What was the last picture that completely captivated you, remember?I bet it was an image full of life, it conveyed things, it wasn’t just a composition of colors and shapes, there was something in that image. If you have it handy, look at it again.
Every great photograph is a narrative photograph. The cool and stunning photos that take your breath away and fascinate you, they all tell you something, they all have a story inside.
- In today’s article.
- I’ll introduce you to the exciting and addictive world of storytelling through photography.
- I’ll explain the elements you need to include in your photo work to really “tell” something.
- And I’ll reveal some methods.
- To take the viewer and guide them through the plot of your story in total comfort.
- Throughout the text.
- I’ll also show you some practical examples where you can see every aspect we comment on.
Get comfortable and get ready because at the end of the article I will ask you to put into practice what you learned in this article.
Let’s get right to the point
Unlike a movie, which lasts an hour and a half or two, a play or a novel that takes a day or a week to read, a photo is a momentary shot, with a photo capturing what happens in a thousandth of a second, a “fixed photo” and never better said. This makes storytelling seem, at first, not an easy task. How are you going to tell a whole story in a motionless, unanimated photo that doesn’t move?If it’s not even a series of photographs, not at least one sequence.
Precisely what makes photography fascinating is the subtlety with which it captures us and immerses us in the emotion and history it tries to convey. A movie can take 90 minutes, or even 15 minutes (if it’s a short film) to get you to an emotional point. A photo is a very focused emotional shot, a microhistory told, from start to finish, in great detail, in the time it takes to blink.
Here are some things to include in your photo to make sure it conveys a story. Take note.
For your photo to tell a story, you don’t need to include all these points, but they are “ambient” elements that, the more numerous, the easier it will be for the viewer to perceive the story you’re telling it. .
As I said before, unlike a film or novel, where there is a scenario that progresses chronologically, and the reader or viewer consumes little by little, a photo is a microhistory told in a fraction of a second. reason, it won’t have a script. The photos also have their own script, a script that the viewer also consumes in a fraction of a second.
How?
In a photo, you make all the elements of the story available to the viewer, but you keep full control over where the photo should start and where it should end. You have an infinite amount of resources and techniques that allow you to guide the viewer. through the frame and transport it from one element to another, focusing on a more important element or letting them notice a background detail only after a few seconds. Here are some examples of resources you can use to plot the path the viewer unconsciously follows when viewing their photo:
You just took a picture. You’ve captured a wonderful story there, according to you, but you don’t know if others will be able to find it. A little trick you can use to make sure you have good narrative content in your photo is to give it a Title touch. That sounds silly, but if you’re able to verbalize, through words, the little story in your photo, then you hit the target.
Careful, the title cannot be a simple visual description of the photo. “Child sitting in a chair, with a lollipop in his right hand” does not correspond to a title. We are looking for a title that touches emotion like the photo itself If it is impossible to find a minimally deep title, if all the titles that come to mind are simple descriptions of what we see in the photo, there is a high probability that the photo will not contain anything deep.
Nothing better than a few examples to illustrate what a good narrative photography is.
Doesn’t the number of words you read make you a better photographer, but the photos you take?I want you to practice narrative photography in your next photos. Photographing with a short story in mind will open up new photographic possibilities. As soon as you get your first real narrative photo, you’ll realize that your other photos lack history or excitement. , were ultimately daunted.
Including a story, message, idea or emotion will make you amazing
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