#NpMonthlyWord July

Monthlies  

Hello again and welcome to another NathanPhoto cogitation well more a ponder, I guess. Welcome to a new month and let me add my voice to the chorus of today about how this year is passing so quickly! Literary everyone I’ve spoken to recently (quite a few) have echoed the statement that this year is going way faster than… [press enter to insert quick joke here]

So here we are in August, the traditional summer month in England with probably a little more to celebrate than usual this year, congratulations to England for winning the Euro’s!!!

I’ll start by looking at July’s word which was Glorious following on from June’s Celebration, as you can imagine I kinda took my eye off the ball in July with all that happened so the image didn’t get as much thought as it should do, still made a few images around the idea of Glorious (see if you can guess what links those two?)

This approach did get me thinking about the wider subject of thought into photography, how much thought is an ok amount? Firstly, looking to the pillars of photographic that I respect, I feel it’s almost a 50/50 split with some saying:

Just go out and make images

Others spending a long-time cogitating, thinking, researching, mentally exercising the virtuosity about what factors of the piece they’d like to make, something akin to

More thought = Better Photograph

I’ll just place a little side reminiscing here about when I was told both that ‘I thought too much’ and then ‘I thought too little’, in my clouded mind of memories I believe that both of these critiques were on the same image. Following these thoughts and feedback start to beg the question to be asked:

‘What’s the right level of thought then?’

Difficult one to answer that, I think the best approach would have to be, what do images look like when they are made with too little thought? Flip the coin, what do images look like with too much thought?

Are in a Goldilocks situation where which one is just right is down to some other factor?

Currently I feel that images with little thought are on the crest of a wave of (Instagram) popularity, nice scenes, HDR’d to high heaven but ultimately just like, in my opinion, a lot of the travel/landscape/buffet type images I’ve seen over the years. Most people could take them (and most have) if they were stood in roughly that spot under the same conditions and have a vague knowledge of editing or lightroom bundle. Do they offer any value to the stream?

What does the reverse look like, thinking of those images that offend the traditionalists greatly. A construction that is, at first glance, a simple everyday type of work, possibly not a nice image, something that appears at to be quite the ordinary…

But then, but then, the words and descriptors come out to explain the significance of the representational aspects of the output form of light-reactive pixels/emulsion containing silver halide salts/binary code that hold within this seemingly simple construction a wealth of information in the form of a soliloquy discussed, dissected and deployed to the nth degree.

I believe that much like Goldilocks and that much used saying that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ then the one that is just right, is viewer defined with the main requisites consisting predominately of purpose and price tag.

That leads us to my monthly submission then, and as ever I have a choice for you dear reader, here they are:

To elaborate slightly and compare/contrast the differences that you may or may not see. Most obviously one is moving, two are still, all are landscape in their format, two are taken indoors, one is taken outdoors, all are using light in different ways, all are photographs. Less obviously, one was taken on a Dslr, one was taken on a phone mimicking a technical Dslr, one was taken on a rangefinder, one was snapped, one was considered, one was taken quickly, one was made over a longer period of time. Even more obtusely, one is symbolic, one is literal, one is representational. One was taken with the word firmly in mind, one was made with a purpose different from the word, one was subconsciously projecting the words meaning. All I believe fit the word ‘glorious’ very well.

Can you tell which is which?

Now as image discussion can go on, not always with a clear agenda as each person having their own takes and questions can either lead the direction into a meandering form or elongate into a conversation, and like all good conversation it should be at least two sided, so I’ll end mine just here, but please feel free to continue in any form you’d like.

As there are choice, which one would I choose I hear you ask?I think I have a favourite but to be slightly NathanPhoto here …and as a good photographer should always do, I’ve given a choice so you, the consumer, can decide on which one you like the most!

This post I feel also feeds into a previous conversation about the difference between the fluffy and the serious, as mentioned in that one, I weigh up on the direction of the post with the main choice of what the tone will take on, should it have a fluffiness or be more serious, more often than not it takes a pathway between the two. As I talk about choices made here, it puts in my mind a future blog that may turn into a rage against market forces. The debate to publish or not, is dependent on the feeling in the wind, what I’m working on etc. The worry to publish is that it could cause some offense to certain ivory towers and gatekeepers, rendering some downfall to myself. For balance I also have a fluffy one about time and timings that is more specific and may go technical, meandering or something in-between, There is, I feel, also a need to address the Instagram debate as it seems that NathanPhoto has a different take on what’s happening so expect all of those to make an appearance here in the future.

That’s the future so back to the subject in hand, at this point I feel I better tell myself (and any participants) what the next word for August will be.

August’s word will be holiday.

I say again the word for August will be Holiday.

Now I realise that you may say ‘well that’s a bit obvious!’ but as I thought about the original ideas behind the #NPMonthlyWord, it was to create a focus on producing an image that could illustrate a word.

To recap:

January - New,

February - Love,

March - Spring,

April - Routine,

May - Mindful,

June - Celebration

July - Glorious.

All great words but think they were edging away to the more artistic side, and as I’ve recently been working on my archive/researching stock imagery (another blog there!)  thought that I would steer #NpMonthlyWord 2022 towards a more commercial vein, this is to enable me to have the possibility of interpreting them in a more commercial/stock photo mindset.

In my research practice I’m working on the value of the image, what we pay, when we pay for photography etc. Plus all that entails, so consider the NathanPhoto brand getting involved with this by thinking about potential sales and pictures that win plaudits/awards. This is me possibly taking a step back into the mindset when I was setting up as a ‘business’.

With those initial ideas of making money from images and earning a living, believe this is very pertinent in the current climate.  Whichever way that journey goes, it will be a process that will lead to discussion and content, never mind what results are achieved.

Thank you for reading and as ever if you have any thoughts, feedback, comments then you can get me on the usual channels.