Greg Molyneux Photography

New Jersey landscape and nature photography

World Between Worlds

by

100mm macro photograph of a black swallowtail caterpillar set atop dill.

World Between Worlds — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/400

What of the caterpillar? The two act play in a life lived twice. First bounded to a potted dill long gone to seed. Nothing more to do than eat. Eat and pray—pray your striped camouflage is enough to ward off prey. Birds whiz hither and dither somehow tricked by the ruse or warned off by its bright colored reticulated pattern. Color often means danger in the many corners of the animal kingdom, though I’m not sure that is the case here.

Still I pause to wonder does she know what comes in act two? Should she endure to soon spool up into her silken cocoon to wait and to transform. A miraculous metamorphosis awaits. A death to one life followed by transformation and rebirth into another. Resurrection to new life. A wonder to behold.

How would such a complete change of our physical being affect our lives and our self-awareness? What would it mean to become so fully remade? What then would it mean to be human? What then would the caterpillar think of us?

Interested in buying? Purchase

Trackbacks

Search by Keyword

14mm 35mm 40mm 100mm barnegat bay black and white blue hour bokeh cedar run dock road cross processing echinacea flowers frozen golden hour great bay boulevard hdr high key insects landscape long beach island long exposure low key lyrically inspired macro marina monochrome motion blur new jersey peony pinelands power lines purple coneflower reflection salt marsh selected works ship bottom snow soft focus square format stafford forge wildlife management area sunset sunset park sunset point surf city weather

You can find me here

Copyright © Greg Molyneux 2014–2022

Photos from the archives

Photographer Greg Molyneux practices portraiture on himself
Wispy cirrus clouds shaded in pink pastels mark the sky over Barnegat Bay in this wide angle HDR photograph taken just after sunset in Surf City, New Jersey.
Shallow depth of field vertical orientation photograph of a blooming Japanese Maple at golden hour
14mm sunset photo made in early November along the Cedar Run Dock Road salt marsh. Yellow, pink, and purple pastels color up gossamer clouds stretched across the sky all reflected in water.
An HDR sunset photograph taken from Harvey Cedars Sunset Part of a fully frozen Barnegat Bay. Unique ice patterns and strewn jetty rock mark the picture's foreground.