Greg Molyneux Photography

Category: Blog

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

  • Putting in Work

    Putting in Work

    Golden hour landscape photograph made over a freshly cleared grove at Stafford Forge
    Putting in Work — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/100

    Test work with the 35mm continues. Yes, obvious work in progress is obvious, but the fact I took this photograph within moments of yesterday’s dreamy grass shot speaks to the versatility in this lens. To go from shallow depth of field work—getting close enough to near macro conditions—out to a serviceable landscape lens without any change in focal length. Simply stop down to ensure maximum sharpness through your acceptable area of focus, and you are golden.

    In the photo above I stuck with a handheld, autofocus approach. I’ve yet to get this thing on the tripod where I’ll attempt to manually find the hyperfocal sweet spot for this lens and make multiple bracketed exposures. Once I figure that all out, I’ll be using this lens setup the same as when shooting landscapes on the 14mm. The big difference here will be a tighter image thanks to the extra focal length. For a theater of the mind comparison, look to the shot above—were I going with my 14mm rig the tree line would be pushed far back to the horizon leaving the trees still recognizable, though hardly discernible—they’d maybe be 1/3 as tall. Sure I would have been able to bring more sky and clouds into the frame, it just would have been at the expense of intimacy. With no interesting foreground subject, shooting ultra wide can get a bit boring. Of course not always, but in general.

    Back to the subject at had. Considering this was a single shot, handheld, with no mirror lock while using autofocus, I am satisfied with the sharpness over all. Perfect? Hardly. Yet with some more time in the field putting in work with this lens system on my tripod mount, and I am confident the 35mm will become a key piece to my landscape arsenal.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Still Here

    Still Here

    Shallow depth of field photograph of a single tall sprig of grass
    Still Here — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/640

    As I was preparing to onboard a fast 35mm to my lens array there were three primary uses driving my motivation:

    1. Tighter option for landscape shooting situations where the 14mm is too wide
    2. Sufficient prime lens solution to spend an entire day shooting with a single lens—think of it as a walkabout lens for Disney World
    3. Tack sharp rendering even wide open at f/1.4—allowing all sorts of shallow depth of field, selective focus, and bokehlicious opportunities

    Yesterday’s shot above speaks to the latter, and if I get down to it, is the primary reason I long coveted this lens. As much as landscapes are my wheelhouse, this kind of dreamy, shallow depth of field shooting engages me the most. It’s back to the basics photography—walking around, camera in hand, single shot work up close and personal with the subject. Frankly shooting landscapes becomes a bit clinical at times; rote behavior stuck behind a tripod, never worrying about focus—thanks, hyperfocal!—and capturing brackets. But it’s not all a crying shame, being detached a bit from the process allows you to sit back and take in the great sunset you’re there to shoot.

    Bringing it back around there’s just no substitute for pared-down handheld shooting. Walking about Stafford Forge yesterday I met with a surprised greeting the nascent remnants of a seasonal control burn. It must have taken place about 10ish days ago as green grasses were already breaking through, coloring up the landscape. Every year this happens, taking down human height grasses and brushes that will steadily accumulate over the spring, summer, and fall growing seasons. For yesterday it made for a chance meeting with this bit of grass here—anyone able to ID that thing? Like most plant life in the Pinelands heat from forest fire allows protective casings to open and seeds to drop. Think of pine cones. This makes the control burning a necessary and important task for healthy maintenance of a productive pine forest ecosystem.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Spring Too Soon

    Spring Too Soon

    Square format photograph of a freshly bloomed daffodil
    Spring Too Soon — 35mm | f/2 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/5000

    Eager for some more lens time, I photographed this daffodil earlier today. Chilling on the north side of my yard, it’s always my first flower to bloom—a clockwork messenger chiming to the first sounds of spring. A spring it seemed that was on with a vengeance this March. Seeing temperatures readily cracking 60, with several spikes into the 70s and 80s. Record shattering warmth after the back-to-back, bitterly cold backloaded winters of 2014 and 2015 that locked the mid-Atlantic in ice. Finally it seemed this was the year to rocket off into an early, and perhaps even warm spring.

    [Insert cliché record scratch] We toss.

    In spite of our best hopes of a Cinderella springtime, it’s looking more and more likely that the region will face a significant late season storm Sunday into Monday. Just in time for the start of spring. The spring that once held such hope. Instead we may be looking at widespread moderate to significant accumulations across the area. So all those poor cherry blossoms that got dressed up early this year will have their nascent blossoms held in icy cold hands. I guess we hold our collective breath that the moderate temperatures spring back post haste.

    As far as the photo goes, here’s shot number two with 35mm. I’ve been keen to see how the bokeh would show with flora work, and the daffodil’s spring showing made for a timely subject. With plenty of mid-day sun pouring down, I rifled off a few shots from an approximate distance of about 10 inches from the daffodil bloom you see above. Stopped down to f/2 there’s plenty of buttery bokeh smoothing out the shallow depth of field. I love this kind of shooting—thin areas of selective focus that make for a more airy, whimsical feel.

    My brief time with the new lens continues to impress, even if it still feels a bit foreign to me. From today’s quick session the takeaway was all about color. Specifically the color rendering in full, harsh sun. The blues and yellows being particularly vivid standouts.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Run Out the Tide

    Run Out the Tide

    Golden hour photo of dead low tide at the Great Bay Boulevard salt marsh
    Run Out the Tide — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Friday evening, about 20 minutes before I made this, some primetime golden hour light was pouring over the salt marsh along Great Bay Boulevard. Better yet, the clouds were decent with the tide dead low and dead calm. All signs point to decent photo making when these conditions are met.

    Compositionally my goal was to key off the remnant bulkheads—the roughly 1 foot in diameter stumps of wood you see aligned at an angle about the foreground—while conveying the extent of the dead low tide. To do this I kept my tripod higher than usual, putting the camera body about 5 feet off the ground, giving me enough angle on the marsh. More often than not I tend to get low and close when shooting wide angle—this makes closer objects appear more dramatic (re: large), but limits your ability to push the viewers eye depth further out toward the horizon. In other words, if I was crunched down here as usual, the tidal exposed marsh and the still water to its right would appear as much thinner strips. However, the bulkheads would be given much more visual weight. These are the kinds of decisions you have to make when you approach a scene. What am I trying to convey? And then, perhaps more importantly, what concessions do I have to make to achieve said conveyance? This is where I cannot advocate trail and error experimentation enough in an era of digital.

    But it’s not all faeries and roses here. Due to the extreme angle I placed the sun—setting it to the outer sixth of the frame—chromatic aberration and lens flare marks the horizon from right to left in several spots. While I’m not sure if it’s a bad thing, I’m fairly certain it’s not a good thing. Ultimately I will leave this up to the subjectivity of the viewer. At the very least I should concede this effect was not intentional.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Two Together

    Two Together

    Low key sunset photo of two pieces of wood standing upright in a marsh
    Two Together — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/500

    Here it is—my first photograph with the new 35mm lens. Finally. Despite having this bad boy for a week now, up until tonight I had yet been able to piece together a serviceable shot. Sure there’ve been a few passable photographs, but nothing of real interest or note. This isn’t entirely unexpected: 1) I’ve never shot at a 35mm focal length before; and 2) there’s always a learning curve with a new lens. Where are its sweet spots? How sharp is it wide open? What kind of bokeh and depth of field are we dealing with? How shallow is the area of focus and how does it change throughout all f-stops? How fast? How does it focus in low light? In hyperfocal how close to my foreground subject can I get while keeping it and the horizon in acceptable focus? And so it goes. While this learning curve can feel tedious and restrictive at times, it’s a necessary period in trial and error as you learn the limits and capabilities of your lens. So here’s to a spring and summer of experimentation, and a few expletives.

    Through limited period of field time so far, my primary observations orbit damn this thing is heavy, and holy smokes, this thing is sharp wide open! The latter has me excited, and the former I don’t mind—I actually prefer a heavier rig, I have strong, sizable hands and prefer the heft; though I suspect I may be in the minority here. However, the combination of sharp focus and shallow depth of field—particularly wide open at f/1.4—has me salivating for flower season. This should afford some cool looks with all the flora about the area that’s about to bloom.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Machinations of a Pastel Sky

    Machinations of a Pastel Sky

    Landscape photograph of pastel clouds over marsh at sunset
    Machinations of a Pastel Sky — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    For southeast New Jersey peeps a vantage to the north and east had it going on at sunset last night. Bailing on the traditional west by southwest exposure at sundown—which had nothing doing but clear skies—I did a 180 and posted up on the north side of Dock Road. A whole 20 foot walk from my usual spot. Whew! From there I let nature do the work. Admittedly I had a bit of trouble centering on the turning waterway while keep some rouge elements of the guardrail out of the foreground. With a little fiddling of tripod height adjustments I made it work. After that it was all just pushing buttons.

    Heading into yesterday’s shoot on what was 4 March, I had been in a bit of a dry spell. I hadn’t been out doing the photo thing since 16 February, when coincidentally another striking east facing sunset took shape. Landscape photography is full of peaks and valleys; hot streaks and dry spells. When you’re at the mercy of weather, timing, and real life responsibilities, opportunities to shoot come and go. As tedious as it may become at the tail end of an extended hiatus, the reward of a steady supply of great light makes the wait bearable. If nothing else photography is a lesson in control—insofar as we ain’t gonna have it.

    In other photography news: I picked up a long overdue 35mm lens yesterday. Fifth Prime I’m calling it as it joins my 14mm, 40mm, 50mm, and 100mm as the fifth prime lens in my bag. I’m excited to see what new opportunities this long coveted piece of glass affords me. I’m even thinking of dabbling in some people photography with this at my side—it will be interesting to see if this actually materializes.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Worse for Wear

    Worse for Wear

    =Sunset photograph overlooking Barnegat Bay and a decrepit bulkhead
    Worse for Wear — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Eastern facing sunsets some days sing supreme—and while yesterday’s western exposure was a fast moving fiery red, it was to the pastel east that I focused my gaze. With the tide well up access to Barnegat Bay Beach was out of the question, eliminating any hope I had of working the wave runner jetty into my frame. Scanning for alternatives this derelict bulkhead—seemingly none too old but certainly in disrepair—thrust up its hand, eagerly volunteering as a workable foreground. The missing boards and rusted nails made a suitable fallback, and as I was dialing in the frame the grain pattern on the support poles had me mesmerized. The pole to the right in particular with its almost camouflage pattern array. A smattering of seagrass even found itself snagged upon the remnant nails. There’s just a ton of neat little things going on in there if you stop to take a closer look.

    The strength of this photograph is all about balance. Composed of a largely symmetrical foreground squared up perpendicular to the bay and horizon. To the sky there’s a high pastel cloud deck, emblazoned pink that’s largely being blocked out by the fast moving low-level cumulus clouds that came racing overhead from west to east. For about 2 minutes they colored up just enough with a touch of red upon their underbelly. I’m torn as to whether these clouds were a welcome addition to my frame, or if they’re more accurately described as an ill-timed guest. They certainly bring some drama in the form of shape and contrast, but at the same time they blocked out what would have been a potent light show at the higher cloud levels to the east. For a time there were hints we’d replicate the eastern sunset from The Great Gig in the Sky, but in the end the timing wasn’t quite right. Embrace the chaos thusly.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Where do we go from here?

    Where do we go from here?

    Blue hour photograph taken among marsh grass at a frozen Stafford Forge
    Where do we go from here? — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Tucked in among the lifeless grasses, cloistered from the outside world though hardly sheltered from its inhospitable cold, I made my stand—kneeling. With an icy tripod widened and set to its lowest setting, I was low and I was close to a wee bit of opening—revealing a low level glimpse out to the frozen lake of Stafford Forge. With the sunset sky failing to produce much drama I fell back to making the most of the scene I was given; and it’s a shot I’ve made before. Sometimes you’ve just got to work with what you’ve got.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • The Cold Will Roll

    The Cold Will Roll

    Sunset photograph of salt marsh just frozen over
    The Cold Will Roll — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/125

    It’s on, New Jersey. True arctic air is rolling across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and with it comes a polar left hook of cold to the jaw of we the lower latitude dwellers. While the bays remain open water for now, the marshes have begun the inescapable transition to pop-up ice world. In the face of possible subzero temperatures overnight I imagine said bays will not be far behind. This is a not so welcome reminder of the powerful cold we squared off against in winter’s 2014 and 2015. Fortunately this cold snap will not have that kind of staying power.

    In the face of biting cold and stiff wind I simplified my shooting workflow tonight. There was no tripod. There was no bracketing. With steady gusts over 30 mph, stability and warmth was a factor. With that I had a go with some old school single bracket handheld shooting. Aided by a frozen marsh I was able to get up close and personal with the tide pool above. On my knees from right at the water’s edge, bringing the viewer right into the sunset action. Juxtapose this with a very similar shot I made earlier this month from this spot where I am set farther back, with the camera several feet higher. Notice how the perspective and intimacy change over the span of only a few feet? I prefer tonight’s tucked in look.

    From now through Sunday we let the cold air roll. May it bring the deep purple sky I long for.

    Interested in buying? Purchase