Discussion of the monthly image.
Hello again and welcome to the blog…Discussion of the monthly image.
At the beginning of the year, I set a (small) (fun?) project to capture a word in an image, I applied only one proviso to it and that is that the word had to relate to the month as an attempt to make it topical. Oh yes and also it can be interpreted in any way (you’d) (I’d) like.
I had a couple of reasons for doing this project. Partly to reestablish what the NathanPhoto brand is about, partly to get out making imagery, partly to establish a set of stock images and partly as a project starting point for an online teaching resource I was planning. That’s quite a list of constituent parts!
As with time and concerns I’ve been shooting intermittently over the month and have got a set of image and have edited it down to 5 images to choose from, a couple have been in other blogs, but I’ve got some new ones in there too (excuse the pun!)
In the spirit of sharing, here are the 5 images.
As a brief explanation they go in date order of when they were made, not in which ones I prefer.
The first I’ve discussed a little bit, although since that point it’s started to grow on me a little, I quite liked it, Instagram didn’t really like it with only 11 likes so if we use that as a gauge, then it’s not so good. I’ve been doing these faux HDR effects as a bit tongue in cheek but then it picked up a few likes so thought I’d see where they lead…
Images 2 was a capture that I posted in a previous blog when out for a Sunday stroll along Deansgate and I happened on this scene, the car was newly parked there and you can see some people’s reactions to this newness… I realise that this is a moment captured and these people may not be thinking such a thing but as with most images it can be open to interpretation, what’s yours?
Image 3 is again a politically motivated one, I’m not sure of the meaning, a quick search renders the obvious metaphors but I wonder if it’s a covid related action, (possibly as those horrible stickers decrying Covid have made quite an appearance in Manchester over the last few weeks) I read it as a call for people to wear Masks in enclosed spaces and to listen to the science but I could be wrong.
Image 4 is of the light that this time of year brings up, the low sun coupled with the high building and the public transport links (realise that to make this more saleable then I’d maybe have to make more of a feature of the tram) I do love the combo of old and new with the Britons Protection dwarfed by the newer buildings, sneaking in at bottom left. From this image do you think that you’d be able to tell who one of my favourite photographers is? Can you?
Last one is of a similar theme but this one makes more play of the old (sometimes it’s good to show the opposite of the word you are trying to display to highlight, yes/no?) This has the Discotheque Royals (as I will forever know it) front and center with the Edwardian hotel in the background, (another great example of old and new combinations. yes/no?) with a block of flats in the background. Again, the light makes (if you like it that is?) the image, as it was beautiful on the day I made the pictures…
So which one have I gone for ???
Well, it’s this one...drumroll please…it’s number 4…
*applause*
The main reasoning I’ve got for this is that I love the feel of depth in the image, the way the light is falling onto the tower blocks, the cropping of the pixelated screen which now says ‘of’, the mass tangle of overhead wires and the symbolism of the various parts meshing together I feel represents the way I’m feeling about NathanPhoto going forward!
That good?
Be interested to hear your thoughts on it too.
Normally at the end of the blog, I would pair up an image and make a comment like a blog needs a picture like a locker needs a key but as I’ve spent most of this one discussing imagery, I thought I’d swap it round and leave you with an excellent quote from one of the books I’m reading at the moment, Confabulations by John Berger here he is talking about one of his friends, an artist called Sven where he writes:
“Others disapproved of him because he devoted his whole life to art,
and they saw he was not a genius.
For them, the nobility of that persistence passed unnoticed.”
What sentences they are!!! It’s words like that that really hit home something, and for me personally, they both crossover and relate into so many other subjects that I’ve thought and written about here and there. Great words.
On that note I’ll thank you for reading and, as ever, any thoughts, comments or musings then please get me at the usual places.
Thank you.