Love

Seemed only right that I write about my love for photography here but like any relationship it rises and falls but at the core of it is love

Hello and welcome to another blog on this day of love !

Ah the day of love on a Monday what a strange day this will be !

I have fond memories of the story lines surrounding this day, shot many a campaign on underwear to buy your loved ones and the hunt for the perfect rose in December…Not sure if many know this but when shooting stories and promotions for the day of love that’d you shoot around Christmas/January times as publication/campaign deadlines were always around a month possibly 2 months before hand, which was always fun trying to find a Santa hat in September and sun lotion at Easter… pre digital/pre internet days…

One thing that I’ve been thinking about love recently in regard to my love for the medium, thinking behind this is that I’ve had a couple of interviews recently where I’ve professed my love for this medium of photography and you know sometimes when you say these things out loud then it can sound a little cliché/cringe but I must state that I really do have a love for this medium. 

Trying to pin down reason for this I believe that to simplify it to its base it would be its unique combination of what it does, what it shows and what it delivers. 

I don’t really think any other medium does this, with painting and drawing you have to decide what you want to keep out whereas with the more inclusive medium of photography you have to decide what to you want to include…

Would you say that was correct?

While I have all this love for the medium, I’ve been saddened recently with the news that I’ve seen/heard a few people abandoning photography, I feel upset for them. The main reasoning I’ve heard seems to be that other mediums provide them with more artistic tools to deliver their vision and I feel quite sad for that. 

I would say that photography is one of the most accessible creative tools in the pursuit of any creative interpretation of artistic vison that you can use, and judging by the rise in photorealistic paintings recently then I would say that to be true. 

I think photography’s apparent ease contributes to this tho, it’s dead easy to pick up but difficult to get the camera to do what you want to show so you may need to spend some time learning the technicalities and also the act of interpreting your vison into solid recognisable shapes and meanings can be a difficult process…

You going to have to fight for recognition of photography

(Whoops sorry I’ve staryed into my PhD topics now, so I’ll conclude here and say that, for me at least, it is its very being that is the ‘thing’ that I love about photography…)

But what a difficult ‘thing’ love is to show in a picture, wouldn’t you say?

As if by magic we now arrive at the space for the image, well as the February month theme is love, I’ve been working on a couple of ideas for images around that subject and here they are for today’s ramblings...

There are three images the first is one of a single yellow rubber glove in a puddle, the second is a sunrise with clouds establishing itself over Manchester one that only an early sunrise in the early part of the year can do and the final image is of what looks like green puddles on a typical northern side street with metal kerb edges and cobble stones.

As a little breakdown we have three images, one of a single yellow rubber glove in a puddle, the second a sunrise with clouds, establishing itself over Manchester, one that only an early sunrise in the early part of the year can do and for the final image it’s one looking down at what look like green puddles on a typical northern side street with metal kerb edges and cobble stones.

As a further breakdown to why they are included here the first image (from left to right of course) is an image that I believe may fit in for a long term project, (the one glove project) that may make for a cover to a publication due to its component parts. The second image shows a beautiful sunrise that most pictoralists would love and then finally for the third image I’ve included a random that shows, to me at least, the love I have for my vision.  

Looking at these images it reminds me of a lesson that I started to establish which was called ‘of/with’. If there are any students of mine reading this then I’ll hear you groan when I mention that!! For those that don’t know the basic premise of the “of/with” idea is where you try to analysis if an image was made ‘of’ a subject or ‘with’ an idea of the subject. 

Shadows and reflections it be.

Further looking at these images that I’ve included, I see that most were taken ‘with’ love and not very many ‘of’ love itself, this is a marked change of direction for my NathanPhoto practice (it’s one more suited to my PhD studies and not NP but it does couple up with my recent observation that I’ve stopped making images with people in them without their consent).

I think that is a topic for another blog so I’ll leave it here and say thank you for reading and thank you for your patience. I would also like to take this opportunity to shout out my love to my partner and creative director who (hopefully) knows how much love I have for them x