Pleasant

Hello again and thanks for tuning in again this week.  

This week I’d like to talk about some of the words that are used to describe images and photography, this topic has popped up as part of the sorting process for my three umbrella’s where my work resides. In this I’ve tried to come up with a single word to explain the practices both in where it originated from and where it is going. As we are talking NathanPhoto here, I started with a simple word, then developed from there. The word that I’ve eventually arrived at is:

Pleasant.

And that is greeted with stunned silence, what a word, how could you pick that? How would you feel if you were described that way? How about if your work is described that way?

Can imagine that most of the comments are along those lines and would all say what a strange word to describe a practice and photographic work but I think that it fits beautifully!!!

This word was partially chosen because of that effect, because of my past career and therefore the person I had to be, the mannerism that I had to adopt and therefore in the pictures I obtained, plus its seemingly like the pictures that get the most likes on the new Instagram all seemed to be connected by that word.

Let us just have a quick recap of the definition:

Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages

pleasant

adjective

1. Giving a sense of happy satisfaction or enjoyment.

"a very pleasant evening"

Although with this definition comes a suggestion of a similar usage which evidence would suggest is not entirely fitting, especially the very last word:

 Similar: (of a person or their manner) friendly and considerate; likeable.

To add into that as well are some quotes using the word:

“Oh he’s a pleasant enough person…” or “What a pleasant day”

Sort of a bit bland, isn’t it?  Except when I read it used in differing context by people more adept than I…then I think it takes on something else entirely

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

Voltaire

“…And it's not very pleasant to draw evil figures.”

Hayao Miyazaki

So yes, I believe I do realise its nature especially in applying it to this practice, but I think I’ll stick with it all the same, let’s see where it takes me.

As usual this thought then led me onto several more, among them one about some of the words that describe photography, how loaded and emotive they can be, how toxic some of them are, does that therefore shape what one must be, to be seen as successful photographer?

For example in the act of photographing you go to a ‘shoot’, when you make an image you ‘fire’ the shutter and in the process you ‘take’ a picture.

It is all very macho b**l terms…don’t you agree?

Couple that with the ethos of the historical photography that most of us were taught, which goes along the lines of:

White centric, European/American, male heavy, brash, better performance-based acts mean better images etc…

Then further add in the seemingly unending toxic ethos of what makes ‘good’ photography in the fields of news, street, pap, landscape and fashion…and there you go…Of course these were the areas where NathanPhoto existed but now the change in what NP is has come about involves revisiting/reliving/correcting some of these behaviours/reactions/feedback/thoughts by shining a reflective light on them, let us see what they look like now.

Sounds like it will be anything but pleasant!!

Now to an image, which one will I put up to be judged as pleasant? Which one will shoulder that word and be forever interpreted as such, well it will be this one:

The sun is covered behind a cloud with it’s light seeping out from the edges, a range of tall buildings at the bottom of the frame are in silhouette, the image is very pleasant.

This is an image I took on Deansgate in Manchester in the recent changeable weather that makes September, I believe it has pleasant written all over it, it’s nothing much of an image apart from pleasant, don’t you think? It is a chance capture juxtaposing the new builds and the weather, anything else other than pleasant?

Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or such like then get me via the usual channels. Thank you.