Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: salt marsh

Plane of Remembrance
Plane of Remembrance — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/5
Memorial Day 2019. We remember. Think upon the story of our lives and remember the ones who fought and died for peace. Our national story writ large on our sacred fallen. Throughout history honored souls of women and men offered everything to a cause greater than themselves. Yes, there is a paradox in fighting and dying for peace and freedom—but in a world of human debasement it is a fallacy in the greatest need of redress. Heroes of all color and creed step up to give it all. This is the living ideal of what America can be.
My 2019 has been a dive into the past. Our martial past. Audio books have taken me on quite a journey. It began with a two excellent explorations of leadership: Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin extrapolate the hard lessons learned serving with Seal Team 3’s Task Unit Bruiser during 2006’s Battle of Ramadi. Their learnings at the cost of lives to their brothers apply to business, life, and the human spirit. They enforce a critical lesson that leadership and personal ownership up and down the chain of command can overcome any obstacle in any walk of life. Even in Ramadi, then the most dangerous city in the world besieged by a terror force hellbent on holding ground at the total cost of civilian Iraqi and American lives.
From there I pivoted to a rewatch of HBO’s excellent Band of Brothers. Immediately followed up with an audiobook listen of Stephen E. Ambrose’s eponymous accounting of E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne. An exploration of sacrifice, brotherhood, and hardship in the critical liberation of Europe from Nazi oppression.
Next I took a dive off a cliff and began a study in the depths of evil. Starting with William L. Shirer’s tome The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Shirer, a journalist on the ground in Berlin during the rise of the Reich shares lived experiences in and among the Nazi power base. I piggy backed this 57+ hour listen with the first two books of Richard J. Evans trilogy on The Third Reich: The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power. The two accountings have been nothing short of a descent into madness. As horrid and omnipresent as I assumed Nazi power always had been was somehow not strong enough. With cold, calculated, and controlled consent of the people in deference to Party, a complete and total shroud of evil was born in central Europe. Only to metastasize and spread east and west. Capitalizing on a thirst for power, redress for perceived World War I exploitation, fear of bolshevism, stark economic hardship, longing for authoritarianism, racial hygiene, and naked anti-semitism, the far-right ideology of the NSDAP took hold. It’s been a cold reminder of the absolute worst in humanity. It has affected me in ways I cannot articulate, but my mental discomfort is nothing. This is about those who rose up to fight and die against evil in its final form.
Our thanks will never be enough. Our remembrance will never be enough. But then again patriots never made this about themselves. Yet our world would be unequivocally worse with your sacrifice. I leave you with Jocko Willink’s, Remember Me. Please listen.
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May 27, 2019
On the Side of Light
On the Side of Light — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Sunset, oh how I have missed you. It’s been a long time since my last sunset. Months. Several months. We are talking near on four whole months. A quick look back at the archives has February 2, 2019, as my last trip out. Back when the old marina on Great Bay Boulevard found itself locked in ice. Yeah, it’s been a minute. No investigation required to know it’s my longest sunset dry spell since I began photo making in 2012.
Two nights ago I hit up Dock Road with my girlfriend and her soon-to-be three year old daughter. It was a family affair and it was nice to be back at my old haunt with special people. Spring green is popping in the marsh and you know that has me excited. It adds intensity and dynamism to any composition. Storms were in the area and they came bearing dramatic sky gifts. The mix of fiery color, intense clouds, newborn marsh, and pastel anticrepuscular rays came together strong on the side of light. It was a stunning scene made all the better by a well placed reflection in the tide pool.
Having been back out there I have rediscovered the burning desire to make more sunset photographs. I can’t wait for my next opportunity—and I will not let four whole months stand in my way this time.
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May 22, 2019
When Winter Comes
When Winter Comes — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
The onset of winter has me inspired. After a subpar shooting season in 2018, leave it to a modest snowfall to turn the tide. First came the photo I made at Stafford Forge—an inspired output that pleased the residents of your favorite social media platform. Two days later, when a fine splash of color made an appearance over the familiar expanse of Dock Road marsh, I was there, and I was ready. A calming sight—the serene scene. Ice creeping in atop staid tide pools, snow pack propping up marsh grass, and sublime pastels coloring the sky with a master’s touch.
I had great company, too. My girlfriend’s two year old daughter made the trip with me. An excellent co-pilot if there ever was one. We hung out roadside taking in the bracing air and pretty pinks in an understated bonding moment. I even had her pop off a few shots of her own, hoping to bring joy to the next generation of photographers. It’s remarkable, really, the intensity and focus an untarnished brain brings to new encounters. I’m not sure where we lose that capacity as adults, but we are no doubt poorer for it. Oh for the wisdom of babes.
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January 17, 2019
Familiar Spaces
Familiar Spaces — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
This evening I made my way to my most familiar of spots: Cedar Run Dock Road. It is my local escape when the quickened pace of life demands a tonic of peace, nature, and a slow burning winter sunset. I am not alone here. Aside from the lucky ones who make this stretch of marsh their home, locals take slow drives on the regular to soak in the sights, sounds, and sunsets. Along the near three mile stretch of road you will never look far to find a slow-puttering car, dogs walking their owners, and friendly denizens commingling amid the splendor. If good vibes and a safe space for introverts to get about are your thing you can do far worse than this place. Of course, watch out for our terrapin friends making their turtle crossings come summer.
It’s a fine open space. A sprawling stretch of salt marsh set about as far as the eye can see. Flanked to the east by Long Beach Island and hemmed in to the west by a stand of cedars and pines, it is far departure from the cluttered, angry, New Jersey suburban sprawl we see on TV. Nature is out there if you know were to go and find it. I’m lucky to never have to go too far.
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December 19, 2018
Winter Wisps
Winter Wisps — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Thanksgiving has passed and winter works its way across the marsh. The season of contrasting relationships makes way. The sting of biting cold brings the cleansing fresh air. The deep breathe to purify the soul. The truncated days lend us long nights close together. The cold brings fire. The sublime state of snow paints nature’s purest beauty. The deepest freezes set skies alight smoldering deep until the stars burn bright. Winter wisps await upon our fingers’ tips.
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November 23, 2018
The Auspices
The Auspices — 14mm | f/8.0 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Do you make much of signs? Omens, auguries, celestial alignments? Perhaps we but note the signs we wish to see dismissing the rest as noise? Confirmation bias made visual and symbolic. Yet does it matter if we construct our own signs? Or own futures? When nature mainlines your being to confirm the positive in our better selves we all stand better for it. The mechanism, contrived or divine need not matter. Drink in the tonic it will not harm you.
Today was full of opportunity. A chance to seize and to share. A chance to be better than yesterday. To move forward to new beginnings. It packed all the emotions of wracked nerves to wide the wide open expanse of ease and elation. Today and all its opportunity capped itself in an illumination of natural pastel.
I knew it had been a long while since I last made a sunset photograph. I did not know that gap spanned back all the way to June, 30. Damn near 25% of the year gone without a capture. I know my photography has taken a dip in output and it is my sincere hope the auspices of today are a portents of things to come.
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September 28, 2018
Some Summer Night
Some Summer Night — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Aside from a fervent two hours of commissioned photography where I popped off some 260 frames back in mid-June, of which I suspect I did a poor job, yesterday, June 29, marked my biggest output of 2018. Shooting flower macros by day and wide angle sunsets by night, I clocked in some ~150 frames. There is, of course, much more to photography than raw numbers. Volume does not the photographer make. Nevertheless, it was rewarding to be out doing my own thing on my own terms. Especially after tweaking my introversion to the max at an afternoon event. Which social phobias aside, was splendid by the way. Nature’s nightcap by way of a sparkling sunset conferred its own restoration to my soul. A bug strewn boon I met with open arms. Insects aside, rich hues of green, purple, and pink cast glory upon the Dock Road marsh.
Come some summer night in late June the marsh is in peak form. Teeming with color and life there is a palpable energy infusing the air. Birds feed and fish run aplenty, all the while bugs and winds sing harmony to the coastal tableau. The color potency of the marsh grass takes my breath away. A powerful panoply of peer green pumping with life. Everything feels so new, so alive. Its ephemeral nature amplifies my appreciation. I know in mere weeks reds and browns will work in upon the marsh as the gregarious greens fall back to more muted tones. Instead of lamenting this change it allows me to focus more on the moment. It brings clarity to each sunset I capture around this time. Moments may indeed be fleeting, but their impact surely lingers on.
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June 30, 2018
Back on the Fire
Back on the Fire — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Two sunsets in one week? Two sunsets in one week! This is like three months photographic output at my paltry 2018 pace. Photography has been on the back burner this year yet I am keen to get back on the fire. As it was earlier this week, I made a last minute 8:00 p.m. decision to drop the apathy and get out to the marsh. Standing in my driveway I saw Mammatus clouds were setting up over head. It looked to hold through sunset. To my gear I bolted.
From there it was the usual drive out to Cedar Run Dock Road. Engaged in rapid knee bouncing to exercise the am I going to make it in time? low grade anxiety. I arrived in 12 minutes in a world of peak green. At a salt marsh imbued with the emerald glow of life and energy. Nothing beats it when a pastel sky sets up over top casting a subtle pink veil over the sea of green landscape. Especially when the pink tones reflect powerfully in the small pools of brackish water cutoff from the main estuary flow. The pink and the green compliment each other so well rendering a scene made to transfix.
Getting back into the sunset flow and returning to the basics that brought me this far I set up low on the marsh. Tripod and camera a little more than a foot above sea level, nestled in a patch of eel grass. Once I’m dialed in it is little more than bracket city from there—making exposures and day falls to night. The fire is back and the pace will quicken.
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June 2, 2018
The Turn Around
The Turn Around — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I am glad I got off the couch. Exhausted, I arrived home from work at 7:00 p.m., turned on the Yankee game and immediately fell asleep. I did at least catch Brett Gardner’s first pitch dinger. Fast forward forty minutes and I woke up on said couch. So began the stay here you’re so warm and cozy versus the no, go out and make a photograph battle.
The latter won out—and thank goodness. With a quick scramble for suitable clothes, I grabbed my gear and stashed them in the trunk. I made my way east to Cedar Run Dock Road listening The Order of the Phoenix. I cannot get enough of all things Hogwarts these days—albeit more than a decade late.
Over the next four miles I was oscillating between sunset anticipation and sheer disdain for Dolores Umbridge. Checking the clock obsessively in between to calculate how much time I’d have to set up. I was cutting it close to sunset.
With a few minutes to spare I was on the marsh and making the most of a quality early simmer pastel sky. Cotton candy coloring overtop a rich green carpet of fresh marsh growth. I am glad I got off the couch.
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May 29, 2018