The Secrets of a Story-telling Photo
Part 1 : Introduction
A few weeks back I had visited George Eastman Museum of Photography where there was an exhibition on Travel photography. It was a great experience of watching world’s best photographs showcased in a 2 hour tour of the exhibition halls. After looking at most of the photos (half way of the tour), I found an intangible element in almost all the photos. It’s the “story” behind what (and how) the photo has been shot. What can make a simple photograph of two children staring at the camera from inside a window of a mud house in Peru so unique and worth that it was displayed to thousands of people visiting the museum.
We all have emotions within us and a careful shot of a scene (may be staged also) can make us laugh, cry or even angry. This is the magic of a photo that tells a story. When a person feels an emotion out of anything, process or event, the person will hardly be able to forget that specific thing, process or event. May it be a good, positive or even negative feelings. Same holds true when a person sees a photograph. The fun part with a photograph is that it “always” tells us a story, actually there can be multiple stories that can be associated with a photo. But it is in the mind of the photographer to “direct” or “channelize” the minds of the viewers to a particular, strong and appealing stories. And if the photographer is not successful in this endeavor than the photograph loses its distinctiveness and falls under the “normal” category.
Although this topic is closely linked to Travel, Street Photography and Photo journalism but doesn’t have to be limited to those field of works only. Actually everything that happens around us has some background story linked to it, unless you are a computer geek sitting in front of computer and surfing the internet for 23 hours a day. Even a photo of such a geek (a big round glasses will make it more dramatic) sitting amidst of gadgets and looking at the computer screen busy typing (some motion blur will do the work) having that weird and lost look on his face can make an excellent story-telling photo. Who knows this might be the winner at the “Best Geek Photo” of the millennium contest. Of course you will get “better” real life shots when you are out in a public place (street photography) or a tourist place (Travel Photography) or an event location (Photo journalism)
So now you have an idea of what is a story telling photo and why it is so important to make the viewers feel an emotion (any type) when they look at your photos. Now let’s get to work. First of all story telling in itself is very “creative” and it is difficult to formulate any specific “techniques” to tell good stories. But definitely there’s a structure. Same holds true for photography. The next thing to keep in mind is if you are not satisfied with the photograph’s capability of impregnating a story in your mind, probably it will not have any effect in any other viewer’s mind either.
As any other properties of storytelling, a photo should comprise of one or more of 5 elements -
- Mood
- Emotion
- Narrative
- Ideas
- Messages.
Let’s elaborate on each of these characteristics one by one in the next part: The 5 elements of Story-telling Photo ยป