Do pictures tell stories?

Depends.
On the imagination of the viewer.
Some viewers try to "get" what the picture maker wanted to tell them.
Some viewers like to wrap their own stories around a picture.
Some viewers only want the picture to match the color decor of their parlor. 😀
 
daveleo said:
Depends.
On the imagination of the viewer.
Some viewers try to "get" what the picture maker wanted to tell them.
Some viewers like to wrap their own stories around a picture.
Some viewers only want the picture to match the color decor of their parlor. 😀
Click to expand...
Quite well put!

I would expand this to photographers as well. So, to paraphrase you:

Depends.
On the imagination of the photographer.
Some photographers try to tell you something particular with their photographs.
Some photographers would like you to wrap your own stories around a picture.
Some photographers only want their pictures to match the color decor of their clients' parlor.
 
Pictures don't tell stories, and they do.

A single picture tells a story, but it's a different story for every viewer.
A single picture with text tells a story, but still a different story for some viewers.
A series of pictures tells a story that can be different for a few viewers.
A series with text is pretty directive, unless viewers decide to disagree with the story.

In general, I'm with Winogrand: pictures do not tell stories, I only photograph to see what things look like when photographed. If it means anything to a viewer, that's nice. If not, maybe it's something for the next guy.

Sometimes I do editorial work, and I aim to tell a story in eight, nine images.

I've no preference.

Just my 2cents, YMMV.
 
A photograph is never a *sequence* of actions, which is what usually constitutes a story. In that sense, I don't think any photograph tells a story.

However, I do think photographs lean toward the poetic: they are descriptive images, and good ones have great meaning. Why tell a story when you can communicate within a single instant?
 
I agree with Winogrand that a single photograph doesn't tell a story.

In his words and I do agree.
About 1:26 in on but watch the entire piece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl4f-QFCUek

But the really import question is why do some think it has to? I think great photographs ask questions, inspire thought and in some cases force change but there is a reason that newspapers have captions under photographs. Documentary photographers work in series of images and usually have forewords.
 
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".
 
Does this one tell a story? Or pose a question?

med_U1665I1186660141.SEQ.0.jpg
 
every picture can tell a story, if you just look hard enough.
a frozen moment in time doesn´t make any sense, there´s always the temporal context related to that moment we add in our head. that´s what we could call "a story".
 
I think if every picture tells a story, if you look hard enough, that sounds more like the viewer makes up a story to fit in with it.

One single still picture can on really relay the simplest of stories on it's own, if you look at most pictures, without knowing the background, you'll be making up a story on your own and wrapping it around the picture. Not saying it's good or bad, but I don't think a photograph, alone, can tell a story of any complexity.
 
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