Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: bokeh

Color, Please
Color, Please — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/100
I sourced this one to the people by way of Instagram story poll. A choice between black and white and color. For insight into my own proclivity, I immediately began hammering away a post built around the black and white theme. I did this despite suspecting color would would carry the day. As a humble yet unelected representative of the people I must render unto them that which their votes beseech. So hyacinth in color it is.
Followers of my work may notice my macro photography always features targeted areas of focus. What is a targeted area of focus? Areas of the photo that have sharper focus juxtaposed to the soft blurry areas—referred to as bokeh. By shooting close in on your subject at a large aperture your lens produces a shallow depth of field. Thanks, physics! What is an aperture? Well that’s the diameter of the lens diaphragm that allows light to pass through into your camera and onto your sensor or film. Larger apertures have a bigger opening allowing more light to pass through. The result: a faster speed, shallower depth of field, and softer focus. Great for producing dreamy flower photos. Smaller apertures feature the opposite: slower speed, deeper depth of field, and sharper images. Ideal for producing detailed landscapes with sharpness throughout the image.
Either your camera body or the lens itself features f/stop numbers. The lower the f/stop, f/2 for example, the larger aperture. Whereas f/22 is a very small aperture, something like a pinhole. Understanding this scale and building your feel for aperture and f/stops is essential to effective execution of your creativity. Now get out there and start experimenting with different f/stops. Even the latest smartphones allow you to do this. So next time you go for that banging selfie, lower the f/stop and achieve some of the algorithmically staged blur!
I don’t write much about that how-to of photography, but if you found this helpful let me know and I can work more tutorial type posts into the rotation.
Interested in buying? Purchase
April 16, 2020
Heart Opener
Heart Opener — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/250
There was much and more I did not know about yoga before standing on a mat at my first class in November 2017. Outside of its ancient roots blossoming out of India, its possession of spiritual essence, and lots of bending and stretching, I was wholly ignorant. Turns out I was wrong about what it was I thought I knew. Such is the joy in actually diving into a thing. The ebb and flow of learning and growth coupled with failure—necessary failure—the kind that leads you down a path of humility while bringing you back on the road of learning and growth. Yoga is an excellent roadmap for life. It has had millennia to perfect itself.
In any asana class, the kind where you work the body through physical poses in time with your breath, you know heart openers are A Thing. I did not know this of course, but learned quick. Heart openers are everywhere inside a yoga studio near you. Whether through back bends, twists, or folds, constant coaching and callouts to open the heart—your heart. Such a concept dovetails beautifully with dharma talks choosing to keep the heart at the center of everything: The center of your life, your purpose, your power, and your love. Heart open. Heart center. Lift your heart. Open your heart. Let your light shine on your heart. Feel your life toward the sky. Steady coaching and reinforcement connected to movement and breath work communicates the criticality of an open heart. Loud and clear it lifts a veil on both your physical and emotional being. It’s powerful stuff.
Soon you take this lesson with you off the mat. Focusing on your heart becomes A Thing. Cultivating it. Protecting it. Honoring it. You come to understand the importance of keeping your heart open for others and for yourself. This is the love that will save the world.
Interested in buying? Purchase
April 15, 2020
Spring Hyacinth
Spring Hyacinth — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/125
The hyacinth. Flower of great name and striking beauty. A moniker worthy of bronze age stories first told millennia ago in far off lands. This spring flower is always well met.
Going back to childhood and my earliest memories the hyacinth stands out. Second only to the ubiquitous rose—a flower we seem to learn in utero—the hyacinth came to my consciousness early. Easter flowers is how my grandparents described them. Some of our first perennial flowers to blossom. Harbingers of springtime and warmer days, I thought. Beyond the history it was their color and form which always resonated deepest, well tuned with my small person soul. It’s a flower of imagination, fantasy, and hope. The kind of flower a concept artist would create when designing an idyllic alien world. I love them.
Of course when my one hyacinth bloomed up proper this year I found justification in my excitement. This was my first opportunity to photograph this flower since 2014. Quite a long time. And so it was, today was the day I made some time for my macro lens, my hyacinth, and me to capture its beauty.
Turns out my little opening is not at all far from the truth. A quick bit of research at the Online Etymology Dictionary revealed the following:
Used in ancient Greece of a blue gem, perhaps sapphire, and of a purple or deep red flower, but exactly which one is unknown (gladiolus, iris, and larkspur have been suggested). It is fabled to have sprung from the blood of Hyakinthos, Laconian youth beloved by Apollo and accidentally slain by him. The flower is said to have the letters “AI” or “AIAI” (Greek cry of grief) on its petals. The modern use in reference to a particular flowering plant genus is from 1570s. Related: Hyacinthine.
Awesome. Love me some etymology, you guys. History and words. The best.
Interested in buying? Purchase
April 14, 2020
Whispers in the Dark
Whispers in the Dark — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/50
2020. LOL, what?!?
Yeah so this post could go a lot of ways. Each a varying degree of sideways. First off, this is my first photo and blog post of 2020. What? To be precise, first photograph made with my Canon rig, uploaded onto my Mac, and published anywhere on the internet since ::checks notes:: December—of last year. It’s April and this is finally a thing. Yeah, I was slumping something fierce.
Oh yeah, there’s a pandemic on and we’re sheltering in place. I’m into my fourth consecutive week cloistered at home—sans people. An insidious infectious disease made itself malignant and turned fast moving infecting all populations. In 2020. What?
Families, friends, and people riding solo are pulling together and reprioritizing. It took a unique crisis yet we have a singular opportunity to reassess life, purpose, consumption, government, health and health care,—a comprehensive reimagining of society. It is time to challenge conventional wisdom. What is the future we want?
The exceptional thing about living through history is having, if only in a small way, the rare chance to shape it. By staying home, observing social distancing protocols, calling a friend, keeping a journal, checking on a neighbor, telling someone you love them, taking a walk, or making a photograph. Small acts when executed across communities and continents affect real change in response to an entirely new environment. Rough times may indeed be ahead, but we can pull together if we choose it. What will history say about us other than what?
Interested in buying? Purchase
April 7, 2020
Shrouded
Shrouded — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/200
Happy accidents are a thing. Bob Ross was right, because, well of course he was. Made on August 18, 2019, this photograph happened on your typical balmy late summer afternoon. Heat and humidity do wonderful things to camera and lens gear left napping within under cool, air conditioned climes. And by wonderful things I mean annoying, undesirable scientific reaction type things. Cool glass, you see, is want to put on a water condensation show and fog up with pride.
This is all rather bush-league on my part, having thought I learned better long ago. Even though the preflight checklist remains the same, a lazy oversight is bound to happen. Nevertheless, it was with fogged 100mm macro lens in hand I made some soft, almost fantastical photos of a Black-eyed Susan in my front yard. Coupled with soft focus, shallow depth of field, and boatloads of bokeh, the ample fog sets us adrift. Unmoored, we slow down, detached from our present world invited into a softer, kinder land. There is possibility here, the rough edges worked out by soft and inviting flower petals. A warm touch from a welcoming hand, asking us to join in the splendor otherwise shrouded by clarity.
Interested in buying? Purchase
September 15, 2019
Until Next Season
Until Next Season — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/800
It is now September. This more or less puts a wrap on flower season for 2019. I have a few photographs from summer to publish here yet, but making new flower photos is all but done. Looking back on this summer’s flower shooting, I’m pleased with where I’m at. I spent more time with my 100mm macro lens than I have in years, and made at least one photograph certain to make the 2019 best of list. I am hereby allowing myself a pat on the back.
Random musings:
- The New York Giants defense is terrible; after one game in Dallas it seems we’re onto next season
- The New York Yankees are good; a deep run of October baseball will be my football
- I am currently listening to Mornings on Horseback on Audible; excited to learn more about Theodore Roosevelt
- Did a run of Star Wars audiobooks before that (with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy mixed in)—Thrawn: Treason, Master & Apprentice, and Dooku: Jedi Lost; all were excellent. With music, sound effects, strong production values, and expert narration, Star Wars novels lend themselves well to an audio format
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was a good video game
- Hollow Knight is an exceptional video game—easily in my top 5 favorites of the past decade
- The Mandalorian is going to be great; all in on space western sci-fi
- Despite my disappoint with The Last Jedi, I am pumped for The Rise of Skywalker
- Starting my fourth week of HelloFresh™, impressed and satisfied so far
Interested in buying? Purchase
September 9, 2019
The Collector
The Collector — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/125
Honey bees! Working, buzzing, collecting. Pollen clinging and clumping in large, impressive blobs stuck about their legs. Dutiful, the bees worked over one flower head after another, nonstop in their quest for pollen. They did not seem to mind my presence much, either. Showing no ill will toward my camera intrusion. Though getting tack sharp focus was not the easiest considering they never slow nor settle.
But seriously, I cannot believe I have honey bees. There must have been dozens milling about the flowers strewn about my property. I never remember seeing this many honey bees in an entire season, let alone on a single day, and I have been photographic my yard extensively since 2012. My little black and yellow buds were doing their best work on my other little black and yellow buds, my Black-eyed Susan blossoms. It was awesome to watch.
Interested in buying? Purchase
July 15, 2019
Top Down
Top Down — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/200
Step right up and descend into the shrunken world. Together we journey top down to look upon an alien world hiding in plain sight. Let us accept this macro abstraction to challenge the mind to place what the eyes register.
And just what is it we are looking at?
For lack of proper nomenclature let’s call it a nascent honeysuckle flower in the making several days before its better known floral blossom ribbon properly unfurls. A tightly bound cluster of purplish tentacles spring sunward in a bundle not much larger than a quarter. Covering each arm of the cluster stands a ready array of tiny follicles shellacked in a sticky, pollen type substance. My mind churns. Hundreds of tiny posts hoisting a collective individuality built up the surface of a greater system of life. Down here, mired in constituent parts, we contemplate the unsung parcels that compose the greater whole.
In and out of focus mental gears grind and turn against the shallow depth of field. Tall towers jut directly toward us, escaping the foggy void to shed light on the penthouse. The near symmetry struck a shade askew lends credible structure suggesting the proper hand of purpose in its design. The fractal quality the surging towers builds upon the mathematical basis of nature.
You will get all this and more when you travel top down into the abstract world of honeysuckle macros. I hope you have enjoyed the trip.
I had leaned hard to go with a black and white treatment for this photograph. I was working a striking, high contrast low key approach with plenty of black negative space. I even tossed it to the Instagram story poll. As of this posting we are 10 votes to 4 in favor of color. Perhaps we will go top down on the black and white version some other time.
Interested in buying? Purchase
June 17, 2019
Layers
Layers — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | 1/200
Life lessons lie in layers. It is a long game building individual layers unique to our person as we grow juxtaposed with peeling back layers of those with whom with we grow with. With time comes age and with age comes complexities. The layers of life encasing us in ever expanding experience in much the same way a tree adds rings as it marks time. Good, bad, indifferent, our layers of lived experience mold and shape our true self. They mark our journey, adding dimension with shades and highlights of color. Layers are our memoir.
This is where my mind drifts when I observe flowers loaded with layers. I imagine the story each small piece has to deal. I am tempted to pluck away at each petal, enticed to sit, listen, and learn. Tucked away in each fold are countless stories, some good, some bad—some happy, some sad. Yet even with the hardship and strife mixed in with joy and triumph, it is the great whole rendered beautiful and perfect. The stories of our lives are deep and complex, and all the endless layers lend testimony to that.
Interested in buying? Purchase
June 9, 2019