#NPMonthlyWord for February
Hello again, welcome to another blog from somewhere inside the inner workings of NathanPhoto.
Welcome to March, let us not do the comments about how fast year is, lets concentrate on the now and living in the moment. As this is the first one of the month, following the very new formula, this rambling is going to explore the #NPMonthlyWord for February.
The theme for February was of course Love, as it is the month for most of us to show their love to another, as we all are celebrating the day of Valentine!!! Hope your month brought love in abundance!!! Mine was a very mixed one with a few absolutes horrors but as ever it mixed in with some good, ah isn’t that just the balance of life, it gives, it takes, it does what it wants.
Down to Love then, think we all know what it means but showing it is different for all, as Love is a difficult one to clarify in words therefore it follows that photographing it, is just as difficult, is it not? I made things a little easier/different as I decided previously that I’m moving away from the abstract and towards a more ‘stock aesthetic’ with the idea of exploration of the nuances of this genre/mindset/approach. This makes thinking about the theme of love a little easier, and in how I was going to represent it. As a side challenge, I’m also looking at making something so absolutely typical NathanPhoto and identifying whatever that is.
The most obvious aspect of play here in illustrating love is to go with the symbols of love, following a well-worn path, they are the heart, the red rose and sweet things.
My first encounter was with a heart shaped piece of graffiti that I see on the way into Manchester, this wall had just been repainted a rather fetching shade of grey, the previous scribblings on it had possibly got too much, but no sooner had the paint dried than someone had come along and drawn a heart shape just there. it’s an interesting thought pattern that shaped why to make it just there and why a heart? Slight distraction here as looking at the shape, I read somewhere recently that this type of representational shape image of the heart is based not on the organ that pumps blood around and where you feel things, oh no its based on a posterior! Does that give this new meaning?
Now the eagle eyed/sharp witted of you will remember that last year’s winner for the February #NPMonthlyWord theme of love was also a piece of graffiti. So what to do?
My first thought when I made these was that, yep that’s the shot for this year, only when reflecting did I realise about last year’s selection, which is fundamentally the same subject matter, that’s bad right? How could that be seen? Well I guess there’s two ways either, favourably or unfavourably, (possibly a third pathway which is that the work is ‘ignored and dismissed’ but let us follow love/not explore that one.)
The unfavourable would follow along the lines of I really shouldn’t be showing the same subject each time, should I? Always make something new, think that opens up another discussion of the dual ways of making and the importance of repetition or the importance of uniqueness?
The more favourable would be to look at this as the start of a set of images leading onto greater things together. As in I’m starting to make groupings of images/putting images together, making a sequence and establishing a look and feel.
Not sure which one is right for me but as in most things I think the final decision is for the audience to decide.
You may also wonder why there are 3 images here when one would possibly do? Well my main overarching conundrum this month has been regarding photo equipment. lt has been all pervasive. This set illustrates some of those debates, about how things look depending on what camera is round your neck and what they let you do/not do and how that approach influences your image making practices when looking for images. These are the debates I’m currently processing*. As you can tell these images were all made on differing machines, from DSLR to rangefinder to phone. Even on the smallest screen you can see different looks and styles, they are all quite different, no? Which one is best?
This image set up the pathway for the rest of the search for an image that says ‘lurve’, which is not as easy as you think because by the 15th most symbols and traces of it had gone, which I think says something about the unchecked rampant capitalist approach to it, make a buck then move onto Easter.
Next up is sweet things, an ever-present symbol of love! Here is the budget version of that, the humble love hearts, whose message seems to have changed somewhat over the years, but I do particularly love this sentiment/advice/mantra/manifesto. Then to follow that a more expensive box of sweets, these came in a heart shaped box, sent with love and judging by the amount left, think they were received with love too. I used flash and narrow depth of filed to highlight it, I didn’t rearrange it so it looked a little natural, it almost has a little glow emanating from it, doesn’t it?
Next up is the humble rose, the absolute everlasting symbol of love and traditionally sent at this time of year, did you get any? I aimed for a different look and quite like the result but alas I’m unsure of its reception, maybe I should have done something a little more traditional?
Next to them is a snap that I couldn’t resist, these cute faces lined up on a shelf, this was after the fact so maybe they would be discounted or saved till next year, either way they still elicit a cheery expression when you look at them.
The last few images are a set sort of and consist of a conveniently placed shop display of the love with balloons and hearts, very lovely especially if you know what occupied that space previously, added in a bit of Manchester reflections in the window, which is always good for the love.
And last not and definitely least it’s not the traditional symbol of love but if you think about it, it possibly is! Think it’s also evidence of nature healing, presume this one was discarded after an afternoon/night/morning of celebration.
So that’s the images, I think one thing that they all have in common is that they all quite spectacularly fail at being ‘good for stock’ images don’t they! This is part of the reason I wanted this to shape my thinking over the year as I really want to examine the concept, look and feel with ideas behind ‘stock’. But left to my own devices I seem to drift off down another path.
Will still make an attempt on its application though, using the ‘good for stock’ criteria I think it’ll have to be the love-heart sweets for their strong, solid advice that we can all act upon.
I feel that I must explore the stock idea in much more depth and deeper so with that in mind #NPMonthlyWord for March will be Spring! Again this is the same as last year I thought less about changing it because it fits so very well. If you’d like to be with me on this, then feel free, pick up a camera and make an image then you can either share or not depending on how you feel but it’s all good.
What do we think? Any good?
As ever to incorporate balance as I’ve discussed images for the main body of text, I’ll leave you with some words, this time I’ll leave you with a lyric:
“The greatest thing you'll ever learn,
is just to love and be loved in return.”
― Nat King Cole
Thank you for reading. And if you have any feedback, thoughts, comments or anything’s, then please get me though the usual channels.
* I’m building up to a much larger discussion of ideas about equipment, there is a lot of pointers/thoughts/need this year surrounding it. Don’t worry I will try not to get too ______ but I feel it is important as (excuse the pun) it has brought a lot of things into sharper focus. For example the fact I always thought that the traditional dslr was the main tool of choice for NP but it’s starting to look like that isn’t the case. Let me know what you think about further musings on this topic.