Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: 35mm

All photographs tagged here have been taken with a Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L II USM Lens

Overrun
Overrun — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/4000
Heh—”Lovely Rita” just cued up as I began writing up this post. Things are looking up on what has otherwise been a rather pedestrian Saturday in the cellar cold that is February. So pedestrian, in fact, my right shoe found itself planted in some fresh dog poo as I was making sunset photos, but I digress.
Before any of those shenanigans took place—as “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!” randomly fires up, #winning—I was leaving an art show on Long Beach Island just as golden hour was casting light upon the 18 mile sandbar. I figured what the heck, may as well check the beach for a photo op. I. Am. Glad. I. Did. Had lethargy won the day I would have hopped in my car and driven home, belting out off key harmonies alone in my salt crusted sedan. Instead I took a short walk across a wide road.
Once on the oceanside my nose was greeted with fresh salt air and my face a gentle breeze. More often than not ocean winds are ripping, especially in winter, and this can foul up your day real quick if you’re not dressed accordingly. Of course I wasn’t dressed accordingly. I wasn’t a boy scout so to hell with preparedness, am I right? Oh, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” now? This Beatles block is something. Fortunately the breeze was little more than a whisper adding little in the way of extra bite to a high temperature that sat in the low 30s all day—Fahrenheit, yo.
With the tide up and the steep cliff face still looming from where the last nor’easter went all Pac-Man on the berm, I was limited to shooting along the East Coast Ave beach entrance only. Led Zeppelin’s “Dancing Days” (live) is playing now for those keeping score at home. Clearly iTunes has a British rock thing going tonight. Fortunately I needed not go any further than the entryway. I had an attention grabbing bit of sand fence exposed at the crest of the sand dune calling my name. “Steve!” It said. But I paid that no mind this dune was mine. The small section of fence has been doing its thing, maybe a bit too well, holding up sand and continuing to build and protect life and property. “Straight Outta Compton (Remastered 2002)” now up. Straight Outta Sand Dune? Alternate title, perhaps?
Anyway, this minimalist feature was calling my name yet the magic didn’t really happen until I got home. During my obligatory first pass photo inspection in Lightroom I knew immediately I wanted to go with a super contrasty black and white treatment. Into Silver Efex Pro 2 I went and the rest is low key history. With that it looks like I am closing out this post with “Here I Dreamt I was an Architect” by The Decemberists. If “Africa” by Toto comes up next I’m declaring this run of tunes damn near perfect. Thanks for listening.
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February 4, 2017
Streetlight Delight
Streetlight Delight — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 1600 | EXP 1/125
A boy’s fascination runs deep. For as long as I can remember streetlight worship of steady snowfall has been a most welcomed seasonal companion. Growing up obsessed with snow I would eagerly strike days from the calendar in anticipation of winter weather. Winter was magic, and snow the tangible proof. Countless hours I’ve spent whiling away watching snowfall from any window that would have me. The daylight hours afforded easy, unobstructed viewing of my favorite weather. Come night fall, however, the snow scaled back to a more demure display. Hidden by darkness only in streetlight could I once again lay reassured eyes upon the flakes.
And so I would watch for hours on end, eyes focused sharply between finger wide gaps in the window blinds. No curtain was safe, no window dressing untouched as I bounced from window to window, streetlight to streetlight, maintaining an ever watchful eye on the falling snow. Mixed with the sense of wonder, small fits of worry would work in as I’d fret over the snow letting up. Inevitability taught me early what is good must always end, and so I took to my post with purpose in hopes to maximize as much snowfall watching as possible. Sensible adults would often chime in with raised brows noting I’d grow out of this first love with age and responsibility. Wait until you have to drive in it, they said. Wait until you have to shovel it, they said. First came the shoveling responsibilities, and I loved it—still do. Then came the driving responsibilities, and I loved it—still do. I suppose Miss Snowfall is a keeper, fickle as she may be.
All these memories came flooding back last night as I walked under the streetlight amidst a snow globe style snow squall. For 20 minutes my hometown was transformed into a convective array of heavy snowfall. Precipitation moved in and out just as a warm summer storm, but for a few minutes at least I was kid again standing tall at all those windowsills.
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January 31, 2017
Mind Your Bridge
Mind Your Bridge — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 800 | EXP 1/80
Photographs have been hard to come by in 2017. We’re charging through January and this marks photo number three. Rough—suffice to say I need to pick up the pace. Here I was on a cloudy Saturday, desperate for a muse and grasping at straws, so I made a handful of frames of a Martin acoustic guitar using a wide open aperture on my 35mm lens if only to remember what it’s like. I didn’t even have the explicit intention of coming away with a photo for the website, I just needed to get my hands on the camera.
A day or two later I finally began grappling with some post processing decisions. Thanks to strong contrast I opted for a black and white product. Upon closer inspection I wanted to hone the viewer firmly on the guitar bridge, and so for the first time ever I exceeded a 2:1 crop ratio going all the way to 3:1. For those of you saying, uh, what? this explains why the image is so wide—instead looking more like a panoramic. Specifically, a 3:1 ratio means that for every three units on the x-axis (horizontal), there is one unit on the y-axis (vertical). For a baseline, most of my photographs are displayed at a 3:2 ratio. Jargon aside, I’m down with the end result as it brings the eyes right where I want them.
Taking a step back to talk about something more important than my photos: I hope we can push past our differences to build bridges that connect together our universal common ground. We’re all traveling on this spaceship Earth together—passengers and custodians of the future.
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January 24, 2017
I Look at the Floor and I See it Needs Sweeping
I Look at the Floor and I See it Needs Sweeping — 35mm | f/2 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/40
You’ll find no nature here. Only aged remains of a disued shack left to dereliction. What happens when we’re gone? When all else fades but the ruins of a life gone by? When the fire has gone out and time comes along to reclaim fashioned resources back to dust? Undefeated is time. The second law of thermodynamics tells us so—entropy mandates decay of any and all things found in a closed system over time. This is why a famously felled Humpty Dumpty was never put back together again. Ironically human progress shields us from this fact. Civilization throughout the ages has achieved greater and greater levels of order, enterprise, and design when in reality we build our great monuments of progress to cast baseless doubt on the truth—incremental and inevitable disorder and decline. The next dark age waits just around the corner. Just as a great castle fortress was built high atop the hill only to be blast asunder from some new armament built only to destroy. Always forward is the arrow of time. Always locked in the battle of life, death, progress, and decay.
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December 2, 2016
Before You Go
Before You Go — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/800
After last night’s negative tilt trough supreme wrought a 30 degree temperature drop; rain, snow, and sleet; and gusts of winds the Anemoi would be proud of in the span of roughly three hours these leaves are now gone. But 24 hours ago they were still here, so hey, maybe almost does count? Such is the onslaught of winter. One minute you’re hanging around LBIF dropping off photos on a 66 degree day and the next minute you’re running for the coat closet. Weather mood swings be damned, I’m happy I got to see my first flakes of what I hope will be a good old fashion snow-down for the winter of 2016–2017. Big snow, people—big snow. Measured in feet. (Meters would be even better.) I’m what they refer to in nerdy weather circles as a cold weather snow weenie. I’ll own it.
As for this photo it’s a bookend of sorts. Made one week ago it’s something of a mirrored close-out to I Saw Red which was made back in April when this very maple was in spring bloom. This tree of mine makes for a great subject as 1) it looks cool, and 2) it sits right outside my front door standing sentry at the House of Greg. This keeps things easy. Just load up the 35mm lens, set the aperture wide open, and step outside in my soft pants to squeeze off a few frames. It also gives me a chance to work on my vertical orientation game which I often ignore. Many a skilled New Jersey area landscape photographers do a great job exploiting the fall and documenting its seasonal change. As you’ll note by my lack of autumn type leafy photographs through the years you can surmise I have been measured and left wanting in this arena.
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November 20, 2016
Momentary Lapse
Momentary Lapse — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1600
Two moon shots in a row? If you’ve been following my work for any length of time you know moon/night photography isn’t an all too common occurrence in this house. It’s not that I don’t love me some moon, it’s just that I lack the requisite gear to make some hay in this department. Long lenses—telephotos—are not (in) my bag, baby. Yet here I am backing up Saturday’s lunar landscape with another moon sunset from Sunday; and as I am sure you’ve heard ad nauseum it was the start of supermoon central on the internets. For the next 24 hours Facebook and Instagram were inundated with giant orbs from our number one satellite. It was a lot like Majora’s Mask only less cool and with a worse soundtrack. Never one to want to miss out on the party I present you my contribution: photographed at 35mm overlooking Barnegat Bay from Barnegat Bay Beach in Barnegat, New Jersey. (Say Barnegat again, Greg. Please.)
Now if you’ll allow me to enter critique mode. Photographing handheld from the bay beach my intention was the get a front focus shot of some lime green mossy stuff strewn about the shoreline. I was shooting wide open at f/1.4 going for shallow depth of field where the middle ground and back ground faded away into smooth bokeh. Most of my shots Sunday were made with this in mind. However, I did pop off a few off frames where I focused out to infinity to bring clarity to the middle ground and back ground. Instead of stopping down to f/5.6 which increases overall sharpness while simultaneously pulling the acceptable range of focus closer to the viewer, I stayed wide open with the aperture. This is why the foreground is somewhat out of focus here. None of this is wrong, of course, and frankly the movement from out of focus and into focus creates a different kind of mood with the photograph. I am just conceding that if I went into this shoot with the goal of producing a sharp landscape, I absolutely would have used my tripod and stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8 instead of going with wide open handheld action.
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November 16, 2016
Placebo
Placebo — 35mm | f/5.6 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Gazing east from Cedar Run Dock Road during last night’s sunset while simultaneously treated to a 96% waxing gibbous moonrise was exactly what the doctor ordered. To far away Tranquility Base, detached from the present day reality of this earthly world, I salute you. Prior to yesterday’s sexy sky business, landscape photography wasn’t even on my radar. Conditions were crisp and cool all day with nary a cloud in the sky. Besides that I was tasked with making some afternoon family photographs—gasp!—of my friend and her parents. (Two super cute doggies in tow.) Despite my total lack of experience the shoot went well enough—I hope. Being out there, exposed outside of my comfort zone yet surviving, had an added benefit: the development of high level cirrus clouds building toward the east. The rusted gears of my mind began to turn and clank.
Leaving the shoot and driving over the LBI causeway bridge back toward the mainland I was hemming and hawing on whether to shoot and where to go. To the west the sky was mostly clear so a traditional sunset seemed out. To the east the clouds kept calling. Further down Route 72 West the exit to Route 9 South approached—reflexively right blinker went click, click, click—I suppose Dock Road it is. Driving down the isthmus and out onto the marsh an unexpected wrinkle was thrown into the fold; a big fat mostly full moon was a few inches over the eastern horizon and the plot began to thicken. Even though prime pastel cloud color was good 20 minutes away, it was a lock that the moon would sit large and in charge amid a cotton candy sky. As an added bonus the wind had died and the water was calm and reflective. For a chilly evening in November everything came up Greg with a sugar pill dose of much needed calm and pleasure.
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November 13, 2016
Tend Your Craft
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.
October 8, 2016
Backyard Bouquet
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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October 6, 2016