Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: 14mm

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

Fortify
Fortify — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I’m always quick to notice the berm every time I hit the beach. After the sound of the ocean it’s immediately the next thing that calls my attention. It’d be easy to chalk this up to proximity. The berm is the first thing you walk through, but I suspect there’s more to it than that. It’s the form of the mound, the pattern of the sand and grasses, bound together through works of sand fence. Once a bit of time and weather has done its work it lends a hallmark look to Mid-Atlantic beaches. Unencumbered by boardwalk, this adds to the natural feel of Long Beach Island. One of many reasons I am overfond with my geographic neighbor, the slender barrier island to the east.
Built up over the past decade, LBI dunes have gone under a bit of a transformation. Large swaths of berm have gone from modest bumps to a deep running wavelength; added height and depth have fortified the island’s defenses and appeal. Perhaps it’s infringed on a favored view, but I for one find the look far more appealing. A firm separation between innumerable residences spanning the shore and the natural beach. In some sections the dunes shoulder up high enough to block out any semblance of settlement. Beyond the aesthetic this lends a tangible benefit: Protection from the next big surge.
As for this photograph, Saturday night on the beaches of Surf City was something special. This marks the second of three photographs I plan to publish from the session. If you haven’t already check out the first offering. While not made last night this shot reminds me of a bayside photograph I made in Holgate back in 2015. Both the colors and the balance of the composition have a strong likeness.
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April 10, 2017
It Starts My Mind Flowing
It Starts My Mind Flowing — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/25
The day broke clear. Northwest winds funneling crisp air across the coastal plain. One last battle in the fight between winter and spring. Unseen as it was. Sleeping late as usual the day made off with a quick start. Catch up after a long night redeeming Hyrule. I bounded about from laundry to bill pay, then started out to break my fast. Pinched between a Yankee game and a scheduled jog the clock ticking.
After a modest meal I folded some laundry and made for the park. Headphones in, feet moving in time. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot, left foot. Paced to the audible sounds of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. As Black Riders closed in on Weathertop I could feel the pain of Middle-Earth circling. With a slip of the ring and the pierce of a dagger, Angmar draws first blood. An already long journey has somehow only begun.
Chapter ends and my run is over. Breathless from worry yet rejuvenated in my own realm I took note of cirrus wisps dancing above. Shy and coy upon a blue stage. With a strange speed they moved, and I stood for a moment upon a crest to look again. And again. A cloud dance, I thought. How quaint. Yet it was here I knew sunset would prove worthy this night. For the fiery eye in the land where shadows lie may never rest nor ever die.
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April 9, 2017
Daily Distraction
Daily Distraction — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Since Friday, March 3, I have spent far too much time playing in digital worlds. In a long awaited departure from the real world The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has consumed me. Total entrenchment. I even bring real world proclivities to Hyrule. Whiling away the hours making landscape photographs during Hyrule’s luxurious sunsets. Dutifully documenting every being (friend or foe), item, weapon, and morsel of food. Even in make believe I am still meant to make photos. It’s almost as if Kyoto made the Sheikah Slate camera app for me alone.
It’d be wrong to call myself a gamer, but video games have been a part of my life since the 80s. As something of a Nintendo fanboy I’ve stayed close to my beloved Zelda, Mario, and Metroid franchises. Relishing in each installment. Jonesing in anticipation for each release. I’ve played some great games of the years, but few have grabbed me like this. And none this strong in over a decade. It’s something to find yourself at 34 head over heels in good old fashion escapism.
I put down the controller this weekend to do some actual adulting. Things like filing taxes, visiting a bierhalle, partaking of brunch, and watching the Yankees. It was a strange, albeit welcome change of pace. I even closed out the weekend visiting the old Dock Road stomping grounds. I made this photo at an oxbow section, a replicate of a shot I made last June. As for tonight? Well after a spot of dinner I’ll be dashing back to Hyrule for more photographs and conquest—there be Rito to find. May we meet upon the mountain, and may we dance upon the shore.
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April 3, 2017
Clear View
Clear View — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/10
Life comes in moments. The best are calm, soft, unpredictable moments. Moments where past and future fall quiet before the present. Moments of awareness proving what the relaxed mind can be. A mind free of worry and regret. Free of what was and what may still come.
Such a moment hit me looking out over Barnegat Bay last week. On the boards I stood transfixed by a sublime gradient of light passing on from sunset to dusk. Its tempo put to time by subtle undulating movement upon an otherwise still sheen of water. Daylight’s last burn playing soft tricks upon its surface. An elemental merger of fire and water.
At one with the moment I stood synchronous with slow, steady breathing. In perfect time with a relaxed heart. A moment where time fell still and the world stopped turning. Sans camera I stood. Breathing. Watching. Observing. The moment and I, together as one.
Back to the real world I looked back toward my trunk and thought, I better make a picture.
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March 29, 2017
From Stone to Sand
From Stone to Sand — 14mm | f/2.8 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/60
The wheel of time pays little mind to the trappings of ephemeral life. Its burden is the long game. Tireless at work upon the great mill of the universe grinding all back to the stardust from whence we came. The wheel’s is a blind justice—never to grant favor, never put off its task—the laws of physics its only master. As the arrow of time points forward the blossom of our creation journeys back to dust, and onward the mill turns. On and on; working, grinding, rounding. Bringing wear to young life as it works stone to pebble to sand to dust. A spinning wheel of entropy eroding us back to our most basic of constituent parts. This is the game to which we have been cast. Forever turning. Forever worked upon at the cosmic millstone until we are cast back together shone in new light.
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March 26, 2017
Archive Oversight
Archive Oversight — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Join me if you will as we travel back through our internet time machine to revisit January 20, 2014. A rather cold day if I recall. Tonight I broke off from my normal photo workflow to take a stab at reprocessing an old shot from the early days of this website. It’s something I’ve never done before—up until now I have not looked back when it comes to my photography. And while I clearly remember my enthusiasm about this Dock Road photo back in the day, it has become clear to me over time that my processing game has improved. Eager to tone down the bombastic HDR I had thought I’d go ahead and apply my current techniques to make a better, more realistic image. Instead I found something even better.
Somehow I found this photo, which not only is stronger compositionally than its counterpart, it also has better colors igniting the sky. I mean just look at those purples. Before I even went about reprocessing the photo I went through all my online archives to see if I had posted this shot. I assumed it had to be online someplace. I even had this marked with five stars in Lightroom, something I rarely do. Yet everywhere I looked this shot didn’t show up. Inexplicably I missed it. Now, I had originally processed this photo using my old bad habits and that was sitting in Lightroom. Reborn I ran it through my current workflow to render this new found firestorm. What a pleasant find.
There are a few lessons to unpack here: 1) With enough practice you’re going to improve over time making it worth revisiting some old favorites you’ve already made; and 2) Sometimes, when we’re caught up in the moment of going through a day’s photographs we may overlook something. Don’t be afraid to retread and old crossing to see what treasures may be hiding in plain sight. One thing’s for sure, this has me wondering what other photographs I’ve “missed” over the years? Worthwhile shots left to sit around collecting digital dust bunnies in my Lightroom catalog. Of course sifting through tens of thousands of photographs isn’t exactly an afternoon’s work.
Something I am now chewing on is whether to revisit some old shots occasionally on this website. Perhaps start up a redux series? It wouldn’t be too often, but there are some images I’d like to take another crack at. Not to mention it can show how my work has evolved over the years. Besides, in looking through old folders I may uncover a few more gems that never saw the light of day.
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March 14, 2017
Puddles of Sun
Puddles of Sun — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/80
Moments after a snow squall moved through that wrought dramatic clouds cast in a pink orange glow, the color palette transformed almost instantaneously as a soothing sunset appeared wedged between storm cells. A five minute respite in an otherwise turbulent Friday afternoon. It was all a weather/photo geek could take. Now I’m not one to normally use parking lots as a primary feature of my landscape compositions, yet for a while now the sandy lot of what was once Rand’s Marina has caught my eye. Its pockmarked puddles with their dark pools and alluring reflections performing sublime feats with the light that dance upon their sheen have long begged for my attention. As it was I laid out a foreground and as the sun broke free just atop the horizon I was ready, camera in hand.
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March 12, 2017
Cracked and Cruel
Cracked and Cruel — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/160
Poring over Lightroom this morning with a fresh set of eyes it seems a solid chance I will publish upward of four photographs from yesterday’s Great Bay Boulevard golden hour shoot. While the initial shot I posted happened right in the thick of ever changing weather, I thought it best to post the remainder of the set in sequential order. This shot shares the added benefit of having similar light to yesterday’s; the others will not share such hues. Without further ado let’s talk about chronological photo number one.
Here I present a serendipitous exposure—a bank error in my favor, if you will. I forgot I had autofocus selected on my 14mm lens, a remnant from a photograph made on my last shoot. Considering it had been a couple weeks I was ripe for oversight. Remember kids, always check your gear! What could have been a costly error wound up producing an unexpectedly suitable outcome. While the focus ring had an automated mind of its own, it brought sharp focus to the center of the frame—keying on the skeletal remains of what I can only assume were once vivacious mussels—vivacious as far as bivalve mollusks go, anyway. From this unintended area of focus the sharpness decreases as it moves out throughout the rest of the frame, becoming increasingly soft at the edges adding to the sense of ruin.
Now, if you’re asking yourself how would have I made the shot had I been paying attention and took back control of my focus? Well, I would have gone with my standard play of hyperfocal distance, leaving the focus ring set a hair left of the infinite line. This would have rendered an even sharpness throughout the whole frame. In this case I think the accident is better. Camera’s computing power: 1, Greg Molyneux: 0.
Finally, a design choice I consciously made with this image came in post-processing. I’m talking about the crop. The long spanning boardwalk in the foreground had me thinking go aggressive from the get-go. With that I cropped into a very wide 3:1 ratio—my second such photo using said ratio. This brings the poor mussels situation front and center, greeting the viewer with the immediacy of the scene. This exposure was made only about an inch above the boards and this drives home the intimacy.
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March 11, 2017
Weather or Not
Weather or Not — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/60
Strange weather has brought itself to New Jersey. In typical Mid-Atlantic March fashion we’ve seen all four seasons this month and we’ve yet to cross the Ides of March. Yesterday we saw temps approach 70 while today much of the state was greeted with slippery roads and heavy wet snowfall. Once this morning’s system moved through some snow squalls began to fire across the region—even with reports of thunders snow in Pennsylvania! You may be looking at the photograph above thinking huh, that sure looks like a thunderstorm and you wouldn’t be far off base. Snow squalls, unlike most other types of winter events, are caused from instability in the atmosphere—the same kind of dynamics that drive thunderstorms in spring and summer—unstable air with plenty of room for atmospheric lifting and you’ve got the same kind of setup, only here you’re greeted with a brief period of heavy snow.
In between about four rounds of intense snowfall over a 60 minute span, I was able to hop out of the car and make some photographs of what was a full stop dynamic sky. It’s no exaggeration to say every five minutes rendered an entirely different palette of clouds, color, and light. It was something to behold, albeit intense and cold. Considering the speed with which I needed to move around the old marina, I ditched the tripod and went exclusively handheld today. You’ll note the ISO 400 with this photograph as I needed to speed up my shutter to get to an exposure of 1/60 so as not to risk blurring the photograph with unsteady hands. I switched between my phone when the snow was heaviest, and my main camera when the precipitation stopped and the light came out to play. I’ll be posting a few more shots from this evening over the next few days, but I figured it best to get things started with the heavy hitter from a dramatic light perspective.
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March 10, 2017