Do pictures tell stories?

[--s]

it´s ALWAYS the viewer that makes up the story of a picture, except the author adds a good title or spills a few words to give directional instruction. The picture by itself is nothing but a square or rectangular pattern of colours or greys in variations.

 

[Sparrow]

according to rod stewart...'every picture tells a story'...

... well, Telly Savalas, says a "picture paints a thousand words" and Rod wouldn't argue with Telly

 

[Roger Hicks]

Depends on the picture. And on what the viewer brings to it. The picture can be more or less explicit. From "Narrative, Record and Graphic Pictures", http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps graphic & narrative.html

A narrative picture is somewhat akin a book cover illustration, which tells you what to expect inside.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sparrow]

Does this one tell a story? Or pose a question?

 

[jsrockit]

I think they can... but it might not be the story the photographer intended.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Not literally. And I love Winogrand - in fact, he is one of a very few that always in in my top three dead photographers. But you all know he was being ironic when he said that pictures aren't about a story, right? Every one of Winogrand's picture was a story, or at least a photograph of a moment in a story. But if it weren't about the storys in our visual imagination, then why would we even look at pictures?

I mean, we can just look around, and the image quality is way better than any photograph. But we look at pictures for what they imply, or explain to us!

So yeah. As the bard, Rod Stewart, said, "every picture tells a story".

Winogrand on photography, Rod Stewart on photography, HHMMMM Winogrand wins that debate. 😉

In my opinion a single photograph doesn't tell a story. If I wanted to tell stories I would be a writer or I'd do a documentary project (which I have done in the past). If I wanted to make paintings I would be a painter. Im not either I'm a photographer and I try to make photographs that find moments when line, shape and tone all come together.

 

[Carterofmars]

Does this one tell a story? Or pose a question?

To most, I can see it posing the obvious question: why is the chair empty. It certainly does not, and cannot, tell us why the chair is empty; this particular picture asks a question.

But, I too am interested in only what a thing looks like photographed. And, once photographed does it, on its own, have an impact? Is it powerful enough to stand on it's own and provoke a response from the viewer? I personally take pictures to see how separating something from its surroundings makes it look. And- most often I have a difficult time pulling it off. I see a thing, and believe it can have impact, but either I was wrong, or technically I couldn't achieve on paper what it was I saw and felt at that moment. I hope to one day be able to do that well.

Hard to explain... I don't think pictures tell stories. They just show us how things look. We, as viewers can imagine what was/is/will happen in a scene photographed, but we bring that to the experience of viewing a photograph.

 

[airfrogusmc]

To most, I can see it posing the obvious question: why is the chair empty. It certainly does not, and cannot, tell us why the chair is empty; this particular picture asks a question.

But, I too am interested in only what a thing looks like photographed. And, once photographed does it, on its own, have an impact? Is it powerful enough to stand on it's own and provoke a response from the viewer? I personally take pictures to see how separating something from its surroundings makes it look. And- most often I have a difficult time pulling it off. I see a thing, and believe it can have impact, but either I was wrong, or technically I couldn't achieve on paper what it was I saw and felt at that moment. I hope to one day be able to do that well.

Hard to explain... I don't think pictures tell stories. They just show us how things look. We, as viewers can imagine what was/is/will happen in a scene photographed, but we bring that to the experience of viewing a photograph.

Totally agree!!!!!

And does it really matter if they tell stories and if so why? I mean so many photographers are out chasing the one great story telling photo and because of that they never do the things that make all great photographers. They never develop a style because they are chasing the uncatchable. One good photograph no more makes a great photographer than one great at bat makes a hall of fame baseball player.

 

[gns]

Not literally. And I love Winogrand - in fact, he is one of a very few that always in in my top three dead photographers. But you all know he was being ironic when he said that pictures aren't about a story, right? Every one of Winogrand's picture was a story, or at least a photograph of a moment in a story. But if it weren't about the storys in our visual imagination, then why would we even look at pictures?

I mean, we can just look around, and the image quality is way better than any photograph. But we look at pictures for what they imply, or explain to us!

So yeah. As the bard, Rod Stewart, said, "every picture tells a story".

Winogrand was not being ironic. He was just stating the obvious. A story is a series of related events. That implies the passage of time. A photo only shows how something looked at a moment in time.

I think people want to say photos tell stories because they want them to mean something. Maybe the question should be , how does a photo create meaning if not through a story?

 

[airfrogusmc]

Winogrand was not being ironic. He was just stating the obvious. A story is a series of related events. That implies the passage of time. A photo only shows how something looked at a moment in time.

I think people want to say photos tell stories because they want them to mean something. Maybe the question should be , how does a photo create meaning if not through a story?

I agree and thats a great question.....

 

[redisburning]

I think people want to say photos tell stories because they want them to mean something. Maybe the question should be , how does a photo create meaning if not through a story?

Context.

Let's look back at the famous Vietnam photograph of the Colonel executing a veitcong. I think if there is one photograph that people would argue tells a story it would be that one.

But the reality is, not so much. We as viewers construct the story around the picture. We know there is a war in Vietnam, and we know that Vietnamese are fighting against other Vietnamese, and we extrapolate that the man is a vietcong prisoner of war and is being executed (the accompanying story helps).

It may help to think of a photograph as a stone and the story as the waves that result as you drop the stone into still water.

 

[RichC]

People are getting hung up on meaning - thinking that a story must have coherency and describe an event from inception to finality is a mistake. All forms of human creativity have an implied narrative - synonymous with "story". Everything about a made object tells us something about how, when and why it was made, and about its maker; and some made objects carry a more coherent narrative.

Particular forms of made objects are naturally able to impart a clear, strong narrative: books and films come immediately to mind. Other constructions have a less clear story - consider paintings and photographs: in addition to the narrative contained within their construction (when, how and why they were made), they are pictures, and a picture is by definition a slice of narrative, telling us the story of a moment frozen in time, but - unlike most books or films - the past and future of the depicted event are implied.

That the past and future are unknowable in a photograph, thus posing questions, has no bearing whatsoever on whether photography can tell stories: a narrative does not have to have tense, does not have to tell us what happened or what will happen. There are plenty of films and novels that work like photographs, in which the present is described and time does not move.

This is an old argument, discussed and settled many years ago: most famously the critic Clement Greenberg - who helped promote Modernism (and incidentally coined the word "kitsch" for "low culture") - considered photography to be closely allied to literature in its ability to describe, and commented "let photography be 'literary'" when reviewing the photographs of Edward Weston in 1946. Greenberg was far from a lone voice...

How effective or obscure the narrative is another question.

How important this "narrativity" of the photograph is to a particular photographer is also another matter - you may be utterly disinterested in story-telling through your photographs, but, nonetheless, tell stories they will...

 

[anjoca76]

Not to get too philosophical, but isn't it arguable that not even a story--a novel, a movie, etc--tells a complete story? The reader, or viewer, is always able to, or compelled to, fill in the blanks and wonder what happens that is not precisely being told to us. A good story doesn't tell you everything. It leaves some to the imagination. Series finales are often guilty of giving ambiguous endings.

A photo of course cannot tell a story in the truest sense--or perhaps any sense. But some can at least imply a possible story, if for no other reason than we as humans have had similar experiences and can relate, such as wedding photos, for example. On the other hand, one would be hard-pressed to imagine a story from, say, a macro image of a flower.

I think this is one of those everything has meaning, nothing has meaning, scenarios.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Sorry Rich but intent in any work is huge. A story has a beginning and an end. A photograph is but one frozen moment in time. A story needs to answer who, what, where , when and how. Yes you're right it was settled I think with the straight photography movement and the death of pictorial photography almost 100 years ago. And a single photograph can not tell a story. It can ask questions, it can inspire thought even cause change but one photograph can not and should not tell a story. A series of photographs as in a documentary project can. In news a single photograph is accompanied by text so if theres text it can tell a story but if it could indeed tell a story why would you need an article or any text at all or other photographs?

 

[Carterofmars]

tell stories they will...

I don't agree. We make the stories. Any story derived from looking at a still image is born in the mind of the viewer; and that viewers life experience forms their perception of what they are seeing.

Take this image for instance by gho:

What story do you bring to this photo? I may see a man headed for work. You may see a man returning from work. Another may see an ominous figure. And yet another may not. Is he crossing? Is he following someone?

And, I'm glad this was settled a long time ago. What was the ruling? 😉

 

[RichC]

Sorry Rich but intent in any work is huge

Absolutely. But irrelevant to this thread, which asked simply if a photograph could tell a story, not where the story comes from (the photographer or the viewer).

A story needs to answer who, what, where , when and how.

Why? A story is simply anything told or recounted. A story does not have to tell us what has or will happen. A story can just tell us about what is happening now (as photographs and realistic paintings do), leaving the interpretation up to the viewer.

And a single photograph can not tell a story

Yes it can: see my previous comment.

It can ask questions

Of course. Story-telling and asking questions aren't mutually exclusive. We've all read novels and seen films that leave us with unanswered questions (e.g.the classic cliff hanger!).

 

[RichC]

I don't agree. We make the stories. Any story derived from looking at a still image is born in the mind of the viewer; and that viewers life experience forms their perception of what they are seeing.

Don't get why you disagree with me!

I agree entirely with you.

As I've said, a photograph can pose questions and be completely ambiguous: but it's still a story, even if opaque and fragmentary. It makes no difference whether the story in a photograph is obvious, as in many documentary images, or ambiguous, as often the case in art photographs; it makes no difference whether the viewer clearly perceives a narrative of truth (e.g. they may have been there when the photograph was taken) or whether the viewer creates a narrative based purely on their interpretation (as is usually the case - as you say). In both cases the photograph is telling a story.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Rich I respectfully but totally disagree. I think Winogrands word are dead on.

 

[anjoca76]

Winogrand is one of my favorites, but in every interview I've read or heard, he was combative. If he was asked if the sky was blue, he'd say yellow, or insist there wasn't a sky at all. So of course he would never say a picture told a story.

 

[gns]

I think we are all agreeing on a lot. Maybe just not on the definition of a story.
Of course, photographs may elicit or evoke many things in a viewer. To me, that is not telling a story. If I place a pencil eraser in front of someone, it may trigger all kinds of memories or imaginations. But the eraser is not telling a story.