Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: black and white

Contrasting light in grayscale.

  • Streetlight Delight

    Streetlight Delight

    Low key black and white photo of heavy snow lit by streetlight.
    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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  • Mind Your Bridge

    Mind Your Bridge

    Black and white photo of acoustic guitar 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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  • Tend Your Craft

    Tend Your Craft

    Black and white photograph of Jeff Ruemeli working a soda kiln.
    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.

  • El Gato

    El Gato

    Black and white photograph of a tabby cat lounging outdoors.
    El Gato — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/250

    Is #caturday still a thing? The hashtag phenomenon calling all cat people to all things cars on Saturday—you know a caturday? My yard calls to suburban furry creatures as an animated thicket beckons would be Disney characters to newborn prince. Ample cover, low level shrubs, plants, and flowers provide optimal feeding grounds for all kinds of neighborhood fauna. Birds, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, possum, and cats make themselves at home on the stomping grounds of my modest lot. Cats especially. Their hunting and lounging must be ideal as they loiter around my house daily. Having zero pets indoors, aside from some unwanted house spiders , it’s nice to see lively bustling about my lawn.

    I’m pretty sure the orange tabby cat photographed above belongs to one of my neighbors—he/she is in possession of a collar—but whose exactly? I am not sure. This guy likes to flop at the end of my driveway, butted up against the house close to where the chipmunks nest, only to leave as soon as I pull in to the drive and pop out the car. I’ll get a skeptical glance at the business end of about two seconds of serious eye contact as the cat scoots off on its way. A few weeks back while photographing some sedum, I found the cat brooding underneath a bush on the edge of my property. Mr. Cat unexpectedly decided to stay put allowing me to lay on the ground to make a few photographs featuring its nonplussed feline visage. This photograph reveals nicely the seriousness in its eyes—a driving uncertainty of mistrust dominating an urge to open up. The paw reaching forward further explains the narrative of this dichotomy. So Mr. Cat, while you are not mine you are more than welcome to my yard any time. (Not that you cared for my permission to begin with.)

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  • Circular Motion

    Circular Motion

    Low key square format black and white photo of a circular form sculpture.
    Circular Motion — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/3200

    Circular motion will be something of a recurring theme as we spiral toward the 2016 Labor Day Weekend along U.S. the eastern seaboard. Recently named Tropical Storm Hermine is spooling up in the Gulf of Mexico as she creeps slowly toward the Florida Panhandle. While it’s hardly locked down there’s growing consensus that after initial landfall the storm will look to spin its way up the east coast, potentially wreaking havoc on weekend plans, fresh hairstyles, and coastal communities up and down the seaboard. Prolonged rain, wind, and tidal surge will open the door to disruptive conditions for the foreseeable future. Such is the way of things, the way of the weather.

    Subject to storm surge and flooding is LBI’s own Long Beach Island Foundation—also known as the place I made this photograph. Scattered about the grounds are a litany of visually appealing and thought provoking sculptures. I was particularly drawn to a vertical array of circular forms orderly arranged on a ladder type apparatus. If my memory serves me the whole piece was in the ballpark of three feet wide and nine feet high. I tucked in close with my 35mm lens set wide open at f/1.4 to create a shallow depth of field image that accentuated the form and contrast of the circular disks. This one is all about form fleshed out through light and shadow play.

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  • In The Abstract

    In The Abstract

    Square format black and white photo of hydrangea leaves in low key abstract noir.
    In The Abstract — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1600

    Real talk—

    This—black and white photography brought to life in shallow depth of field, presented in a brooding low key light on abstract terms—is my favorite type of photography. Yes, the sweeping landscapes are great, and I am far better technician than I am a creative right-braining on the more artistic side of the room; but there’s just something about the weirdness and soft forms, not to mention my lifelong love of black and white mediums, that draws me to this type of look. Now don’t get me wrong I wish I was better at it, and more purposeful in my execution of photographs like you see above. I have no process, I just wing it. There’s no real plan until I look at the viewfinder and have a very ground floor superficial thought of hey, this looks cool. This photo was no different. I was barreling up my hydrangea plant from ground level with my 35mm lens and simply liked what I saw. A happy accident you might say.

    Admittedly while I like this kind of shot more than my typical landscape I become increasingly insecure about posting shots of its ilk. Not so much here on this website, more so on my Facebook page which frankly reaches more eyes. The People like my landscape work, anything else is more or less a crap shoot that runs the gamut from yawn to completely ignored. The burden of expectations. I get it, of course, this style is far more niche and lacks the widespread appeal of a stunning marsh sunset. As a result I’ve been sitting on this shot for over a month now, but I can wait no more. Be bold. Be removed from the comfort zone. Be. If nothing else it’s good to weigh the merits of popularity versus personal fulfillment. I don’t think it’s a binary choice, instead it’s more about finding the right spot on the great sliding scale of life. (Let’s see how all of this shakes out since I’ll be following this shot with another square format black and white picture. Gasp!)

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  • Darkest Light

    Darkest Light

    Low key black and white macro photograph of a hibiscus flower framed in vertical orientation.
    Darkest Light — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/800

    It’s been a good long while since I’ve made a black and white photograph. A quick look at the archive reveals other than a onetime blip back in April, it had been since August of 2015 that I had made a proper black and white. Too long!

    Interestingly enough this photograph was yesterday’s output of no more than a five minute photo detour I took along my parents’ side yard before transitioning to camera-less Fourth of July activities. It’d be wrong to categorize the 16 exposures as throw-away shots, but I’d be lying if I said I knew I was going to walk away with at least three keepers from the brief session. The lighting seemed unremarkable and the wind was blowing just enough to frustrate any handheld macro shooter; and yet the results populating my Lightroom catalog run entirely to the contrary. (A good reminder that I still have plenty to learn.)

    I really like black and white, and I really like this shot. It’s sporting all the key ingredients required for a well executed black and white photograph—macro or otherwise. The composition is strong, moving the eye from the deep darkness of the bottom left corner up and through the stamen and pistils of the hibiscus flower. The selective focus adds moodiness and depth to the photograph, enhancing the sharpness of the pollen resting atop its anthers. But what really kicks this into black and white overdrive is the contrast; the dramatic shifts from near total black to the intensity and brightness of near total white. The image runs the grayscale gamut and locks away the final dimension necessary for a fine low key finished product.

    Oh, and check out this post if you’d like to learn more about the anatomy of a hibiscus flower. This will help clear up some of the flower parts I referenced in the paragraph above if you’d like to further your learning. The post features some solid macro photos, too! Related: I can’t believe this is the first hibiscus photograph I’ve posted in the now two and a half year history of this website. I would have definitely lost that bet…

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  • The White Wizard Approaches

    The White Wizard Approaches

    High key black and white macro photo of a dying jane magnolia blossom looking like a hooded wizard
    The White Wizard Approaches — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/250

    This is the second time I’ve dipped into the well of anthropomorphizing flowers in a high key macro photograph. While two times does not a trend make, I have a pseudo third example if you take the time my mid-bloom maple conjured thoughts of dragons—to be fair it was Game of Thrones time. For me this is when a dearth of landscape photo opportunities start gobbling up weeks at a clip on the calendar. Itching for some lens time I get a bit desperate—I default to selective focus macros of everyday objects floating both in and about my house. From there it’s just pouring over the exposures in Lightroom trying to find the right frame to do something with.

    In this case that something brought together a couple comfortable fall backs: black and white photography and Lord of the Rings. Today’s posted photo first caught my eye as I was processing yesterday’s Jane Magnolia pic. The wizard’s cap and flowing petals of this magnolia bud had just enough suggestion to get my attention. Upon closer inspection this morning the Gandalf connection struck immediately, and I could hear the why so serious? voice of Legolas Greenleaf warning his companions of an approaching Saruman. Of course moments later we are all treated to Gandalf’s triumphant return; cloaked in the garb of the White Wizard, bathed in white light having conquered the Balrog. Now back at the turn of the tide.

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  • This One’s for the Introverts

    This One’s for the Introverts

    Low key black and white macro photograph of a purple coneflower
    This One’s for the Introverts — 100mm | f/2.8 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/400

    Photography as metaphor? Perhaps. Despite taking this photograph two weeks ago to the day, it wasn’t until last night that this image made a connection to my own self, and my own experience of the world. You see last night I finally made it out to one of the weekly free concerts at Harvey Cedars Sunset Park. Sure it was the last concert of the season but better late than never. Conveniently concert time synched up nicely with sunset and conditions looked promising. But it wasn’t until walking through a packed park of maybe a thousand or so peaceful revelers that I noticed my discomfort. Here I was, a fierce introvert loathe for attention walking through crowds brandishing camera and tripod. Even if the eyes drawn upon me were in my own head it was more than enough attention to heighten my heart rate. My brain downshifted into full on Imposter Syndrome, and my insecurities were happy to remind me that I’m somehow not worthy to have a camera in this space. Paralyzed by my environment I made no pictures.

    So how does this rambling anecdote into the spotted mind of Greg Molyneux relate to this photograph? Well it’s all about the desire to be left alone, an anonymous face in the crowd. While we see brightly illuminated flower petals filling the focused foreground, it’s what’s behind the petals that hits closest to home; a lone blossom set back, cast out of focus and into the shadows. This is me. This is how I live my life. Content to do my part on the periphery. And just like those bright petals I’m happy and eager to share myself and my photos open and honestly via social media and this website. It’s that I get to do so at arm’s length that most suits my introverted proclivities.

    But it wasn’t all bad. Oh no. Once I returned the camera gear to the car and walked back to a jammin’ Sunset Park, I took a seat toward the back of the grass. Relaxing in my beach chair I watched day glow fade to black, all the while being serenaded by Eagles covers. That was a good time.

    On an administrative note: this was the 200th photograph I’ve uploaded since launching this website on 18 January 2014. Pretty cool. To all of those who’ve visited—thank you!