Greg Molyneux Photography

Category: Blog

Greg Molyneux’s latest photographs and words presented in reverse chronological order.

  • Keep Swinging

    Keep Swinging

    Fiery sunset photograph backlights park swings.
    Keep Swinging — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/5

    Another exposure from last Saturday’s exemplar sunset. At the time of this shoot the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs were midway through a World Series for the ages. Two legacy ball clubs met in the Fall Classic, each seeking to end championship droughts that run so deep the scorched earth of their past seems to predate the respective clubs storied existence. Cleveland last won it all in 1948, and for the Cubs you have to go all the way back to 1908—you know, before the planet was embroiled in its first world war. Despite both teams fielding plenty of championship caliber ball clubs over subsequent decades neither could ever seem to escape the bowels of their own history—the likes of which makes you take serious the voodoo of a cursed destiny. It’s a nasty business, goats be damned. For a fan of neither team, this made the 2016 matchup all the more special—one of these clubs was going to break the hex and send long entrenched narratives to the editor’s waste bin. I would be entertained without the agony/elation precipice these two passionate fanbases precariously stood upon. As a Yankees fan on firmer ground I was all in for the Cubs, though I would have been equally satisfied had Cleveland claimed the prize.

    And so it went. Cleveland stormed out to a 3–1 series lead, firmly secure in their already established home field advantage. A lights out bullpen spearheaded by Terry Francona’s willingness to deploy the near unhittable Andrew Miller in the fireman role, backed a Herculean effort from Cy Young winner, Corey Kluber. Kluber, more throw back than modern day starter, was more than willing to pitch until his arm fell off this postseason. Shades of CC Sabathia down the stretch for the Brewers in 2008. My hat tips for you, sir. In the end, though, it was the Cubs’ time. Storming back to bring the Series to an elimination game seven, the two teams met for one last trial before fate and in the process produced an all time game seven experience. Despite an inspired Cleveland comeback, and Rajai Davis’ unlikely late game home run heroics, the Cubs were able to make history and set fire to a narrative that has shrouded a great franchise for far too long.

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  • Bayside Burn

    Bayside Burn

    Fiery sunset photograph of explosive cloud color over Barnegat Bay.
    Bayside Burn — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/8

    Saturday night and the sky is all right. This weekend I got back on the photo grind and made off into the night with some kind of sunset. Mother Nature threw me a solid and brought out the big guns along the Surf City bayshore. Roughly a dozen sunset dwellers milling about Sunset Park were treated with one of those long burn smoldering skies that for the better part of a half an hour made the world stand still. Cellphones, mirrorless, and SLR cameras alike were put to good use documenting the light show; a frenzy of Instagram posts and rapid collection of likes ensued. For the few folks that rocked out sans camera, free-wheeling leg pumps on the area swing set made for idyllic, stress free viewing. For the few lovers among us the sky brought hearts to bear, setting to light the purity of their affections.

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  • Play Your Hand

    Play Your Hand

    Motion blur photo of marsh at golden hour.
    Play Your Hand — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/50

    Your eyes do not deceive you. This is a blurry photograph. Its execution by design. Why? you may ask. While the question gets right to the heart of it, my answer makes up with simplicity what it lacks in profundity. Personal style. As simple as I like it. Every now and then when I am out shooting I will take the camera handheld, hold it out in front of my chest at a comfortable arm’s length, and rotate at the hips panning from left to right parallel to the horizon at an even pace. During the rotation I will depress the shutter to create an image that introduces motion blur, intentionally removing sharp focus from the exposure.

    While it’s hard to articulate exactly why I like this atypical landscape I think it comes down to a few attributes. First is movement. Motion blur adds a rotational element giving the viewer a sensation of spin. Look up at the clouds. Do you see the parabolic swoop from left to right that plunges downward toward the horizon at the center of the photo? Good. Notice how its inverse arcs with a rainbow arch at the bottom of the frame? Perfect. If you drew a line vertically in the center of the photo it would appear as though this image is spinning like a top. Reflective of the earth itself spinning about its axis. For me it’s a photographic reminder that we’re all objects set constantly in motion.

    Second is form. When you strip away a photograph from its sharply focused constituent parts you’re left with its raw elements. Its shape. Its essence. With the sharpness gone you don’t have to become bogged down in the details. Instead I invite you to take in the elements of the photograph on a more holistic level. What do you see in this photograph even though you can’t see it well? The clouds? The tide pool? Or is it a pond? Is that marsh? A wheat field? Or something else? How does your mind fill in the details? I suspect our answers may differ as our own preconceived notions will render this image to our own bias. Is that a house to the left on the horizon? A car? Maybe a boat? These questions, are they necessary or are they beside the point? Like this photograph the answer is purposefully blurred.

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  • Fire on the Horizon

    Fire on the Horizon

    Cross processed golden hour photo of clouds, marsh, and reflective water.
    Fire on the Horizon — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/60

    This photograph is raw. Hardly the polished HDR landscape propped up by a firm tripod and bracketed exposures I usually produce. Here things are basic and flawed. As intense golden hour light poured over the Cedar Run Dock Road marsh on Sunday I was having a ball walking around popping off single frame hand shot exposures. It’s liberating to break away from the stationary tripod life sometimes. Pacing the roadside back and forth my eyes settled upon a pool of water wedged between the road’s shoulder and the marsh itself. A few inches of fresh rain left plenty of water throughout the wetlands, and the reflection on the still puddle commanded my attention. From there the process was pretty low-tech—squat low and place the camera about two inches above the water level, roughly a foot away from the edge of the marsh grass and squeeze the shutter. I wanted to capture a blown out sun and lens flare through the grass while capturing clouds in the water’s reflection. I am pleased with the quick execution of an otherwise spontaneous plan.

    This lyrically inspired photo title goes to the excellent reggae band, Stick Figure. “Fire on the Horizon” is track one off their 2015 album, Set in Stone. Kudos to Ben Wurst for cluing me in to this band. Solid grooves, folks. Solid grooves.

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  • Real Feel

    Real Feel

    Blue hour photo of pink and purple clouds over marshland.
    Real Feel — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    I’m not above cliché and could easily drop the ubiquitous Winter is Coming—but I won’t. Instead, and as you might have guessed, I will talk about the cold’s arrival Sunday evening out on Cedar Run Dock Road. A sharp north wind bore down over the open marsh carrying with it a bitter message, howling of our frozen fate to come. Everything about the hour long photo session fast-forwarded the fall to winter progression in the collapsed space of a fading afternoon. From the vision enhancing crystal clear air, to the stoked northerlies painting the unmistakeable blue color that only shows when the temperatures fall. Yes, the cold is coming, but so too is the prospect of the magnificent skies only a winter can bring. Here’s to freezing our butts off in anticipation of the next great season of sunset photography. My memory card is ready, my hands are not.

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  • Indecision

    Indecision

    Blue hour photograph of jetty rock shore and Barnegat Bay from Harvey Cedars Sunset Park.
    Indecision — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Before making my way to LBIF and the soda kiln firing this past Friday I stopped off at the aptly named Harvey Cedars Sunset Park fishing for a sunset. Shocking, right? Pre-sunset conditions looked great—ample high level cirrus clouds stretched the sky and a subsequent light show seemed inevitable. Mother Nature, of course, is never completely predictable despite our best deductions. As the sun faded so too the the clouds fell away leaving a large blue palette behind the lone stretch of remnant clouds you can see above.

    This all worked out for the best as I was struggling to find a composition. I spent 20 minutes hopping from one position to another. Modest leading lines and ho-hum foreground was leaving me vexed. The pressure was off as the sky was hardly popping off, but this was still a brow-furrowing endeavor as I prefer to not overthink my photo making process. More often than not I settle into a sufficient frame with little effort and even less conscious thought. I shoot by feel—this keeps photography a liberating enterprise in my life. I struggle with decision making in most other things so it’s a mental break to not go through the machinations of second guessing when I am out shooting.

    Is there a lesson to be learned in all this? I don’t know, probably. I will say this, however, the final photograph—while no threat to my personal list of favorites—is not quite the throwaway I expected.

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  • Tend Your Craft

    Tend Your Craft

    Black and white photograph of Jeff Ruemeli working a soda kiln.
    Tend Your Craft — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 160 | EXP 1/30

    So this is how pots are made—or fired, anyway. Last night I dropped on by the old yacht club—Long Beach Island Foundation (not a yacht club). Ceramics lead guy and all around bearded fellow, Jeff Ruemeli, was working the soda kiln with an eager assistant whom I do not know well enough to use her name without permission. Over the next few hours I watched the taring of scales; encountered esoteric recipes as ingredients were weighed, measured, and mixed. Saw water boil—with my own eyes! Even listened to some Journey. Then there were (was?) the burritos. Not the edible kind which was a real bummer since I was hungry enough to eat a fist. Apparently after you mix all the powdered chemical ingredients with the boiling water you lump them out onto old newspaper and wrap them like burritos. Cool enough from a learning perspective; hardly satisfactory from a hunger perspective.

    Once these machinations were complete I made for my trunk and grabbed my camera—also not edible. Behind LBIF we stood around the soda kiln in almost ritualized fashion. My mind turned to our ancestors from a far distant past. There is something quite literally ancient about pottery. While I don’t know much I do know this—its roots are firmly entrenched in a past long gone, and little has changed throughout the millennia. Was this how it was for Athenian potters? Laboring tirelessly under the yolk of a towering Acropolis and roundly dismissed in their time? Like too many other masters their skill and higher purpose was not recognized until they had long passed on. To the vested Athenian these were mere vessels for keeping grain and wine. Complete myopia beyond functional utility. Historical perspective brings a greater meaning to the here and now where three people who have never been in your kitchen found themselves on Long Beach Island honoring proud traditions born of misunderstood beginnings.

    Back in the present and on my way home I stopped for Taco Bell.

  • Backyard Bouquet

    Backyard Bouquet

    Square format low key cross processed photograph of a quick fire hydrangea crown.
    Backyard Bouquet — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/3200

    I am suffering from an itchy shutter finger. Photos have been few and far between lately, and once I saw a spot of afternoon light touch upon my backyard quick fire hydrangea I popped on the 35mm and squeezed off a few shots. I set my aperture to a wide open f/1.4 in hopes for soft focus and smooth, buttery bokeh. Going for a dreamy feel to wash over weary eyes I imported exposures into Lightroom where cross processing seemed the obvious choice—I wanted to bring out a red warmth through a diffuse hue. Intentional soft focus at the center fades away to increasing blur as the eye works out toward the edges in all directions. Up is down, left is right; a square format crop further facilitates this spatially agnostic end game.

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  • Eye Up

    Eye Up

    Sunset photograph of anticrepuscular rays coloring clouds over the marsh.
    Eye Up — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    I made this sunset photograph Monday, October, 3 out at my usual Cedar Run Dock Road stomping grounds. Conditions were solid and after several weeks of little to no shooting it was worthwhile just to be out there. I could nitpick the low-level clouds over the horizon that kept things from really exploding after the sun slipped below, but coming out a week of endless clouds and rain I was, and am still, in no position to complain.

    Let’s get wonky

    While I took time on Tuesday to run through my usual Lightroom to Photomatix and back to Lightroom workflow, I was too lazy to blog it up and fire it off for modest internet consumption. Taking a second look today, Wednesday, I started having second thoughts: I hemmed and hawed between two similar compositions with the lone difference being their perspective by way a horizon placement at the middle of the frame vs. placement of the horizon at the lower third—which is the photo shown above. It took a long hot shower and some dinner to move me to a decision.

    As a general rule—and remember rules are made to be broken—I prefer a center mass horizon; this is especially true when working at wide angles. This minimizes the distortion caused by sharp angles diving toward the image’s vanishing point, which is exacerbated when you position the horizon in either the top or bottom third. In this case I deviated from standard operating procedure on account of ample cloud action to fill the upper two-thirds coupled with a less than stellar foreground of repetitive marsh grass. Were the horizon to be placed center frame the tide pool slides back to the middle ground and loses a touch of prominence. By taking a composition that favors sky real estate the tide pool is brought forward in the lower third—this has an added benefit insofar as the clouds are better reflected than its center horizon counterpart.

    Did I make the right decision? Who knows? This line of thinking may be pedantic but there’s benefits in challenging your own workflows and assumptions. The right balance of purposeful critique measured against the pitfalls of perfectionism will help drive you forward in any of your life’s endeavors. Or it’ll just drive you nuts.

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