Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: blue hour

  • The Sea Moves

    The Sea Moves

    14mm wide angle landscape photo of blue hour reflected over Little Egg Harbor bay. Blended with intentional horizontal motion blur.
    The Sea Moves — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/4 sec

    Minimalism with intentional hand made motion blur. I love executing this kind of photograph. Combining a handheld approach with a smooth, confident motion panning from left to right into the sunset. It is much more involved than my typical tripod landscape. The latter leaving me with the sole task of pressing the shutter once I have framed my shot. Meanwhile this technique is visceral, taking me much closer to my own work. Involving me the way a baker kneads the bread—the hands are in there. Kneading it. Working it. Making it. Body, mind, and skill all coming together to produce something personal, something special. This process alone creates an intimacy with the work, and it shows through in the result. Here I am actually creating a thing with my hands. The sea moves right here in my palms.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Stop Motion

    Stop Motion

    14mm blue hour photo purposefully out of focus capturing passing clouds and salt marsh with intentional camera side motion blur.
    Stop Motion — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/15

    Back writing at The Union Market and I have a problem. Sure I have loads of problems but for the purposes of this exercise I am focusing on one. My photography is wholly uninspired. For four years now I have set adrift atop the inevitable plateau of your talent’s going no where. No gains, no challenges, no growth. Only the muscle memory motions of habit fueled machinations left manufacturing the same caliber of work over and over and over again. It’s a cycle of mediocrity. This plain, man. It’s endless. I need off.

    Feeling certain something has to give what are my options? Well let’s work the problem with a good old fashion bulleted list. We’ll even pretend it’s whiteboard style. To address my photographic dead end I could:

    • Quit—pack it in, drop this hobby and drift upon the breeze until something new falls in my lap; this is both decidedly passive and incredibly on brand.
    • Maintain status quo—stick to my modus operandi and don’t change a damn thing. Hover where I’m at but continue to find the most joy writing for the photos I make; this, too, is an extremely Greg thing to do.
    • Buy new gear—the capitalist equivalent to let’s have a child to fix our relationship; the short term gain to long term pain.
    • Identify a challenge—settle on a new photographic skill or technique; considering I only make landscapes and flower macros with the occasional bug thrown in I have mountains to climb.
    • Step out of my comfort zone—mix it up, meet new people; if you’re the smartest person in the room, find a new room. The surest path to improvement is to surround yourself with people better and more capable than you. Learn from others who’ve been in your shoes. Worn soles long shot, weary treads long tired from their time atop the plateau. While I was never a great musician by any stretch, I got pretty damn good playing guitar, bass, and even the damn banjo, when I was jamming on the regular with musical types way more gifted and trained than me. Their juice finds its way into your bones by osmosis.
    • Give a talk—combine some strengths! I am a shy ass person, few will say otherwise. Yet paradoxically I love to talk, especially in front of a live audience, and I’m good at it! Bringing together two skills into one thematic packable could be the juice I need right now. In the interest of full disclosure, I had a perfect opportunity to do this but totally flaked out. Great job, Greg. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

    Even though I am not as yet clear on what I will or will not do, I am glad I wrote this down. It helps to get your thoughts out of your mind and onto paper. It creates some separation. Some breathing room to think it through with the problem feeling a little less up close and personal. Change perspective to be objective. Even if a thing looks good it may not be serving us. The question is whether the discomfort is strong enough to precipitate change.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • I Was Once

    I Was Once

    moon rise over Parkertown Cove at Parkertown Docks at blue hour. This was October 2020's second full moon making it a blue moon.
    I Was Once — 100mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 3.2 sec

    I was once new
    Unseen and strong the becoming

    I was once waxing
    Energetically growing keen to know

    I was once full
    Brightly shining radiant life

    And now I wane
    Aged and worn fated to winter

    Coda

    Upon the last minute recommendation of Jonathan Carr we made our way to a new location to make photographs: Parkertown Docks. This splendid location tucked away along Parker Cove offers 360 degree views featuring salt marsh, bay, bay beach, Atlantic City, and some old pilings. Tons of opportunity here, and no doubt a new go-to spot to watch thunderstorms roll in. Crazy to think this gem has been hiding in plain sight unbeknownst to me in my 27 years living in the area. It’s always a win to shed a bit more ignorance in the face of new discovery.

    It wasn’t intentional (sunset was the goal) but we hung around through blue hour for the full moon rise. It so happened to be the second full moon of October, making this a blue hour blue moon rise.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Autumn We Dance Again

    Autumn We Dance Again

    14mm wide angle landscape photo made at blue hour. Clear evening blue skies with a subtle pastel horizon reflect over the still water of Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area.
    Autumn We Dance Again — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    When I was a child I welcomed you. You were the harbinger of winter, my favorite season. The calendars in class marked the days with apples in September, pumpkins in October, and leaves in November. Football and cool weather held sway, while holiday specials with the Peanuts gang enchanted our evening. The days grew short and life stayed simple. It was easy.

    In adolescence I accepted you with the grudging disaffected disinterest of an awkward teen. Everything was weird and new but you were somehow familiar. We tolerated each other, and I still had the coming onset of snow to long for.

    As an adult I bent to your will. Each year you found news ways to deliver familiar tones of sadness. Loss and loneliness proved your calling card, and you seemed to take joy in my pain. Your growing cold and dimming light worked to push me further toward world weariness. Anxieties grew in the dark. Sadness festered in the cold corners of my mind. Emptiness filled my world, and you were always there mocking with a smug impartiality to it all. A season loved by so many kept me stunted and shirked aside. I had not invite to the party. Years turned to decades and I never fit in.

    I have struggled with you for years. So much so it is of no worth to name you fall since the word is far too dire. I know search to flip the script. I Seek to write a new narrative. One of acceptance. One of purposeful restoration. I must learn to slow down and breathe. To be more accepting of your grace. Please take my hand and teach me how to dance, sweet Autumn, I don’t want to hurt anymore.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Stop the Clocks

    Stop the Clocks

    14mm wide angle photograph of a salt marsh oxbow feature at blue hour. Mirrored reflection captures the still colored pastel clouds stretched thin across the sky.
    Stop the Clocks — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    The calendar claims today as 23 August 2020. I wish it would stop shouting Summer is OVER. What happened to time? March was about 93 days long, and each month since lasts about a week and a half—tops. Shattered is our perception of time. Easy days whiling about hours once spent on beaches and fields find replacements in anxiety, uncertainty, and fraying society. And it is with speed these insidious malfeasants, uninvited as they are, rob us of our time. Stealing our present and hoarding our future.

    And yet we soldier on and endure. We bide our time, turn to our strengths and cultivate purpose to prepare for the renaissance. Time will call to order again. The arrow of time, never directionless, will reassert its dominion and the universe will unfold as it should. Build trust. Know faith. Foster humility. Learn to grow. Live to love. Make yourself.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Where Goings

    Where Goings

    14mm wide angle photo made at blue hour over the bright green salt marsh of Cedar Run Dock Road. Low cumulus clouds race across the sky and reflect in a still water pool.
    Where Goings — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Clouds rush by as years
    Quickened and blurred
    Life dashes
    Drift and drift and drift
    Have I a cloud?
    A spirit to float on present wind?
    Nay, I am a tether anchored in past,
    Chained
    Worry escapes to future where is hope,
    Abandoned
    Tears streak a far off gaze,
    Chastened
    Molded in past
    Weighed in present
    Promised in future

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Blue Notes

    Blue Notes

    14mm wide angle landscape photo made low key at blue hour. Soft pastels color up the sky above an oxbow lake feature of the Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh.
    Blue Notes — 14mm | f/22 | ISO 100 | EXP 2.0 sec

    It is in evening blue light when the day’s last comings glow, ebbing slow each night as the final light of day goes. It is a soft kiss, a gentle embrace as day shares love with her partner night. For a few moments the two poles dance together, igniting passion in the pastel embers of yearning. It is devotion writ large, a passion play painting tenderness on nature’s most dramatic stage. Ensconced our lovers intwine but twice each day, and they are here to teach us whenever we choose to learn.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Gradient

    Gradient

    Wide angle blue hour photo over reflective bay water with motion blur.
    Gradient — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 0.5 sec

    Take wintertime day glow, a lazy shutter, a bit of hand induced motion blur, and throw them in the pot. Add a fresh pour over of Lightroom and let steep. Add a dash of hope and your cauldron will yield a striking gradient mirrored across the great blue void. Cutting its center is sun streaked poise rendered only at day’s end. Now plate your study in color, movement, and form; landscape as emotion, a mirror world reflecting hope and fear.

    So how did I make this shot? Quite simple, really. I capitalized on a day glow of intense blue to orange, calm Little Egg Harbor bay water, and my hands. With a smooth right to left motion parallel to the horizon I was able to introduce motion blur into an already minimalist tableau. I am drawn to the simplicity of this style of photo execution. It’s easy to get exciting over a high drama sunset with a slamming composition set off by first rate foreground, and don’t get me wrong, I love it, too. Yet there is something to being less. A hat tip to the understated—the introverts of the nature world. Perhaps it is my own predilection to introversion that brings me quite satisfaction in a far more subtle, nuanced world? Or maybe I am overindulging my self-importance behind the mask of understatement?

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Blue Steps

    Blue Steps

    14mm blue hour photo of boat dock and calm, reflective water.
    Blue Steps — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 3.2 sec

    Light falls the day gives way to night. A vital coursing of gold ebbs with the sun’s remnants gilded the world in muted blues of peace. Soon, too, this will yield to black. Step through your day and walk ever forward through change. Striding through one present into the next. Cherish the moment of blue serenity as we pivot with purpose from one tangible present into the next.

    Interested in buying? Purchase