Do pictures tell stories?

Does a Picture tell a Story... it certainly has the Possibility
its All up to the Viewer and how he/she wants to Perceive it

Some Pictures Do & Quite Blatantly
perhaps not All the facts are known but there lies a basic story
(a picnic at the Beach, a Car accident, A War etc)

Pictures may Seduce with glimmers and than leave it up to You & what your Imagination may construe
 
Michael Markey said:
It does equal a story Rich but my point was ... its your story .
A picture may well have inspired you in whatever fanciful notion you may concoct but the picture isn`t telling the story ...you are.

Unless your claiming undue influence :)
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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.
 
airfrogusmc said:
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 the way 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.
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Well, yes. That's how ALL stories work. Even the simplest child's storybook requires its audience to read the clues in the narrative - to join the dots as it were to create a story.

If a photograph doesn't tell a story, then neither does a book or a film - which I'm sure you wouldn't agree with.

We are used to books and films with clear narrative maps, so that the stories we take from them, though all unique to the individual, are broadly similar: the plot is clear. Pictures are far more ambiguous, but just because a story is unclear and depends significantly on its audience for its creation does not mean such pictures don't tell stories.

As I mentioned, there are plenty of books - stories - that are free form and plotless and create stories more akin to the way pictures do than a traditional novel (e.g. Beckett, as I mentioned). According to your logic, we can't call Becket's writing stories!
 
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.
 
Sorry Rich for all the questions, the problem I have with your initial assertions is you talk as if it's an unquestionable truth, whereas you now say your talking in generalisations , your cloud with a solid core but soft edges.
I have no problem in talking in generalisations, but as with all generalisations, where the solid core ends and the soft edge begins will be interpreted differently by each of us, and so too does what constitutes a story.
I'm sure you'd agree that if I was to open a book and quote you a sentence from it, that would not be enough to call it a story, a paragraph, still unlikely in itself, a chapter, maybe. The point being that a story requires a certain amount of information to be a story, the story needn't have a beginning middle or end, but it has to convey something to be called a story at all.
I should at this point remind you I am also generalising, Jack and Jill went up the hill, probably is a sentence and story self contained, but you get my drift.
Now in my opinion, and again in general, photographs are at best paragraphs and don't have quite enough information to constitute a story, they are too ambiguous and often very deceptive. A recent photograph in the gallery had a tall guy in white tails and tall hat seemingly in some sort of parade and captured perfectly in mid stride. It turns out it's actually a guy's act, of sorts, where he stands in this position for hours as a busking enterprise. Most people viewing the image would make the same assumption I did precisely because it's not a full story, merely an impression to which we attach an assumption.
If I was to take you to a theatre and two tramps walk on stage, they say nothing but your program asks you to create your own story for them, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't call it a play.
In saying all this I do think your view has merit, and we are probably arguing about no more than semantics, I just wish you would accept that it's more of a grey area that's open to interpretation than your insistance on one view.
 
Neither a movie or a narrative tells the whole story. If it did, we wouldn't have art courses that discuss the possible meanings the director or author was trying to convey. Some people will read a book or see a movie and see nothing more, no underlying meanings, no symbolism. Some will use a whole semester discussing one book or movie.
 
bobbyrab said:
If I was to take you to a theatre and two tramps walk on stage, they say nothing but your program asks you to create your own story for them, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't call it a play.
In saying all this I do think your view has merit, and we are probably arguing about no more than semantics, I just wish you would accept that it's more of a grey area that's open to interpretation than your insistance on one view.
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Yes ...that sums up my view too.
I find the phrase too clunky and comprehensive to be an true description of the roll a picture can play in our imagination.
 
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.

airfrogusmc said:
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.
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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.

RichC said:
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...
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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.

airfrogusmc said:
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.
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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.
airfrogusmc said:
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.
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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.

bobbyrab said:
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?
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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.
airfrogusmc said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.

airfrogusmc said:
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.
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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.
 
Another thing that comes to mind, after recently finishing a book by Bates Lowry, is that a sculptor or painter tells their story by using lines, light, and/or colors to lead the viewer through the work of art. I don't see why that wouldn't hold true for photography. For me it is just that simple.
 
Souljer said:
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.


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.


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.


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.

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.


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.

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.


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.
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I'm certainly not blind and to insinuate that Winogrand was is insane and it doesn't change what Winogrand so intelligently articulated in the piece I posted. And the bigger question is why do some think its important for a photograph to tell a story when in fact a single photograph does not have that ability. Our own imagination can and does tell the story but its not the job of the photograph or the photographer to tell a story with one photograph no more that an author can tell a story with one sentence though Hemingway came close (LoL)

Another great photographer that agrees with Winogrand, myself and few others that have posted similar observation in this thread.
"I try to make images that stand on their own, not to tell a story, I think film tells a story"-Mary Ellen Mark

I'll refer back to post #86 by steveniphoto because its exactly where I am to in this conversation.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2107132&postcount=86
 
Airfrog, you're being just too rigid and pedantic for my taste. I could understand and respect your view if you were to say that a picture does not tell a story to you, but I find it silly that you are saying absolutely that a picture can not tell a story, when in fact, pictures do tell me stories. (this is figurative speech) This is my experience that you cannot refute or invalidate. I just think that a teacher needs to be more open-minded and generous of spirit. I would not want to be required to take one of your classes.

I do not much care for the opinions of others, particularly when they are stated as fact, when they do not agree with my own reason and common sense. Are you aware of the popular saying about opinions and everyone having one?
 
FrankS said:
Airfrog, you're being just too rigid and pedantic for my taste. I could understand and respect your view if you were to say that a picture does not tell a story to you, but I find it silly that you are saying absolutely that a picture can not tell a story, when in fact, pictures do tell me stories. (this is figurative speech) This is my experience that you cannot refute or invalidate. I just think that a teacher needs to be more open-minded and generous of spirit. I would not want to be required to take one of your classes.
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Am I the one being rigid? If you let go of that thought a entire world of great photographs that some might have been dismissing because of some pre- conceived idea might open up to you. Do you only want to learn from people that share your exact thoughts? I used to think that a single photograph told a story to. It took someone challenging me on that to get me to grow and think. Buy opening my mind opened me to new possibilities and who knows I'm the type that reads and trys to learn things beyond my worlds so if I read or see something that would change my mind back I'm not opposed to it. I don't call those that share other opinions names but as stevenipoto said I haven't seen anything here that will do that. And you not taking my classes would is your right but I can tell you that Winogrand was a great teacher and we could all benefit from taking one of his classes (if that were now possible) and he shares my opinions. You can believe what you want to believe but don't get upset if I don't entertain that position.

AHHH Plato's Cave....Its the return that to it thats dangerous (LoL)
 
FrankS said:
I love that: "I was once closed-minded and ignorant like you," bit.
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Again you can believe what you want and I did once believe that single photographs told stories. So show me an argument that would change my mind back instead of trying to make this personal.

And show me where Winogrand was wrong. Show me that its not each individual telling his her own story with their imagination based on their personal lifes experiences and instead its the photograph.
 
Pictures "tell me stories" is my personal experience. (I can't really demonstrate that to you because it happens inside me.) That's all I need to know. Like I said, for you to tell me that it is not possible, is like you trying to deny my experience. No one can do that, sorry.

Check out the signature that I've have for some time. Since you are dropping names like Winogrand and Mark, you may be interested to know that this quote is attributed to Buddha.
 
FrankS said:
Pictures "tell me stories" is my personal experience. (I can't really demonstrate that to you because it happens inside me.) That's all I need to know. Like I said, for you to tell me that it is not possible, is like you trying to deny my experience. No one can do that, sorry.
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Why can't you demonstrate it? Take up the challenge in post #8. Pick any picture and tell us the great story it tells to you. So far, we have, "a girl took her dogs for a walk and it rained".

There is a difference between prompting someone to imagine a sailor chasing a whale and giving them a copy of Moby Dick to read.
 
FrankS said:
Pictures "tell me stories" is my personal experience. (I can't really demonstrate that to you because it happens inside me.) That's all I need to know. Like I said, for you to tell me that it is not possible, is like you trying to deny my experience. No one can do that, sorry.
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You are totally missing the point Frank. I don't dismiss at all the story you are telling about what YOU see as the story in the photograph. What I am many other dismiss is its the photograph telling the story. Great photographs inspire thought, ask question and have to engage you so you will tell your own story about what you are seeing. There are always two people in a photograph. The photographer and viewer but that still doesn't mean its the single photograph telling a story its just engaging you to create your own impression. And the great ones keep you coming back and engage you on many levels but the single photograph is still not the one telling the story. Its just showing you a moment in time and if its interesting enough it will inspire you to tell a story. So I'm actually validating your experience and putting it on the viewer to tell the story.
 
So this whole discussion is based simply on a disagreement over semantics. A "picture tells a story" is figurative speech, as I've already said, and does not mean that an image speaks aloud in a voice to tell us a story, just as a book does not recite its story aloud either.
 
My post #68:

Art, including photography, involves a collaboration between the maker and the viewer.


This is my post #72:

Yes, the picture acts as a catalyst for the story to spring into the mind.
Clearly the picture does not tell the story, that's just figurative speech.
What may be happening in this thread is a problem of semantics, and those who take a literal stance against those who take a figurative interpretation of the original question: does a picture tell a story. So both groups are correct, though there are a few who are incorrect in thinking it takes more than one picture to tell a story, IMO.

My post #100:

Since airfrog is hung up on a literal interpretation of a picture telling a story, it should be pointed out that a book does not literally tell a story either. It takes a reader to interact with/interpret the text in order to get at the story. Similarly, the viewer of a photograph needs to provide his/her participation to get at its story.
 
A single picture can't. It can only get the viewer thinking about what happens in the picture. It certainly does NOT tell a story with any acuracy. Whether a story is based on true evens or fictional, it can't be deducted from a single picture.
A series of pictures can tell a story if they related to eachother.
 
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