Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: 14mm

All photographs tagged here have been taken with a 14mm f/2.8 L II lens.

Yellow Kiss
Yellow Kiss — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
See the yellow kiss the marsh and pass the green of yesterday to memory. Seasons move and the lands do follow. Before the clocks of innovation the environment held sway. Celestial movement speaking the story of time through a perceptible and changing land. A change so clear to our ancient ancestors now seen so quaint in the eyes of our mankind machine. Our marriage to tools works to our freedom and subjugation. It’s the great paradox of humanity’s rise. The more we conquer the less we control. Masters of our own machinations mastered by the machinations that drive us. As with Alexander—we may steam role ever eastward writing histories and song to our exploits. Yet we leave little record to rule the glory left behind.
Then you look upon the marsh, untouched by man and kissed by light, and you reclaim the past. You watch the sun set and you perceive the world as our most ancient ancestors observed it. You see a changing place left only to the plotting of nature and time. A land left to evolve unadulterated as seasons come and go. No clock ticks to instruct us of this time. It is the hands of nature stretching out with an ephemeral grace to caress the green and kiss with yellow. For it is here we need no more than our eyes to tell of time—of life moving on.
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September 1, 2017
Summer Turn
Summer Turn — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Summer rode hard and fast. It was seldom visible. A blink or two and you missed it. August heeds the call to yield to September and the mercy of our fate turns toward fall. Year over year the pages of life’s daily calendar flip with increasing speed. Sure the pages tear easier yet its harder and harder to discard the time. Time we will never see again. It’s on this I reflect.
Every summer starts with grand designs. I’m going to carve more time for me. Get out on the water. Enjoy the beach. Clean up the house. Cultivate to the garden. Tend to my photography. Take some time off. Grand plans devolve to monotony and old habits. Work. Weekend obligations. Growing to-do list of chores. Traffic. Would be photographs going unmade. The annual dereliction of me—with plenty of sunshine to illuminate the fact.
Life stands now in opposition to the carefree childhood. A boyhood I cherish dear. Days never saw an end. Responsibilities were non-existent. It was a kaleidoscope of good friends, bike rides, swimming pools, rough-housing and sports. Throw in a vacation with the grandparents and plenty of backyard barbecues, too. For about a half-hour each evening the ice cream man owned the neighborhood. Long shadows doubled our party and seemed to linger with us for what felt like hours. With the flicker of lightning bugs came the close of the day. At the last the stars shone bright and sleep was the surest mechanism to bring about tomorrow. The morning would strike clean and bright and a quorum of friends would reunite. It was glorious.
The juxtaposition to 30-something missing all those things is stark. Yet as I said earlier it’s all time we are never to see again. So instead I am trying a new plan. I will go easier on myself. There is no reason to harp on past glory reminiscent of a Mark Twain yarn. Instead, I will let go of what I didn’t do this summer and focus on what comes next. For what comes next is the only sure thing we can change.
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August 31, 2017
Drop in a Scene
Drop in a Scene — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/25
I invite you to journey with me. But first you much breathe. Close your eyes and breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Slow your mind and follow your breath. In. Out. Deep breaths at first. Three or four long inhalations followed by slow and steady exhalation. Focusing on the breath. In. Out. Forget about the world. Repeat. Now let your breath find its way back to its natural rhythm. Let the calm wash over you. In. Out. All in its own time. Ah yes, now you are ready to go.
Now open your mind and drift. Drift as the dancing leaf carried on an inspired breeze, unencumbered—free. Slow and calm you descend. In. Out. With your mind settled to a natural focus you transport to a sense of place. A place of warmth—of hope and possibility. A place of sprawling green, flowing water, and the sweet kiss of waning summer sun. A scene to soothe the soul. Stay in that place, bathed in golden tones, ever safe and bright. Stop the time and breath. Uplifted and free. In. Out.
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August 28, 2017
There and Back Again
There and Back Again — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
A swollen tide with ease to lend
Face kissed with salt the sweet scent friend.
Your heart beats slow about an oxbow bend
To the place you take there and back again.
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July 21, 2017
And in the Evening
And in the Evening — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Today is July 2, 2017, and I’d like to drop a historical nugget. Some eager beavers contented by their cache of fun facts (re: me) will care to remind you today is the actual anniversary of U.S. Independence. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress brought Richard Henry Lee’s motion to break with Britain to the floor for a vote. After several days of much cajoling, New York’s delegation finally acquiesced to abstain from the vote. This critical concession thus allowed unanimous passage of the resolution. Congress knew nothing less than a unified vote cast all in favor would carry the weight needed to bring the ensuing independence to pass. And so it went with a vote of 12-0 with New York agreeing to abstain.
While we all prepare to celebrate another Fourth of July Weekend, let us not lose sight of the momentous vote that took place on this day in 1776. Under the stewardship of brave men at the behest of their constituents this newborn nation embarked on the most consequential break in history. Thus casting the die for revolution and cradling the birth of a nation. I leave you with the words of John Adams, Massachusetts delegate and committee member for writing our Declaration of Independence:
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
John Adams sure had the right of it—albeit two days early.
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July 2, 2017
A Marsh Life
A Marsh Life — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Take a minute. Look upon this photograph. Absorb the green marsh grasses. Feel the blades as they crunch below your feet. Calm yourself as you take note of the sky mirrored below, bending motionless through the sedge as a silken veil masquerading in still water. Now look up to that sky. An explosion of color, texture, power and allure beckons you. A visual display worthy of only the most perfect of sun downs. Mesmerizing cloud shapes are comping coming and going, splayed and stacked to unknowable depth. Finally you find yourself sitting out back of your coastal marsh home. The perfect kind of place that through the travel of years has become an edifice to your very existence. Breathing deep the sweet salt air transposed by the cacophony of colored calm that’s so ensconced your very existent. Fleeting as this minute will be you will take this gift and cherish it as a brief moment in your most perfect existence.
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June 28, 2017
Roll It Over
Roll It Over — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1250
Monday, June 19, 2017, saw an outbreak of severe thunderstorms fire up across the Mid-Atlantic. Eager as ever to make some photographs, Weather NJ’s, Jonathan Carr and I made way for Surf City Sunset Park. While things looked good at the outset the storms lost steam as they charged their way across New Jersey toward the coast. Sinking air spoiled the party as a once potent line of storms was waylaid right before our eyes. Disappointed but not shocked, this is standard fare for us along the coast. Storm lines have a way of falling apart more often than not.
What was more surprising, especially in the face of such ominous skies, were the bay beach goers keen to keep swimming. Oblivious, one family hopped in the water a mere 20 minutes before would be impact. Another woman arrived about 10 minutes later looking to get in some laps. She at least had the good sense to ask me to holler once the weather took a turn. I don’t exactly scare easy in the face of thunderstorms, but even I would have stayed out of the water with electrified air so close. Alas all is well that ends well, no calamity befell our implacable beach goers. Considering the storms were abating it seemed acceptable, otherwise I would have pressed the issue on account of their safety.
Of course storms fired back up after Jon and I bailed on our shooting attempt. For the next 90 minutes or so our region saw some decent storm action as a line of storms backed in from the ocean. Too bad we were too busy eating chicken at that time. And that’s the way it goes sometimes.
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June 24, 2017
The Life Spectrum
The Life Spectrum — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Life has returned to the salt marsh. Sea birds eager to feed. Chasing down fish schools and insect hatches if not willing yet able to provide said feed. The salt scented breezes lend rhythm to sedge grasses reanimated with life. Few things stir the soul like the nascent green of marsh born anew. Fresh color courses with unmasked energy as the circle of life finds its zenith. Only then when paired with the golden hue of the late day sun does nature pull back the veil on life resplendent.
It was just so out on Dock Road yesterday. The culmination of light, life, and timing. A sublime joy found in the realization of a patient annual wait. For the next six weeks or so we’ll find refuge in the glory of the salt marsh come live.
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June 18, 2017
East Watch by the Sea
East Watch by the Sea — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
The Saturday night burn was long and sweet. Like a lasting goodbye to the one we hold most dear. Sunset came, it saw, it conquered. Anxiety fell still to a palette so bright and unmoving it was as though the hands of time ceased to be. Seconds turned to minutes. The minutes, hours. And the hours into untold epochs circling the wheel of time only to flow back on itself. As if under a spell I floated from one patch of sand to the next. Bounding from spot to spot under an endless curtain of rainbow color. So bright was the evening air, as if by some device pinkish hues worked to seep upward from the ground as a warm bog might do when met with a cold morning. When time startled back to work the world fell slow toward a purple hush.
For millennia at least three has been an auspicious number, and so it stands with a triumvirate symmetry that I walk away with no less than three photographs from my Saturday evening jaunt in Surf City. With the first and second already published, it is here I give you the third and perhaps final moment from an evening that will long rest in memory. As I was first learning my craft I was so consumed with photographing the scene that the moment itself was often lost on me. It was an honest greed that consumed me. A singular desire for one great shot, and often little else. Now with more seasoning to my tenure I am back to take on the moment as a means to its own end. The photographs cast as a supporting role to bolster the memory of the mind.
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April 11, 2017