Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: echinacea

  • The Small Blue

    The Small Blue

    Macro photo of eastern tailed blue butterfly atop purple coneflower.
    The Small Blue — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/500

    Editor’s note: [July 29, 2017] This is not a small blue butterfly. It is an eastern tailed blue butterfly. It’s the small thin tail that earns this distinction. Shout-out to Dave Blinder who coincidentally posted a shot of an eastern tailed blue on his Instagram today thus unveiling my error. It’s always good to learn something new. I’m keeping the title as is—it’s still a blue butterfly small in size.

    A favorite bug friend came to feast upon a favorite flower. Macro serendipity multiplied. It’s been years since I’ve photographed a small blue butterfly. (Note: This is not a small blue) So you can imagine my happiness when I spied it doing its nectar thing atop a purple coneflower.

    Outside with my gear I got to work making photos. Pleased the dive bombing carpenter bee that was harassing the silver-spotted skipper earlier had left its post, the little small blue eastern tailed blue was able to feast unmolested. While small this little fella packed plenty of courage. He paid me no mind as it drank about the coneflower, dexterously darting its tongue amid the orange spires. With notable discipline the small blue eastern tailed blue worked clockwise about the coneflower stamen at a steady pace. The predictable clockwork fashion aided my shooting. I was able to get close and anticipate its maneuvering with ease.

    From here I worked the full midday sun into advantage. It afforded fast shutter speeds to aid handheld sharpness. More beneficial, it infused the exposure with strong contrast. This creates the deep blue-black behind the small blue and amplifies the dramatic streak of highlight running atop the edge of its wings. Lending a theater quality that might shine upon the actor during her soliloquy. The small blue eastern tailed blue muse was not lost on me.

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  • Liquid Lunch

    Liquid Lunch

    Macro photo of silver-spotted skipper feeding on purple coneflower nectar.
    Liquid Lunch — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1000

    I made the most of strong midday sun and an anxious butterfly battling for a sip. While I may have contributed to this silver-spotted skipper’s general unease, to be sure it was a dive bombing carpenter bee who proved the true villain. Selfish to the last this boring bee, not content with undermining wooden structures, also suffers from an insatiable need to dominate the local plant life as well. Unprovoked harassment aside, the skittish butterfly proved tenacious and drank surreptitiously upon a purple coneflower nectar in fits and starts.

    As the drama unfold I remained the steadfast dispassionate observer. Channeling my best, albeit deficient, Sir David Attenborough, I permitted nature’s battle unmolested. Instead of meddling in the travails of bugs I sat back with my 100mm macro lens and popped off exposures. I worked close and fast relying on handheld work to make my frames.

    Five minutes feel about 20 when you’re front and center with nature. Time dilation further magnifies when viewed in macro. Tunneling focus sets in as your whole world collapses down to lens physics making large of the small. It’s as if descending into an enlarged world of minutia brings with it a slower perception of time, reinforcing its relative nature. It is not without other lessons. The speed of the big world evaporates. The worry over text messages, tweet storms, and emails that need answering two minutes before receipt fades in full. It’s as if nature is trying to tell those who will see what does indeed matter.

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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!

  • La Grain

    100mm black and white macro photograph of a purple coneflower
    La Grain — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/400

    While they may not get the same play on social media like my vibrant landscapes are wont to do, a big soft spot in my heart exists solely to express myself through the macro and black and white medium. Five minutes on a psychologist’s couch would most likely reveal this proclivity as a merger between my primary and secondary school days as something of a black and white pencil drawing enthusiast, coupled with my more recent start as a photographer who worked almost exclusively in the macro world for the better part of my first 20,000 photographs. Roots, man. You just can’t shake ’em.

    Here I’ve presented a very simple composition of one of my favorite flower subjects: the purple coneflower. Using a near side-on perspective the depth of field is quite thin. leaving only the front section of the blossom in sharp focus. Shallow depth of field brings a welcome sense of whimsy and wonder to the composition, enabling the eye to move, leaving the mind left to fill in the fuzz. By introducing noise into the photograph during post processing I intentionally wanted the resulting graininess to layer an aspect of grit and imperfection to the shot. In some ways a hat-tip to the tendency of grain to show up in old school film photography—not that I’ve ever shot a roll of film in my life. It’s OK, feel free to revoke any photographist street cred I may or may not have established up and until this point.

  • Daedalus Bid You Take Heed

    Low key abstract black and white macro photograph of a purple coneflower
    Daedalus Bid You Take Heed — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/125

    This is abstract. Is this abstract? I think this is abstract. A quick googling of abstract art returns the following—

    art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures.

    Once I decided to roll with low key black and white processing, all my mind could see is an unnamed papier-mâché sun, brooding near unseen amidst the vastness of space. The way the would-be corona is captured frozen in its solar flare tango as countless sun spots blot out the surface. This is no coneflower—this is a sun. Will our telescopes ever fix on such a sight? Of course not. But another photographer’s macro lens just might.

  • Just Missed The Round Up

    Macro photograph of a silver-spotted skipper butterfly atop a purple coneflower with a coiled proboscis
    Just Missed The Round Up — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/640

    Here’s another shot from last Sunday’s macro session. And as the title would suggest I just missed my focal point. You can see the sharpest section of the photo happening over the silver-spotted skipper’s right wing instead of its eye and proboscis—thanks Google for letting me know what a butterfly tongue is called. This mess-up could have been mitigated with 1) steadier hands, 2) a tripod, and/or 3) stopping down to let’s say f/4–4/5.6. Shallow depth of field can be a beautiful thing, but it’ll kill ya when you miss. Such is the way of things.

    Many far better photo making type peeps than I preach photographists should only show their best work, leaving the mishaps for the doldrums of our digital libraries. There’s certainly wisdom in these words, but I’ve carved my place in this hobby without paying much attention to the rules. This is not to say sound guidance is not important, I think it’s more to say that sometimes we need to make, or at least break, the rules—particularly if it’s an activity your doing for your own sanity and growth. After all how can we grow without exposing ourselves warts and all?

  • Yum Yum Bumblebee

    Macro photograph of a bumblebee collecting pollen atop a purple coneflower
    Yum Yum Bumblebee — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/320

    Slacker Greg is is running a bit of a backlog so I beggin’ your pardon if my words are short—though let’s face it you’re here for the photos and not these silly word things, right? Right!?

    Bloggers . . .

    Anyways, this photo dates back to 25th July, and you’ll see something of a theme in the next few posts—flower and insect macro hybrids. My run of buggy good luck began last Sunday, and over the course of the week netted me bumblebees, a skipper butterfly, and some kind of cool ass fly. In each instance our bug friends were using purple coneflowers or black-eyed susans as their stage. It’s a p kool feeling when your able look down the barrel of your macro lens to dial in an insect with tack sharp focus. It’s a whole new world down there. From there it really makes you wonder what things look life down in the world of the planck length.

    As for the title? This comes from a song I’ve only recently been exposed to, though I’ve been told it represents an anthem of sorts from my friends’ hooligan heyday.

    Teenagers . . .

  • Live alone in a paradise

    Vertical orientated shallow depth of field purple coneflower macro
    Live alone in a paradise — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1600

    . . . that makes me think of two.

    Here’s a flower for your Friday. I hope you enjoy it.

    This is one of my purple coneflowers that I have potted (sloppily) in my backyard. With strong light overhead, a little to my back, I fixed bayonets macro lens and popped off a few shutters. It was five minutes of awesomesauce. You should have been there. OK. Maybe not.

    Regardless, and I’ve said it before, purple coneflower are some of the best floral muses out there. A real go-to for this guy.

    Have a great weekend, everyone. Happy shutters.

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  • Touchpoints

    Square format photograph of cross processed purple coneflowers with rich bokeh and shallow depth of field
    Touchpoints — 50mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/8000

    It was just this past Sunday I dropped such deep knowledge on the Twitters. Insert very strong sarcasm. Flippancy aside I really do like the shallow depth of field. Recognizing its existence was for me revelatory. As someone who spent the better part of 30 years willfully ignorant toward anything photographic, seeing exposures for the first time elevated composition to a new plane of understanding in my sometime left dominant brain. More so, it shed light into why, despite being rather skilled with any kind of fine art pencil work, I could never grasp the nuance and subtleties of painting—I’m especially looking at you, oils. I never understood depth of field. I never saw it. It’s as simple as that. I never understood you could just blur out elements, whether in the fore, mid or back grounds, with purpose to better move the eye across your subject and through its story.

    Art, man. It sounds so simple in retrospect. But I really do like the shallow depth of field.