From Stone to Sand — 14mm | f/2.8 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/60
The wheel of time pays little mind to the trappings of ephemeral life. Its burden is the long game. Tireless at work upon the great mill of the universe grinding all back to the stardust from whence we came. The wheel’s is a blind justice—never to grant favor, never put off its task—the laws of physics its only master. As the arrow of time points forward the blossom of our creation journeys back to dust, and onward the mill turns. On and on; working, grinding, rounding. Bringing wear to young life as it works stone to pebble to sand to dust. A spinning wheel of entropy eroding us back to our most basic of constituent parts. This is the game to which we have been cast. Forever turning. Forever worked upon at the cosmic millstone until we are cast back together shone in new light.
Join me if you will as we travel back through our internet time machine to revisit January 20, 2014. A rather cold day if I recall. Tonight I broke off from my normal photo workflow to take a stab at reprocessing an old shot from the early days of this website. It’s something I’ve never done before—up until now I have not looked back when it comes to my photography. And while I clearly remember my enthusiasm about this Dock Road photo back in the day, it has become clear to me over time that my processing game has improved. Eager to tone down the bombastic HDR I had thought I’d go ahead and apply my current techniques to make a better, more realistic image. Instead I found something even better.
Somehow I found this photo, which not only is stronger compositionally than its counterpart, it also has better colors igniting the sky. I mean just look at those purples. Before I even went about reprocessing the photo I went through all my online archives to see if I had posted this shot. I assumed it had to be online someplace. I even had this marked with five stars in Lightroom, something I rarely do. Yet everywhere I looked this shot didn’t show up. Inexplicably I missed it. Now, I had originally processed this photo using my old bad habits and that was sitting in Lightroom. Reborn I ran it through my current workflow to render this new found firestorm. What a pleasant find.
There are a few lessons to unpack here: 1) With enough practice you’re going to improve over time making it worth revisiting some old favorites you’ve already made; and 2) Sometimes, when we’re caught up in the moment of going through a day’s photographs we may overlook something. Don’t be afraid to retread and old crossing to see what treasures may be hiding in plain sight. One thing’s for sure, this has me wondering what other photographs I’ve “missed” over the years? Worthwhile shots left to sit around collecting digital dust bunnies in my Lightroom catalog. Of course sifting through tens of thousands of photographs isn’t exactly an afternoon’s work.
Something I am now chewing on is whether to revisit some old shots occasionally on this website. Perhaps start up a redux series? It wouldn’t be too often, but there are some images I’d like to take another crack at. Not to mention it can show how my work has evolved over the years. Besides, in looking through old folders I may uncover a few more gems that never saw the light of day.
Brittle fingers frozen from too much time holding a metal camera body in stiff winter winds did their worst to keep me from making this final photograph during the snow squalls last Friday. Two fistfuls of immovable digits was begging me to quit, but after making this shot I turned around toward the east only to spy a bank of pastel cumulus squall clouds and I knew my day wasn’t done—even if my hands were. With movement that would have made a rusted Tin Man seem spry I opened my trunk and painstakingly swapped my 14mm lens with my 35mm. For a moment I was worried I’d drop my equipment on account of lack of feeling. Carefully I made due.
It was only when I got into position to make my frame that I took note of the full moon rising over sunset clouds. Bonus, I thought. Chilled to the bone, I made two final shots. Oh, perhaps of some interest to my cold hand complaints: it turns out I was in position of gloves the whole time. Another thing, this is another check in the box of pros when it comes to using a tripod for landscape photography; less time holding the camera.
Moments after a snow squall moved through that wrought dramatic clouds cast in a pink orange glow, the color palette transformed almost instantaneously as a soothing sunset appeared wedged between storm cells. A five minute respite in an otherwise turbulent Friday afternoon. It was all a weather/photo geek could take. Now I’m not one to normally use parking lots as a primary feature of my landscape compositions, yet for a while now the sandy lot of what was once Rand’s Marina has caught my eye. Its pockmarked puddles with their dark pools and alluring reflections performing sublime feats with the light that dance upon their sheen have long begged for my attention. As it was I laid out a foreground and as the sun broke free just atop the horizon I was ready, camera in hand.
Cracked and Cruel — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/160
Poring over Lightroom this morning with a fresh set of eyes it seems a solid chance I will publish upward of four photographs from yesterday’s Great Bay Boulevardgolden hour shoot. While the initial shot I posted happened right in the thick of ever changing weather, I thought it best to post the remainder of the set in sequential order. This shot shares the added benefit of having similar light to yesterday’s; the others will not share such hues. Without further ado let’s talk about chronological photo number one.
Here I present a serendipitous exposure—a bank error in my favor, if you will. I forgot I had autofocus selected on my 14mm lens, a remnant from a photograph made on my last shoot. Considering it had been a couple weeks I was ripe for oversight. Remember kids, always check your gear! What could have been a costly error wound up producing an unexpectedly suitable outcome. While the focus ring had an automated mind of its own, it brought sharp focus to the center of the frame—keying on the skeletal remains of what I can only assume were once vivacious mussels—vivacious as far as bivalve mollusks go, anyway. From this unintended area of focus the sharpness decreases as it moves out throughout the rest of the frame, becoming increasingly soft at the edges adding to the sense of ruin.
Now, if you’re asking yourself how would have I made the shot had I been paying attention and took back control of my focus? Well, I would have gone with my standard play of hyperfocal distance, leaving the focus ring set a hair left of the infinite line. This would have rendered an even sharpness throughout the whole frame. In this case I think the accident is better. Camera’s computing power: 1, Greg Molyneux: 0.
Finally, a design choice I consciously made with this image came in post-processing. I’m talking about the crop. The long spanning boardwalk in the foreground had me thinking go aggressive from the get-go. With that I cropped into a very wide 3:1 ratio—my second such photo using said ratio. This brings the poor mussels situation front and center, greeting the viewer with the immediacy of the scene. This exposure was made only about an inch above the boards and this drives home the intimacy.
Strange weather has brought itself to New Jersey. In typical Mid-Atlantic March fashion we’ve seen all four seasons this month and we’ve yet to cross the Ides of March. Yesterday we saw temps approach 70 while today much of the state was greeted with slippery roads and heavy wet snowfall. Once this morning’s system moved through some snow squalls began to fire across the region—even with reports of thunders snow in Pennsylvania! You may be looking at the photograph above thinking huh, that sure looks like a thunderstorm and you wouldn’t be far off base. Snow squalls, unlike most other types of winter events, are caused from instability in the atmosphere—the same kind of dynamics that drive thunderstorms in spring and summer—unstable air with plenty of room for atmospheric lifting and you’ve got the same kind of setup, only here you’re greeted with a brief period of heavy snow.
In between about four rounds of intense snowfall over a 60 minute span, I was able to hop out of the car and make some photographs of what was a full stop dynamic sky. It’s no exaggeration to say every five minutes rendered an entirely different palette of clouds, color, and light. It was something to behold, albeit intense and cold. Considering the speed with which I needed to move around the old marina, I ditched the tripod and went exclusively handheld today. You’ll note the ISO 400 with this photograph as I needed to speed up my shutter to get to an exposure of 1/60 so as not to risk blurring the photograph with unsteady hands. I switched between my phone when the snow was heaviest, and my main camera when the precipitation stopped and the light came out to play. I’ll be posting a few more shots from this evening over the next few days, but I figured it best to get things started with the heavy hitter from a dramatic light perspective.
It’s a quarter to eight on March 2, 2017, and I am whiling away the hours until Nintendo unleashes its latest bundle of joy upon the world. As midnight strikes across timezones the world over the Nintendo Switch, and, more importantly, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will begin its quest into consumer homes and into the hands of joyous gamers. Hyrule needs saving, yo—again. My pre-orders are set to arrive sometime tomorrow and I—AM—PUMPED. I’m a lifelong Nintendo fan(boy) and Zelda is franchise number one in my little corner of the universe. I haven’t been this excited about a Zelda release since sixteen year-old me got his covetous mitts on Ocarina of Time’s golden cartridge. Those were simpler times. Before the dark times. Before the Empire—whoa, wrong beloved franchise. To further muddy the waters of fantasy confusion I am listening to the complete Lord of the Rings soundtrack as we type. Hyrules, long ago distant galaxies mentioned only in blue font trailing off to an ellipsis with one period too many, and middle earths are colliding. And what the hell, I’m wrapping up A Dance with Dragons now, too.
Anyway, throwback Thursday-ing it to a couple weeks ago when controlled burns were popping up all over Ocean County, I had another photograph that I wanted to share. A different kind of photograph featuring a different kind of composition from my usual. Many photographers readily avail themselves of trees to quite literally frame their composition, yet it hasn’t been a technique I’ve tried. Sure, I can remember being a kiddo doing pencil drawings and I would most always have half a tree posted up on either the far left or right edge of the paper. For whatever reason this hasn’t translated into my photography. I made this shot handheld as I was bouncing around Stafford Forge trying to settle upon a final, tripod worthy composition. Yet I find a lot to like in this image. The color and oh that orange glow, the grasses marking the foreground, the blown out sunset to the left, and yes, even the tree framing things up along the right and top of the photograph. But enough about me, what do you think? Oh, and seriously, check out these Zelda reviews.
After making Friday’s sunsetphotograph I turned my attention to the waterfront and decided to do things a little different. While I kept with my 14mm lens, I did switch from manual focus to autofocus and stopped up from f/8 to f/2.8—the latter being wide open on my wide angle lens. From here I opted to mess with some selective focus on a footprint marked upon the sand. I thought it might make an interesting foreground prop were I to get close enough. From a distance of roughly three inches I engaged back button focus on my camera and let technology take over the focus ring. Once it found its mark giving a reassuring beep of approval, I depressed my shutter and exhaled. Instead of rendering a tack sharp image from edge to edge of the frame, as is my usual execution when shooting wide angle landscapes, here the background is able to fade away keeping the attention on the dollop of tread upon sand. It’s easy to get stuck in our routines, executing the same process over and over, so it’s liberating to cut loose and throw a changeup every now and then. It is spring training time, after all. Baseball is back, baby!
This shoot wasn’t all sunshine and roses, however. When doing my thing in Lightroom I waffled on whether or not to go with a 3:2 ratio—what you see here—versus a 2:1 crop. I liked them both for somewhat different reasons, ultimately settling upon the former because the sunset sky is a bit more balanced with the foreground. Granted the 2:1 brought more focus on the footprint and the individual grains of sand, but there was something about leaving the upper third of the frame as sky that made me a bit unsure. Best stay with the 3:2 in the sake of balance here. Or not. As I’ve written many times, while it’s good to have our rules it is also good to break them.
False Spring — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
It’s been warm, folks. Strangely warm for February. Temperatures have ranged in the low- to mid-70s the past two days and it has many wondering if spring is already be upon us. Its tempting to give into the notion with nascent buds and bulbs beginning to show themselves early around much of the Mid-Atlantic. And while it’s easy to party like short sleeve weather is here to stay I cannot help but think back on the past few backloaded winters that have crushed any and all dreams of an early spring. With March looming I worry if we’ll pay the price for what has been otherwise a spectacular February. Will a prolonged cold snap of freezing temperatures lay waste to the early plant and flower growth leaving us with a less than stellar bloom? Time will tell—but hope springs eternal. Pardon my pun.
On Long Beach Island this evening to make photos things were less warm. While temperatures still hung in the mid-50s cold bay and ocean water cast a reminder that we’ve still got a way to go. The micro climate is always something of a marvel. My house, which sits about five miles west of this photo as the crow flies, sat a good 15 degrees warmer than our barrier island. That’s just the way it goes; late to cool down in fall thanks to warm water, and late to heat up in spring thanks to cold water. That’s the ocean, folks—it’s big and it matters.
My choice of title is surely a tie in to the early warmth and its transient tease (probably), but it’s more surely a hat tip to Mr. Cool Hat, George R. R. Martin himself. The sage of Westeros and author of A Song of Ice and Fire. The year of the false spring occurred at the time of the tourney at Harrenhal—a tournament which proved a watershed moment in triggering Robert’s Rebellion and the ensuing events that have become well known to book readers and television watchers alike. Winters are long and cold in Westeros, you guys, and climate change be damned at least we’re not dealing with the Long Night in our realm as yet. For the night is dark and full of terrors.
