Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: little egg harbor

  • Respite

    Respite

    14mm blue hour photo of a calm Little Egg Harbor. Using left to right panning to create a smooth motion blur.
    Respite — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/13

    Obligatory it’s been a while. I have no idea what is going on with my photography these days. I find myself mired in this strange in between space of wanting to make more photos again, and an unwillingness to make any kind of time for it. This polarity and my habit of hesitation has put any chance of a break through into suspended animation. If I want to get back after I need to build back with discipline and active purpose.

    Further complicating all this indecision is the fact I miss writing on this here website. If only for my own practice, having this space to put down my thoughts alongside my photography creates my own little paper trail. A small proof of my inner workings, breadcrumbs feeding my own development across the years. I enjoy the process of scouting the late afternoon sky, going to the marsh, framing an exposure, returning home to filter and process, and then to wrap it all up with a blurb that may or may not have anything to do with my image. It is this sounding pangs of this urge that call me back the loudest.

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  • The Line

    The Line

    35mm blue hour photograph with the bay in the foreground and a razor thin strip of Long Beach Island in the background. Panning and a slow shudder brings motion blur into the peaceful, minimalist image.
    The Line — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 0.4 sec

    Hello website, I am back. Back to autumn. Back to September 25, 2021. To the same Cedar Run Dock Road evening where I made another motion blur pan shot photograph, Peace Where We Can. In a trick of light, The Line is cast in the moody blue tones of the eponymous blue hour. Meanwhile Peace Where We Can smolders in the waning embers of sunset. Now you might be saying so what? Well so what is that I photographed The Line first. Depending on the direction you look the last light of day refracts different. More so it changes by the moment. These fluid transformations require the greatest focus of observation. Move your eyes across the whole ring of the horizon less you never see what colors behind you.

    Let’s talk nuts and bolts. This is a stripped down, minimalist image. It’s monochrome color scheme and open space allows the mind to range free. Your mind wants to build a boat to paddle out over to the far horizon. A razor’s edge at the end of the world. Is it a barrier? A gateway? A threshold? Is it the last refuge or the first place of welcome? Or maybe it’s just a place where people eat french fries? Well, it’s sort of all of that. It’s Long Beach Island. The line at the edge of my world since 1993. A place I’ve long looked out upon but never quite understood. Somehow always feeling a touch too far out to sea. My very own Tol Eressëa.

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  • Peace Where We Can

    Peace Where We Can

    35mm blue hour photo with motion blur and slow shutter speeds bringing paint brush movement to the shimmering bay water and soothing skies.
    Peace Where We Can — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/4 sec

    Sitting here on a Thursday evening staring October in the face. Touching up some photographs. Typing up a blog post. Trying to relax.

    At a MacBook Pro I make words, build phrases, and complete sentences. Backlit and soundtracked by the baseball game, moody blue lounge light painting the walls. Baseball game only ever means one thing in my world: Yanks vs. Whomever. Tonight’s Whomever being the young, powerful, and surging, Toronto Blue Jays. Locked in a late season struggle with a playoff berth on the line, this series finale has a season at stake. I can only hope the Bombers come out on top.

    In my mind I think it feels nice to have a new photograph to share. I’ve favored a simpler process and minimalist composition of late. These motion blur style photographs in particular. Bringing movement into my presentation of the New Jersey coast gives me a different kind of voice. Softer, and less heavy-handed. A little less tyranny by the artist. I’m producing imagers distilled to more basic form, leaving the viewer with more space to imprint their own emotions, feelings, and memories onto their scene. This makes it simpler for everybody, and I like that.

    Moments of respite have proven elusive, and we’d all do well to come together, embrace more humility, and find peace where we can.

    #YankeesOnly

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  • 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.

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  • Our Light Fades

    Our Light Fades

    35mm photo capturing a golden sunset lighting the calm water of Little Egg Harbor to mark 2019 winter solstice.
    Our Light Fades — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/100

    It’s been a week. Life is a series of give and take, and right now it is hellbent on dealing blows and stripping away happiness. It is a dark time. In light of my struggles I wish you well in your escape from the shadows.

    Light kneeling before dark, while cold and uncertain, is the appropriate segue today, December, 21, 2019. Yes, it is to the winter solstice I refer. Documented above, photographed in 35mm, we meet with its final light of day. Captured at 4:35 p.m., at the Cedar Run Dock Road boat ramp staring west across Little Egg Harbor, the sun embarks on its longest journey through darkness. Long will it labor until its shadowed path brings us first light. A rebirth to our celestial cycle will illuminate dreams cast upon a distant horizon.

    This photograph was simple in its execution. Shot handheld at a focal length of 35mm. This casual approach fit well with the stillness of the bay water. Calm and sublime. It was only my second frame of my total shoot—I made many more exposures at 14mm—yet its minimalism and stillness speaks to me. Wanting to key in on forms and color, I substantially reduced clarity and texture in post processing. This introduces softness and comfort to the scene. I suspect this is my own feelings crying out for softness and comfort. As it is life informs art as art informs life.

    Enjoy the solstice, and happy holidays everyone.

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  • 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?

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  • Golden Glow Before the Snow

    Golden Glow Before the Snow

    Golden hour photo lights the sky over calm bay water.
    Golden Glow Before the Snow — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/160

    You could say this photograph is the golden calm before the white storm. The spring tease before the winter freeze. Today southern New Jersey danced with the upper 60s but make no mistake—winter is coming. Here in the Mid-Atlantic we find ourselves sandwiched between unseasonably warm air, an arctic air mass, and a boatload of moisture ready to wring out on the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast regions. Despite being a fast mover, snowfall rates approaching 3 inches per hour are not out of the question—nor is an embedded rumble of thunder. Cue Cantore. Atmospheric dynamics have loaded this cauldron and its been set to flame on its road to boil. Bring it, I say.

    Considering the current weather situation it was counterintuitive taking in the warmth as I stood along a section of seawall adjacent to Little Egg Harbor. The bay water sat calm with only the wrinkles of a slept in sheet stretched across an unmade bed. Fresh salt air and a false warmth had me thinking of little else but the spring and summer to come. As I casually made a few handheld exposures with my 14mm lens, some other photographers arrived on scene, long lenses in tow on the lookout for owls and other seabirds. I’m not sure their quest was successful, but considering the weather it was hard to call any time spent outside today a failure. Ah, I can still smell the sweet air.

    Today’s photograph is continuing something of a minimalist trend I’ve got going on. This marking four of my past five shots made handheld and relying on simple, unobtrusive compositions. I’m taken by the open feel and golden tones, accented by the gentle wrinkles reflecting the golden hour sky atop an easy going bay. Simple. Clean. Calm. Nothing overdone—just a wide open space for the viewer to explore. It’s good to remind ourselves that sometimes less is more.

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  • Goodbye Sun

    Goodbye Sun

    Motion blur sunset photo of pastel clouds and calm bay water.
    Goodbye Sun — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/15

    Welcome back to Standard Time!—ugh. If you’ll allow me this moment for an airing of grievances. No fan am I of the cyclical cessation of Daylight Savings Time. Being a veteran on team Not A Morning Person I need to milk as much evening daylight as possible. Were it up to me we’d bask in perpetual latter day light on the forever Daylight Savings side of things—no more of the falling back/springing forward nonsense. I’ll concede the one day we get an extra hour of sleep is nice and all, but really it’s just a cheap marketing gimmick to help us try to feel better about ourselves; and let’s keep it real, when it’s ripped away from us each spring keyboard warriors take to Facebook and decry the personal affront felt by all. And while I’m sure many of you may find appeal in a world of no more time shifts I suspect you may find your allegiances hitched up to the Standard Time bandwagon. That’s OK but I’d like to ask just one thing: is the thought of 4:00 a.m. sunrises in summer really that appealing? No thank you, I will take my 8:00 p.m. summer sunsets year in and year out.

    Quick photo talk time. I hit up Dock Road yesterday afternoon around 5:30—see the sun already sets early enough as it is!—and while it’s no doubt my go-to spot I wound up shooting from a vantage point I’ve yet to use in my half decade of photographing. Down at the far southeast end I posted up at the bulkhead of Stafford Municipal Boat Ramp and shot out over the bay with a southeast orientation. The light was great, and the clouds milling about the horizon were pretty great, too. Ditching the tripod and my usual bracketing I went handheld and executed my little motion blur technique—the one where I intentionally create a blurry, out of focus look on the exposure. Adding a bit of motion that brings a more painterly feel; it pairs nicely here with the otherwise minimalist look of the frame. That’s it for me, enjoy your next few months of 5:00 p.m. darkness.

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  • Southside on the Bayside

    HDR sunset photograph of clouds, water, boats, docks and light made from Beach Haven, LBI. overlooking Little Egg Harbor
    Southside on the Bayside — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    I’ve got 18.6 miles of opportunity just to my east. It’s time I embrace it. Long Beach Island is a wonderful place—and now that I’ve found purpose by way of camera—I want to connect with my geographic neighbor better. See it in a better light if you’ll excuse me the super cheesy phrase. Particularly I want to scout LBI’s southern side. A place I’ve spent plenty of formative time growing up failing to appreciate what was staring my square in the face. There’s got to be plenty of great places to make photographs over there, and I want to find them.

    As for this here photograph? It was made last night on the west end of Engleside Avenue in Beach Haven. Just outside the newly opened Tucker’s (it’s good to see that back). It’s a simple parking lot overlooking some docks and Little Egg Harbor. This time of year, late Spring, offers a straight away view of the sunset. Allowing you to really line it up if that’s your thing.

    Conditions were pretty great last night, cloud wise. A small cell with heavy downpours managed to form just to my south. For a moment there seemed a real chance lightning might happen. While that never materialized, it was a quality shoot all-in-all. Minus the bugs. To hell with them.