Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: salt marsh

  • Be Here Now

    Be Here Now

    14mm wide angle sunset photo made over a browning late fall salt marsh. Cotton candy pastel clouds stretch across the sky in all directions, mirrored in tide pool reflections.
    Be Here Now — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Here’s a little break from the motion blur pan shot motif I’ve been running with of late. A return to the familiar if you will. Tack sharp sunset shots from the salt marsh with loads of unwanted alliteration. The old familiar. Like putting on a well worn pair of jeans everything feels as it should. Comfortable. Familiar. Ready.

    I made this photo on November 7, and as this image suggests the first sunset of daylight standard time was, in a word, lit. 360 degrees of pastel wonder. Cotton candy gossamer stretched across the sky. A big warm blanket ready to welcome you home. The kind of bed canopy you wish you had.

    This is like couch time after a long day of work. And seeing how there’s been long work days a plenty, and I finally got myself a couch, well, you’re stuck with similes like this. But don’t worry, fans of said motion blur pan shots, I made some of those on November 7, too. I will look to have them up and on this here blog in the coming days. In the meantime I do hope you enjoy this precursor to the powerhouse sunset season that is winter.

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  • Shinespark

    Shinespark

    35mm motion blur sunset photo of New Jersey salt marsh in autumn. Panning creates a left to right streak blurred abstraction of Samus Aran's shinespark racing across the sky.
    Shinespark — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 0.3 sec

    Warning: Incoming middle aged Nintendo fanboy nerd alert post coming in hot. Metroid Dread launched a week ago today, and holy smokes I still can’t believe it. Mainline Metroid. In 2D. A new release. On a console. In the year of our Covid two thousand and twenty one?! Oh. My. God. I cannot.

    I’ve been tearing through Planet ZDR each night ever since. Headphone cans fixed snug. Living room chair. Locked in. Side scrolling glory taking me from one power up to the next, with sinister bads set to destroy me at every turn. Metroid at its best is a masterclass in environmental storytelling. The visual design signaling desolation where the native flora and fauna make it clear you stand alone. Isolation and hostility are the only constants. The entirety of the world wants to see you dead, drawn and quartered, wholly unworthy of the vacuum of space. And damn is it so good, and so hard, and so good. Samus never controlled anywhere near this good. The developers at MercurySteam crushed it. The game is hard, yet fair, and over time Samus romps to such power and heights, a triumphant reward for all the tribulations and Game Over screens. Clack-clack, here comes an E.M.M.I. Did I mention this game is good?

    So what in the hell does that have to do with this post, photograph, or website? I’m here for the pretty stuff not this geekspeak worth at least 12 noogies and 20 minutes in a locker. Well one of the moves legendary intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran acquires in her serial planet storming romps is the speed booster. Along with said speed booster comes the ultimate boon to Metroid speed runners the world over: Shinespark. Speed boost to shinespark sends Samus hurtling at meteoric speeds, turning her into a literal tunnel busting speed bullet. Glowing like a comet streaking across the sky all you see is a luminous blur of pure energy and awe. And that’s this photo. Samus streaking across the horizon left to right. A sunset shinespark blazing into night.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a game to play.

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  • Lone

    Lone

    35mm panning shot photo of a New Jersey salt marsh at sunset. Late summer green marsh gives way to orange and yellow hues in a landscape picture blurred by motion.
    Lone — 35mm | f/5.6 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6 sec

    The space between solitude and loneliness is a chasm of untold depth and paradoxical closeness. Two simultaneous contrasts holding true together. An oxymoron somehow leaving us near and far, in the same space at the same time. Reach out with an outstretched arm from either side and would be fingers of welcome near on touch. Michelangelo knew what he was doing atop a small chapel ceiling of some renown.

    Yet between this space sits a rift, vast and brooding. A jagged cleft of ineffable depth. It is unseeable, unknowable. It is perilous. Our own earthly black hole, it, too, leaving no possibility for escape. Like its cosmic counterpart, it’s a barrier which may as well be infinite. And yet to the observer much is open to interpretation with the observer filling in their own story. Left to imprint their bias onto the station of others. We think we see what is happening, and yet, we do not see. All because this proximal closeness between unbreakable loneliness and fulfilled solitude somehow coexist.

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  • Blue Too

    Blue Too

    14mm wide angle photograph of an ox bow feature on Cedar Run Dock Road's salt marsh at blue hour. A hint of pink clouds twinkle in the watery reflection.
    Blue Too — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1.0 sec

    So, who else is completely shot? Roasted slow, spinning over open flame and then twice baked in an oven or three. I am spent ash, fiery embers long sent to dust. A charcoal remembrance scribbled upon ever darkening cave walls of a collapsing mind. Once there was life here.

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  • The Call Back

    The Call Back

    35mm out of focus photo of Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh made with motion blur by panning the camera left to right.
    The Call Back — 35mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6 sec

    For the first time in at least three years my urge to make more photographs—better photographs—is waxing. The call back to capture the beauty of our backyard grows louder with each passing day. My interest in this craft waned to its nadir this past spring, and I legit thought myself ready to hang ’em up. Hell, I thought giving up my gear to more appreciative hands may be the best way to move on. Instead I held on and secretly hoped for inspiration in some lesser explored corner in my mind.

    Inspiration came, though not as altruistic as I would hope. Instead ego took the wheel; nothing like some wounded pride to get you back in the driver’s seat. Perhaps there is some ten year irony at work? Seeing it was something other than moral rectitude which first motivated my pursuit of this hobby a decade ago. Whatever the merits of the impetus the call back has me wanting more.

    Considering the importance of growth and evolution I want to study further the execution of intentionally blurred photographs. Breaking down color and shape into more flowing forms. Using minimalist aspects to represent the glorious nature of our home turf. I have sprinkled motion blur shots like this into my landscape rotation over the years—now is the time to explore further this passion.

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  • All Blur

    All Blur

    35mm photograph of green summer salt marsh at blue hour. Panning left to right creates motion blur in the landscape photograph.
    All Blur — 35mm | f/5.6 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/6 sec

    This corner of the internet has been quiet, eh? Rest assured all the noise has moved inside my head. Photographs have been hard to come by, and if I’m honest, the drive to make them has moved on. In short: this decade long hobby is down to fumes.

    There’s little sense in making proclamations—declaring this experiment in creativity over. With luck a new spark will fire tomorrow. Yet I am willing to share my total uncertainty over how often I’ll foist the camera moving forward. I’m grateful to how much this unexpected hobby has given me these past 10 years. A near unbroken space of growth and calm. A cloistered enclave where my hamster wheel brain ceases its captured spin. Talk about a safe space.

    That’s all gone now. What once restored life now saps strength. What once vented furious forces now yields to tectonic mountains of growing anxiety. There’s no more ensconced glacier of solitude to wear down the surging crags of my mind.

    And still, may tomorrow bring with it the surprise of good fortune to turn everything around.

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  • All I See

    All I See

    14mm wide angle sunset photo made in winter over the dormant Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh.
    All I See — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    All I see is the flat horizon. A flattened span of unfettered possibility. An openness to explore. It is within this expanse infinite paths lie hidden underfoot, below our gaze and in our hearts. How do we find them? Where do we first look? Sure footed confidence will keep us steady and stable atop firm ground, the knowing. While the wayward step finds us mired in muck, faltered and bound, the unknowing. Here we get up, set our eyes upon fired horizons and fan the flame of becoming within. We step up. We step out. The infinite becomes finite and the finite becomes one; and this is all I see.

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  • The Gift of Winter

    The Gift of Winter

    14mm wide angle winter sunset photograph reflected over the derelict of Rand's Marina along Great Bay Boulevard Wildlife Management Area. A powerful December sunset smolders with flaming clouds cast in deep orange and red colors making first rate winter sunset intensity.
    The Gift of Winter — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    No two sunsets are the same. This we know to be true. Return to the same place over and over again and you’ll be chasing unicorns to hunt down a pure facsimile. It’s best to take each unique moment and capture its joyful light as best you can, while you can. It’s a welcome lesson in the natural function of impermanence. This doppelgänger is impossible to find.

    Tonight, however, I came close. In what I can only describe as the spiritual successor to Ruinous Splendor—changed only by time. Made just over five years apart at near the same exact track of bulkhead I give you the best sunset photograph I have made in five years. Recognizing the subjectivity of such claims I defer gracefully if you disagree in preference to another sunset photograph I have made. These decisions belong to us.

    Winter sunsets, man. In particular winter sunsets heralding oncoming winter weather near always produce. While tomorrow looks to be a nuisance event with rain in southern Ocean County, winter weather will hit New Jersey tomorrow in the form of a weak coastal low. This, of course, is merely an appetizer for a far larger and more powerful system poised to wreak havoc on the entire region Wednesday into Thursday. Jackpot zones will be measuring in feet. Buried cars, bread and milk in short supply. Still over 72 hours out, where the rain/snow line and axis of heaviest precipitation set up remains up in the air. Stay close to Weather NJ’s Facebook page to keep up with the latest. You can bet I’ll be back out shooting Tuesday to see the big storm’s harbinger sunset.

    Shout out to the universe today for giving me exactly what I asked for. This morning, while thinking about my photographs this year, I envisioned how great it would be to have at least one more clear cut entry into my annual best of series for 2020. My output has been solid enough this year, though real standouts have been lacking. Well, my Christmas gift came early. Thank you.

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  • From Solitude

    From Solitude

    14mm wide angle winter sunset photograph made at the Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh. A gossamer of pastel clouds stretch across the sky, reflecting upon the still surface of the water. A window of brown marsh grass invites the viewer into the scene.
    From Solitude — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/8

    His is the path of solitude. It is a journey not idly traveled, with headwinds, endless thought, and self-critique his only companions. Like a looking glass life reflects back upon him, projecting moments of joy and pain, sunshine and rain, triumph and abject failure. Each and every one a lesson. Through it all he has himself to turn inward. To his fortress mind and hideaway heart, twin suns lighting an island of isolation impregnable to all and impossible to reach. This is a refuge of necessity, a way station of isolation constructed piece by piece through decades of disconnectedness. Except there are no train lines connecting it. It is both inaccessible to find and impossible to leave. It is from solitude to which all his comings and goings take place.

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