Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: salt marsh

Play Your Hand
Play Your Hand — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/50
Your eyes do not deceive you. This is a blurry photograph. Its execution by design. Why? you may ask. While the question gets right to the heart of it, my answer makes up with simplicity what it lacks in profundity. Personal style. As simple as I like it. Every now and then when I am out shooting I will take the camera handheld, hold it out in front of my chest at a comfortable arm’s length, and rotate at the hips panning from left to right parallel to the horizon at an even pace. During the rotation I will depress the shutter to create an image that introduces motion blur, intentionally removing sharp focus from the exposure.
While it’s hard to articulate exactly why I like this atypical landscape I think it comes down to a few attributes. First is movement. Motion blur adds a rotational element giving the viewer a sensation of spin. Look up at the clouds. Do you see the parabolic swoop from left to right that plunges downward toward the horizon at the center of the photo? Good. Notice how its inverse arcs with a rainbow arch at the bottom of the frame? Perfect. If you drew a line vertically in the center of the photo it would appear as though this image is spinning like a top. Reflective of the earth itself spinning about its axis. For me it’s a photographic reminder that we’re all objects set constantly in motion.
Second is form. When you strip away a photograph from its sharply focused constituent parts you’re left with its raw elements. Its shape. Its essence. With the sharpness gone you don’t have to become bogged down in the details. Instead I invite you to take in the elements of the photograph on a more holistic level. What do you see in this photograph even though you can’t see it well? The clouds? The tide pool? Or is it a pond? Is that marsh? A wheat field? Or something else? How does your mind fill in the details? I suspect our answers may differ as our own preconceived notions will render this image to our own bias. Is that a house to the left on the horizon? A car? Maybe a boat? These questions, are they necessary or are they beside the point? Like this photograph the answer is purposefully blurred.
Interested in buying? Purchase
October 19, 2016
Fire on the Horizon
Fire on the Horizon — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/60
This photograph is raw. Hardly the polished HDR landscape propped up by a firm tripod and bracketed exposures I usually produce. Here things are basic and flawed. As intense golden hour light poured over the Cedar Run Dock Road marsh on Sunday I was having a ball walking around popping off single frame hand shot exposures. It’s liberating to break away from the stationary tripod life sometimes. Pacing the roadside back and forth my eyes settled upon a pool of water wedged between the road’s shoulder and the marsh itself. A few inches of fresh rain left plenty of water throughout the wetlands, and the reflection on the still puddle commanded my attention. From there the process was pretty low-tech—squat low and place the camera about two inches above the water level, roughly a foot away from the edge of the marsh grass and squeeze the shutter. I wanted to capture a blown out sun and lens flare through the grass while capturing clouds in the water’s reflection. I am pleased with the quick execution of an otherwise spontaneous plan.
This lyrically inspired photo title goes to the excellent reggae band, Stick Figure. “Fire on the Horizon” is track one off their 2015 album, Set in Stone. Kudos to Ben Wurst for cluing me in to this band. Solid grooves, folks. Solid grooves.
Interested in buying? Purchase
October 12, 2016
Real Feel
Real Feel — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I’m not above cliché and could easily drop the ubiquitous Winter is Coming—but I won’t. Instead, and as you might have guessed, I will talk about the cold’s arrival Sunday evening out on Cedar Run Dock Road. A sharp north wind bore down over the open marsh carrying with it a bitter message, howling of our frozen fate to come. Everything about the hour long photo session fast-forwarded the fall to winter progression in the collapsed space of a fading afternoon. From the vision enhancing crystal clear air, to the stoked northerlies painting the unmistakeable blue color that only shows when the temperatures fall. Yes, the cold is coming, but so too is the prospect of the magnificent skies only a winter can bring. Here’s to freezing our butts off in anticipation of the next great season of sunset photography. My memory card is ready, my hands are not.
Interested in buying? Purchase
October 11, 2016
Eye Up
Eye Up — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I made this sunset photograph Monday, October, 3 out at my usual Cedar Run Dock Road stomping grounds. Conditions were solid and after several weeks of little to no shooting it was worthwhile just to be out there. I could nitpick the low-level clouds over the horizon that kept things from really exploding after the sun slipped below, but coming out a week of endless clouds and rain I was, and am still, in no position to complain.
Let’s get wonky
While I took time on Tuesday to run through my usual Lightroom to Photomatix and back to Lightroom workflow, I was too lazy to blog it up and fire it off for modest internet consumption. Taking a second look today, Wednesday, I started having second thoughts: I hemmed and hawed between two similar compositions with the lone difference being their perspective by way a horizon placement at the middle of the frame vs. placement of the horizon at the lower third—which is the photo shown above. It took a long hot shower and some dinner to move me to a decision.
As a general rule—and remember rules are made to be broken—I prefer a center mass horizon; this is especially true when working at wide angles. This minimizes the distortion caused by sharp angles diving toward the image’s vanishing point, which is exacerbated when you position the horizon in either the top or bottom third. In this case I deviated from standard operating procedure on account of ample cloud action to fill the upper two-thirds coupled with a less than stellar foreground of repetitive marsh grass. Were the horizon to be placed center frame the tide pool slides back to the middle ground and loses a touch of prominence. By taking a composition that favors sky real estate the tide pool is brought forward in the lower third—this has an added benefit insofar as the clouds are better reflected than its center horizon counterpart.
Did I make the right decision? Who knows? This line of thinking may be pedantic but there’s benefits in challenging your own workflows and assumptions. The right balance of purposeful critique measured against the pitfalls of perfectionism will help drive you forward in any of your life’s endeavors. Or it’ll just drive you nuts.
Interested in buying? Purchase
October 5, 2016
Still the Sirens Call
Still the Sirens Call — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Listen with care to this, now, and a god will arm your mind. Square in your ship’s path are Seirênês, crying beauty to bewitch men coasting by; woe to the innocent who hears that sound!
Lady Kirkê, in spite of her transformative machinations that rendered men into swine, offered warning to Odysseus when discussing possible routes for a treacherous return to Ithaca. For after passing the Sirens Odysseus would have to make a choice.
It is easy to bow at the feet of the enchanted. To fall prey to the allure of false confidence when faced with sights so beautiful and sounds so serene. A transcendent manifestation of the senses that can bring even the most wary among us to feed at the palm of a menacing stranger’s hand.
As I stood along the banks of Cedar Run—that’s the creek you see before you—mind, body, and soul spirited to sanctuary where the pressing needs of the worlds demands were nary a whisper in the dark. A 360 degree Shambhala sparked to light in a ring of fire as the sky ignited around me in a chorus of pink, yellow, purple, and orange. Entranced in the wake of a sunset the likes of which I’d seldom seen a subtle symphony of sounds joined in to call me to the sea. Seduced, thoughts no more tangible than the moment of creation melded as one, fused in the blank canvas of a mind that for a brief unhurried moment knew no bounds. At complete peace, exposed to the reality around me.
As the blaze burned down to ember I stepped back from my malaise, freed from an enchantment of which I was so wholly subsumed to remember fell deeds awake. The extratropical remnants of Hermine will be impacting the immediate Mid-Atlantic coast in the coming days, and we’d do well to heed Kirkê’s warning and steer clear of the Sirens’ call. We must remain vigilant and whole for someplace far away Penelope is always waiting.
Interested in buying? Purchase
September 3, 2016
Transition
Transition — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
The calendar has flipped. September is here and with it meteorological fall. You see for meteorologists—of which I am not—the seasons align a bit different from the astronomical seasons of which we’re all quite familiar. Among mets winter runs December 1–February 28; spring occurs March 1–May 30; summer spans June 1—August 31; with fall happening September 1–November 30 on the calendar. So in some circles we’ve come to the fall season—if only technically. Yesterday on the Cedar Run Dock Road marsh evidence of the fall transition was all over the place—seabirds in lesser numbers, our sun setting much earlier, and perhaps most obvious to me, an increase in yellows and browns festooned over marshland that grows more dormant by the day.
For the landscape photographer the palette of early fall colors integrated in the marsh grass creates opportunity for visually appealing images full of depth and contrast. Things are even better when you have an ideally positioned cumulus cloud in the sky illuminated in rich pastels of the setting sun. Better still is when it aligns just so as to reflect pink and purple hues in a well positioned tide pool. It may not be a seven letter Scrabble worthy triple word score that has a ‘z’ in it, but hey, it wracks up a few points on an intangible scorecard somewhere.
While we’re on the topic of transition our weather along the coastal Mid-Atlantic is about to take a serious turn. The remnants of Hurricane Hermine are now moving through eastern North Carolina (as of 3:00 p.m. EDT on 9/2/2016) where it will eventually eject out over the relatively warm water of the Atlantic Ocean. From there forecast models continue to look worse and worse for my area—southern coastal New Jersey. As this storm slides northeast over water plenty warm enough to reignite storm growth allowing a transition back to a warm core system, Hermine may again return to hurricane status as it eyes up our vulnerable shoreline. My concern is growing by the hour, and for folks living on the water please stay vigilant and heed any and all warnings and emergency response team recommendations. I’m sure I’ll have more on this in the coming days. Suffice to say the marsh you see above, and have seen so many times in my photographs, will be under feet of water as Hermine pounds the region with days of potentially dangerous storm surge.
Interested in buying? Purchase
September 2, 2016
I’ve Been Searching for a Marsh of Gold
I’ve Been Searching for a Marsh of Gold — 35mm | f/5.6 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/800
Vantage points matter. Not just in photography but in life as well. If we keep looking out at the Candy Land game board of human existence from the same height, the same level, we’re bound to miss out on new perspective and ostensibly new ideas. Our dice roles repeatedly coming up snake eyes and into the Molasses Swamp we sink. Ofttimes the same old thing may may breed new life when seen from a different visual plane. So get out there—look up, look down, get on your hands and knees and climb high to peer out over a sugar-fused world.
Of course being a south Jersey flatlander the climb high bit is at times wee problematic. Especially if you’re not toting a 30 foot ladder in your back pocket. Enter Long Beach Island and its litany of rooftop decks. But please, no trespassing. More specific to this example is the top deck at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences. Flanking the main building to the north is a wing of classrooms, and above said classrooms sits one of many rooftop deck devices. Here one is afforded a primetime view out over the bayside marsh to the west. Romance optional. From this vantage point viewers are treated to an unimpeded view of about 300 yards of pristine salt marsh. From there the marsh bleeds out to the bay—deep breath… ah! Better still is the view off to the distance of both an osprey platform and its subsequent osprey blind—perfect for up close and personal bird watching. (Alas they’re quite small in this photograph, but if you squint hard enough and tap your toes three times you’ll see them. Or you could just click the last two links to see the YouTube videos.)
Interested in buying? Purchase
August 24, 2016
Up Sky
Up Sky — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Howdy, folks. I’ve been off the sunset grind for a few weeks now. And as I bust out my handy-dandy excuse maker’s guide the half-finished flowchart reveals it’s a combination of conflicting schedules, lots of storm action, overcast skies, work, and also a human need to relax a bit. In the absence of anything recent, I’m throwing it back to July 20, 2016, where I already posted one killer sunset from a high caliber evening of Good Shots™. As much as I may not want to admit it summer has begun to wind down. Le sigh. While we’re still a few months away from the Great Browning, an astute observer will have already noted the day shortening sculptor chipping away at both ends. While I’ll be sad to see the summer glory go, there’s much to be excited for as the year winds down. Most notably: sunsets. (And MakersFest!) Sure the days will shorten and the air will grow cold, but with it will come a steady stream of sparkling evening skies. For now, though? Let’s keep this summer fire burning. Cheers!—and as you were.
Interested in buying? Purchase
August 2, 2016
Weather Moves
Weather Moves — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/4
Monday, July 25, 2016, saw severe thunderstorms batter much of the mid-Atlantic; the early morning hours featured the first round, a natural alarm clock potent in its own right, only to be outdone by the main event during the afternoon and evening hours. The widespread storm outbreak managed to hold together all the way to the New Jersey coast. The perfect storm of high CAPE values, substantial sheer, diurnal heating, and sky high dew points and temperatures fostered a caustic atmosphere for powerful storm development and continuation of the line for hundreds of miles.
Out on Cedar Run Dock Road, Weather NJ’s JC and I did our best to document the essence of the storm. While I didn’t pull down any good lightning shots—they continue to elude me—I did manage to make a few photographs that convey the anger and intensity of the sky and the subsequent winds that came with it. Even in the shot above, which was made a good 15 minutes before the severe warned storm hit, you get a sense for the ferocious nature of the ever changing cloud deck. Converging air masses were seemingly ripping the sky apart. The marsh betrays the wind intensity that would be otherwise invisible to a photograph. Even at a 1/4 second shutter speed, you can clearly see the foreground marsh grass folding like a tent. At this point I would guess winds were in the 30 MPH range. (With peak storm nearly doubling that speed.)
On a personal level the pressure of the moment becomes a lot to deal with. You know you’re under the gun. You know strong winds and high voltage is fast approaching. You know wind driven rain will soon be upon you rendering a camera effectively useless thanks to soaked lenses. Rolling thunder in the distance coupled with lightning strikes on the horizon gets the heart rate up, and it’s a real struggle against nature and your best instinct to remain calm and patient enough to make good shots. It’s a far cry from the relaxed pace of a predictable, slow moving sunset that’s for sure. Of course, it’s this adrenaline surge that’s a big part of the fun.
In the meantime I have one or two other photos to post from Monday, and JC went live on the Weather NJ Facebook page and produced the following video (approximately 36,000 views at the time of this posting!) documenting deteriorating conditions peak storm. Check it out.
Interested in buying? Purchase
July 27, 2016