off my lawn it’s nice to have some picturesque reminders of better days.
This lyrically inspired title comes from Jane’s Addiction, “Jane Says,” of course.
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April 24, 2018
Daffodil Will
Daffodil Will — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/8000
The pivot to spring you ask? More like the rusted cog seized in refusal to spin up spring. Mother Nature, have you no oil can? Have you no mercy? Despite a brief touch of warmth we have been summarily dismissed to low 40s, gloom, and biting winds. Winter in the Mid-Atlantic battles on. Another year, another backloaded winter. It’s a back door cold front the did us in this time. Further freezing seasonal gears in their ruddy place.
But never doubt the will daffodils. They are rocking in full shine. Sure they made headway two to three weeks later than usual, but in yesterday’s 70s they splayed in full glory. Crocus, hyacinth, and daffodils serve as standard bearers of spring. The first to push through and remind us warmer climes lay in wait.
It’s with fair certainty I’ve made an iteration of this daffodil photograph since 2012. It’s an exciting reminder that flowers are back and it never gets old. I talk often about revisiting photographs. I maintain it is good practice. No matter how similar, no two photographs are ever the same. So make them over and over again. The world is fluid and the arrow of time forever points forward. We’re always changing, aging, moving. The same is never the same—so capture those moments and lock away the moment. Now if you don’t mind I am off to don my winter coat and gripe more about things I cannot control.
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April 15, 2018
Four Seasons
Four Seasons — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/50
New Jersey is welcoming spring with a fresh coating of snow, sleet, and ice. The weather is suboptimal for anyone other than the most ardent of winter lovers. This simple photograph sums up the disjointed situation best. Winter, spring, summer, and fall in one head scratching tableau. We’ve got tiger lilies pushing up the greenery calling us to spring and summer. An old, spotted oak life carries us back to fall. This all set upon a fresh blanket of snow and ice anchoring us to a wintry fate refusing to ebb. It’s all here, an entire year in a single 35mm camera frame.
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March 20, 2018
Winter Holds
Winter Holds — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Things were quiet on the salt marsh tonight. A subtle blue hour affair in our slow march toward spring. While the calendar insists spring starts tomorrow, winter has other ideas. And so here I sit griping about three backloaded winters in a row. Backloaded meaning winters that will—not—end.
March 2018 has been active with coastal storm after coastal storm. Wreaking havoc with rain, snow, sleet, thunder, lightning, flooding, and power outages. Most of which happened at the same time. This spot I made photos tonight has been underwater quite a bit this month. And now here we are, set to welcome spring with a winter storm watch. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Le sigh.
Now if you’re thinking, wait a minute, Gregory Hypocrite, I thought you loved snow? Well you’re not wrong. But while I love snow I am not its biggest fan once March hits. I am all about furious rates of maximum dendrite growth from December–February. But once March rolls in, with longer days and all its hopes for spring and summer I am ready to move on dot com. Yet again, as it was in 2016 and 2017, it looks like we are going to have to wait. As it is, winter holds.
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March 19, 2018