Hi,
This is a very interesting thread. I have to say it's a bit baffling in it's complication regarding what I consider a fairly simple subject.
"Do pictures tell stories?"
Yes. Of course.
Some clearly and sometimes it's open ended or interpretive like a poem.
Why? Because everything tells stories.
Everything tells a story depending on the viewers experience, knowledge and ability to read and interpret the information. A rock may mean nothing to you but might speak volumes to a geologist. It's not the rock's fault you can't read stratigraphy. And the fact that you can't read it does not mean there is nothing there to be understood. Now I never said it's a particularly interesting story (unless you are a geologist) but then again most of your friends and family are not on a Rangefinder Forum 6 pages into a philosophy of photography discussion. So again, the value and message relates personally to the viewer who thinks it's important. To those who don't get it or see it, it's not even a second thought.
You are talking about an experience and a story outside the single photograph. If a single photograph could tell a story there would be no need for captions in newspapers or documentary projects or a series of photographs for that matter. If one photograph could do it only one would be necessary.
Not correct.
As you have so clearly illustrated for the last 5 pages, some people don't see it right away, or maybe the picture does in fact not include enough details of the subject or theme and things need to be explained a bit. Especially if one wants to guide the viewer down a certain line of narrative.
You can't separate the two - they're just part of a continuum we call "a story". A story is catalysed by any man-made object - a photograph, a novel, a knife - and we construct a narrative from what our senses take in: the connections between the parts of the object: from the object itself - yellowing of a photograph, the inscription from a lover on the book, its smell; from the picture - the expressions on faces, the type of dress, its blur and slant implying a quickly grabbed snap.
Your implication is that a story is a narrative in which the creator's intent is communicated unambiguously. There is no such thing; it cannot exist. Everything we encounter is coloured by our individual perceptions and experiences.
Let's take the novel - the classic "story". No piece of literature ever created is understood in precisely the same way by different people: however simple and clear the writing, a novel will tell a different story to each of us - we may well agree on a basic plot, but we will be less or more sympathetic to different characters, interpret actions in different ways, and an event may resonate with poignancy or pass unnoticed. Every novel thus tells a multitude of different stories: a different one for each person, and varying even when read at different times by the same person: think of a book that you read when younger that seemed entirely different when read again years later.
Novels and photographs tell stories in the same way: they create narratives that are a combination of the creator's intent, incidental features and the reader's (or viewer's) interpretation.
A story is not the either/or you suggest but is - rearranging your words correctly - "something you make up in your own head while [glimpsing] into someone else's".
Whether an object relies mostly on the viewer to construct a story biased towards their personal experience or whether there is a bias towards one particular narrative through the creator's intent is neither here nor there: we encounter an object - writing, a picture, and take away a story. It matters not if we all come away with different stories; in fact, it is inevitable. No two people can read a book or look at a picture and leave with the same story.
People may well only wield a camera to see what a thing looks like photographed. But the resultant picture will ALWAYS tell a story - subjective or objective, ambiguous or clear cut...
This is essentially correct in my opinion. Except that my view point is that everything can tell a story if the viewer knows how to read it.
But again unlike some of the other forms you mentioned a single photograph the viewer is the one telling the story not the photograph. A motion picture is sound or if it were silent there were words and its made up of many images per second. So in that a single photograph is very different because it has no narrative. Literature you are told the story with words.
But the bigger problem and question why should it matter? I see all kinds of people chasing this myth and dismissing with their own vision and the way they judge other work and things that they feel don't tell stories when a single photograph isn't what tells it. So they therefor dismiss possibilities with their own work and also miss so much great work because they are looking and judging on things are merely myths.
I say quit worrying if a single photograph tells stories or better yet build a large body of work that all relates and does tell a story.
I agree with you that it's not important and we should just be out shooting. However I disagree with you regarding "writing with light" not being able to tell a story. The narrative is the interrelationships with the various elements in the composition. The story comes from the interrelationship between the viewer or reader and the subject. Elements in the composition (photograph, novel, movie, etc.) could be objects and/or themes. How these relate to the viewer could make it a happy or sad story but each person always fills in the blanks with their own crayon. There is nothing a writer, photographer, painter or anyone can do about this. As said earlier, everyone views things through the filter of their own point-of-view. There is just no other way to see things.
First I never said that photographs didn't demand engagement from the viewer in fact I've said just the opposite. A book is descriptive and its not just one word or one sentence. It is paragraphs and chapters all designed to tell a story just like a body of work or a series like Michals work or Minor Whites work not just one photograph no more than a word in a book could tell a story. I once thought that a single photograph told stories and over time and the more knowledge I gained I realized how wrong I was. And I enjoy both the viewing of work and the process of making photographs so much more now that I let all that go.
Letting go of a belief or burden that you feel holds you back is a good thing. The fact is pictures can and do tell stories all the time. However in your case by not engaging in the burden of telling a story and just taking pictures that please you for your own aesthetic reasons has freed you up. That's great. Nothing wrong with that.
If a story is information organised with intent, would a blank frame taken by the accidental firing of my camera while in the bag, with no intentional information be an exception to your rule?
I would say that would be a brief accidental story of a misfire in your camera bag. When you looked at the proof sheet later, you would realize this when you saw the black frame. Someone else may guess it was an accident or mistake but would not be aware of all the details of the story.
You are right. Its the viewer not the photo telling the story and Rich you actually said as much in your last post. A single photograph can inspire thought, ask questions, show you what something looks like, but there is not a story being told by the photograph. Its the viewer and the viewers own imagination telling the story.
The viewer is not telling the story. The viewer is interpreting the information gleaned from the photo, or book, or movie or just walking down the street, based on what they can understand and again, through the filter of their own point-of-view. This often leads to some kind of narrative. Some people call these bits of information, clues or a visual language. Certain images are understood to mean certain things that help the "story" or implied story along. We don't need to know what every ones name is or where they are going. Just like when you read the words "apple in the kitchen" we all get the idea in our heads. I guarantee it's not the same apple and kitchen in every ones head and you don't need to know which tree it came from.
In other media motion pictures, made up of many images per second, books and literature have narrative and do tell stories and a series of photographs like the work of say Duane Michals or documentary projects like The Americans by Frank, those all can tell stories but a single photograph can't. it has no narrative.
A picture of a building in China might be very pretty and interesting for some reason. However unless you can read the Chinese signage that might be about it. If you can read that the sign says "Super Secret Building - Photography Prohibited" you'll read a whole new layer to the photo as well as to the photographer! Now what if the picture showed the same building and sign but in front of it was a bunch of tourists taking pix of each other posing in front of the sign? Is there no possible narrative there? Changing times or something?
No one said it was easy or that the photo was going to do all the work for you. Like reading a novel and poetry, you need to know how to read that language and the imagination necessary to interpret the information. You have to want to read first. Yes a photo can inspire stories and images beyond what's there like a stone causing ripples across a pond.
But the pond needs to have some water in it first!
Yes it's possible that photos can not tell stories.
If you are blind or refuse to put the effort in to see it.
That's how I see it.
