Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: holgate

  • Leading Lines and Lazy Misfires

    Leading Lines and Lazy Misfires

    Vertical orientation photograph with strong leading lines in the sand underneath a pastel sunset
    Leading Lines and Lazy Misfires — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6 sec

    GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE . . .

    No, original NES Link, I’m not a hungry Goriya looking for a free lunch. Instead I’m just a dude (probably hungry) who’s going to spend a few hundred words whining a bit about what might have been. I like this photograph. I like it more than the one I posted last night—and here comes the but—but man did I turn this into a rush job. A rush job thereby leaving me without the stillness and subsequent sharpness I come to expect of myself and my photographs. Sure there’s a time and a place for soft edges and blurred lines, this was not one of those times.

    It’s not uncommon for me to remove my camera body from its tripod head once I’ve settled on my shot of the night. Last night was no different. With a few minutes of time to kill, and a stunning pastel light show happening opposite of sunset over the ocean toward the northeast, I popped off a few handheld shots. Here’s where the lazy misfire comes into play. In my haste to make a shot I should have noticed that my shutter speed was down to 1/6 of one second. At a 14mm focal length this pushes sharpness to its limits. As a general rule when I am photographing handheld I try to never shoot at a shutter speed less than the focal length of my lens. So if I’ve got my 100mm on I tend to stay north of 1/100 of a second; rocking my nifty fifty I stay above 1/50, and so it goes. Of course there are exceptions, and if I take the time to still my legs, slow my inhale and depress the shutter in between breaths, I am able to push this further but I digress.

    I took neither the time nor the care to make sure I was appropriately still yesterday, and have been kicking myself for it ever since seeing this shot in Lightroom. In hindsight I should have done one of two things: 1) move my tripod to reposition for this shot, rendering the sharpest and cleanest possible outcome, or 2) I at least should have dialed up my ISO to 400 to give me a quicker shutter speed for a sharper image. (At 400 ISO the shutter would be 4 times faster than at 100 while at the same aperture).

    Now if you’re sitting back looking at this photo thinking Greg, you’re crazy! well you wouldn’t be wrong, but you also wouldn’t be entirely right. Viewed small enough this photograph appears quite sharp, quite clean. But if you blow it up and look close enough, particularly at the shells in the sand, you will clearly see the absence of sharpness. The ghosting around the shells gives my misfire away. It shows just enough camera shake during the 1/6 exposure. Enough shake to keep this from being a candidate for any kind of medium to large print. Le sigh. As to whether this is a lesson learned the hard way, we shall see. If you made it this far thanks for listening to me vent, I think it’s important to openly share our mistakes.

  • Holgate Time

    Holgate Time

    Landscape photograph of Holgate, NJ, beaches under a pastel winter sunset
    Holgate Time — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Holgate, New Jersey. Long Beach Island’s southern most tip makes for some high drama in the dead of winter. Considering its south-by-southwest orientation it aligns splendidly for the southwest sunsets that render over the winter months; giving photographers options to shoot toward the southwest, or to maintain a southeastern angle to work the shore break into the frame. (As I did in the photo above.) I can’t act like Holgate was my idea. All hats be tipped—real or imagined—go to Jeff Ruemeli who called me a little after 2:00 p.m. to let me know he had it on good authority that winter storm Jonas wreaked some havoc down there, and he had heard other photographer’s lauding its praises.

    While I did Instagram a cellphone photograph of one of the uncovered jetties, I went with a more conventional exposure for my main image. The undulating sand was impossible to ignore, and after a brief warm up in the car, I set to working out how best to convey the pattern. Admittedly I struggled determining the optimal height to expose the photo. I wanted to get close enough to draw the eye to the reticulated sand, but still wanted to ensure the shore break was discernible across the center of the image.

    I went back and forth between posting this or a vertical orientation exposure that I made handheld from a single frame. While I compositionally prefer the other shot, because it was handheld at a somewhat sluggish 1/6 of a second shutter it just wasn’t quite as sharp as it needed to be. Certainly not sharp enough to render cleanly at a large enough size. Imperfections aside I still may post it here tomorrow as the leading lines of the photo are a real standout. We’ll see.

    Big time shout out to the kite surfer battling the elements and working the shore break big time. He owned that steady wind out of the south-southeast, and was riding with noteworthy balance and endurance. He went non-stop for what must have been an hour, seldom if ever coming off his board. Yeah, and it wasn’t exactly warm out there, either. Cheers, buddy.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Bayside Living

    High drama at sunset befalls a lone house sitting along the bayfront of Little Egg Harbor in this HDR sunset photograph
    Bayside Living — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Made just last night, I can assure you the light chasing on Long Beach Island’s southern tip was spectacular. A+ conditions, really. With pockets of haze and roiling cumulus clouds rolling west to east the setup was spectacular; late day light was creating all kinds of unique effects rendering ideal conditions for what’s easily the best photograph I’ve made in months—at least as far as I’m concerned.

    After bouncing around from spot to spot, we ultimately settled on this Holgate bayside locale to make photographs. This little hideaway Holgate park on the eastern shore of Little Egg Harbor, coupled with the hallmark cedar siding and the sharp lines on the edifice of this bayfront property seen above, provided a spot on composition as far as I’m concerned. The intense light bouncing off the clouds created an intense gradient of yellow to blue as you let your eyes move from left to right across the photograph. I think it might be a while before I make another shot that trumps last night’s drama.

    Last night was easily the most fun I’ve had behind the camera in months.

    Interested in buying? Purchase

  • Get thee to the beach

    Get thee to the beach

    An HDR photograph taken on the beaches of Holgate, NJ just after a late winter sunset. Featuring a soft pastel sky with algae laden jetty rock marking the sandy foreground.
    Get thee to the beach — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Pardon the directive—this title is mostly intended as a self-serving reminder to get my butt to the beach more often. But if you can make it, well then you should too! Living mere miles away I’ll readily admit I don’t capitalize on the natural splendor looming just to the east nearly enough. It’s hard to pinpoint the hangup/excuse but with views like the one above I clearly need to get there more often. Camera in hand since I’m an embarrassment on a surfboard.

    This past Saturday I ventured all the way down to Long Beach Island’s southern-most point—Holgate, NJ. There I met up with friends and what seemed like 5 or 6 dozen other revelers to take in the wonderful weather, low tide, and stellar sunset that Mother Nature was promising. Initially concerned I’d have my shot impacted by the sizable winter crowd, I staked my claim to the jetty rocks you see above. I didn’t venture far from my spot for the next 50 minutes or so worried I’d lose it and my precious foreground. And other than a temporary scare of 2 exuberant young photographers running around trying to capture seagull shots, my viewfinder went unimpeded. Fist bump.

    Unrelated: it’s New Year’s Eve—I hope everyone has a great night and an even better 2015. Cheers and thanks for being a part of the first year of my website!

  • A change in the weather

    A black and white HDR photograph of fierce clouds, a tidal pool and undulating sands on the beach in Holgate, NJ.
    A change in the weather — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Holgate, New Jersey. Back to where it all began. This is the photograph. The date? January 1, 2012. I didn’t know it at the time, but this began a 365 day (366, it was a leap year) photo project that would later transform into a full on passion. I am thankful for life and its odd twists of fate.

    As for tonight’s shoot? I was hopeful the clouds would break just enough to allow sunset to do its thing. That never really happened, but for tonight that was OK. With storm clouds moving through in advance of tomorrow’s rain-out, the clouds were plenty dramatic. Combine that with the tidal pools and undulating sand patterns marking the foreground, and I had the ingredients for solid landscape photo. Considering the abundance of grey the stretched on for miles, I had a notion I may go black and white for the final processing choice. Once I got home and went monochrome with Silver Efex Pro 2 my decision was made.

    Oh, and speaking of weather—it may snow for Thanksgiving, New Jersey.

  • A homecoming of sorts

    Manahawkin, NJ, photographer Greg Molyneux's HDR photograph of Holgate, NJ at sunset. This HDR photograph overlooks the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge
    A homecoming of sorts — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 3 Bracketed Exposures

    The prodigal son returns. Or the fool finds his roots. Or whichever yarn you’d like to spin this is where it all began. Just north of two years back I embarked on what would become my photographic journey—right here at this very spot in Holgate, New Jersey. Only I didn’t know it at the time. That one innocent photowalk down a section of the eastern shore of the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge on one a seasonably warm New Year’s Day; that one innocuous macro shell and here’d I be two years and some forty thousand picture later blogging about it on my own photography website. Sometimes life is strange.

    As I made my way around the refuge today it dawned on me just how much territory on this isthmus there is to explore despite the fact that access on the bayside western shore is restricted to protect the wildlife. I stopped for a second to chat with a local, an elderly gentleman who noted the southern tip of the refuge made its way three miles to the south where a micro sized Atlantic City looms. For another day, I quipped. Short on daylight, and therefore time, I made my way back to the jetty rock. Jetty rock that had been laid waste by years of violent storms—Sandy of course topping the list.

    It was here that I made my stand. Here that I made my shot for this story. Here I shall return for future sunsets as this locale offers both potential and an important link to the past.