Greg Molyneux Photography

14mm wide angle sunset photo made at street level on an asphalt road surface between double yellow lines.

Cedar Run Dock Road Photography

A place revisited. Seasons turning. Years passing. The same landscape seen again and again, a place so familiar yet never quite the same.

I have driven this road for years. Long before photography, I knew the turns, the marsh, the open water, and the way the sky stretches wide over it all. Where the terrapins would cross, when to look for them, and how to help them cross. When photography took hold, Cedar Run Dock Road became the place I returned to most.

I came back in winter when ice locked the marsh tight. I came back through the long brown months before summer made green. I came for storms, sunsets, still water, hard wind, and ordinary evenings when nothing seemed likely to happen until a riot of fireflies erupted, neon signal fires across the marsh. The road stayed put. Everything around it changed.

Over time, the photographs changed too. So did I. What began as a chill cruise with friends to an already familiar place became something else: a record of seasons, weather, repetition, and years spent paying attention.

Storm clouds roll in over southern New Jersey marshland

This is a song of seasons

SEASON I

Winter locked in ice

A wide angle HDR capture of a magnificent sunset at Antoinetta's Restaurant on Cedar Run Dock Road.
HDR photograph of Antoinetta's Restaurant backdropped by a stunning blue hour over frozen bay and shores.
14mm winter salt marsh photograph at blue hour. Snow and ice dominate the dormant marsh grasses and tide pools as restorative pastels of pink, blue, and purple paint the whole scene.

SEASON II

Spring and the in between

Pastel sunset photo of salt marsh, sedge, and tide pools.
Pastel color sunset photo over green salt marsh and tide pools.

“The road stayed put. Everything around it changed.”

Photograph of a double rainbow arching over power lines and Dock Road at sunset

SEASON III

Oh that newborn marsh summer green

Wide angle photograph of blue skies, cumulus clouds, estuary and marsh
Explosive sunset photo over salt marsh, water, and house.
14mm wide angle sunset photo with pastel clouds and a glassy reflection on oxbow water feature at the salt marsh.
Wide angle HDR sunset photo over marsh grass and reflected in water.
Photograph capture of fierce clouds and thunderstorms approaching Antoinetta's restaurant from the west.

human trace

Golden hour photograph of guardrails, power lines, litter and the salt marsh
Cross processed photo of an abandoned shack left to decay.

The marsh is not untouched. We cut roads through it, line them with steel, string wires overhead, discard what we no longer need, and leave structures behind to weather and decay, sometimes to be remade and live again.

SEASON IV

Autumn and the turning

Fiery sunset ignites with stunning marsh tributary reflection.
Sunset photo of a pink cumulus cloud over marsh.
Wide angle landscape photograph of phragmites and salt marsh at sunset
14mm blue hour photo of boat dock and calm, reflective water.
Crescent moonrise over salt marsh at blue hour.

Standing out on the marsh last week, watching a sunset fade, I saw the moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Immediately transported I saw all the sickled moon blades I’d witnessed over the years.

The landscape moves

35mm out of focus photo of Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh made with motion blur by panning the camera left to right.
35mm panning shot photo of a New Jersey salt marsh at sunset. Late summer green marsh gives way to orange and yellow hues in a landscape picture blurred by motion.
35mm motion blur sunset photo of New Jersey salt marsh in autumn. Panning creates a left to right streak blurred abstraction of Samus Aran's shinespark racing across the sky.
35mm sunset photo over the salt marsh using motion blur to render a brush stroke effect on the marsh and clouds.
35mm blue hour photo with motion blur and slow shutter speeds bringing paint brush movement to the shimmering bay water and soothing skies.

Return

There and back again

Vibrant road signs photographed at sunrise
Golden hour wide angle HDR landscape photograph of clouds and marsh
14mm wide angle landscape sunset photograph of the Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh as it begins to green.
14mm sunset photograph working over a salt marsh in a hue of blues, pinks, oranges and yellows.

CODA

I keep coming back to this road. Seasons turn, calendars flip, light shifts, and the years pile up behind me. I am neither the same person nor the same photographer who arrived here before. And yet, somehow, Cedar Run keeps showing me who I am and where I have been. The one road that doesn’t need to take me anywhere.

35mm blue hour photograph with the bay in the foreground and a razor thin strip of Long Beach Island in the background. Panning and a slow shudder brings motion blur into the peaceful, minimalist image.