What do they mean by telling stories in photography

[johannielscom]

Simple: Google it.

I did so last week (is this a coincidence?) and found this: http://www.visualstorytelling.com/.

It's not that the information presented at that site is only valid for cartoon drawing, it's equally useful for photographers.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Sure it does, in the elements of the image.

Was the image taken during the day or at night?

Roughly when was the image taken?

What is the setting?

What are the people doing?

What do we know about the people?

What does all of this information 'say?'

First, as I said before, that's not context: that's content.

Second, how do you know what they are doing, unless they are doing something you recognize? How do you know anything about them? How can you be sure where and when the picture was taken? Suppose you see a picture of ragyapa at work. Most people know very little about ragyapa. If they don't, are they not 'clever'?

And (as I pointed out before) knowledge is not cleverness. Even if you think you know what they are doing and what's going on, there's no guarantee that you do. That is most assuredly not cleverness in my book. It's rather closer to stupidity, or perhaps gullibility. How do you know it isn't (for example) staged propaganda? Historical reconstruction? A vintage-style portrait? A timeless scene?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sparrow]

A clever person can determine from the context of the image what is going on. All it takes is an eye and some thought. You don't have to know the title of the image. You just have to look and think.

I'm surprised you should think that ...

... do you mean content btw?

 

[jammcat]

Let's all just take photographs of our cats with our expensive cameras and exotic glass and forget about all of this story-telling nonsense.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Buy yourself a book like Alec Soth's Niagara and you will find out for yourself!

or better still, go to the Magnum in Motion website and watch the slide show with his narration / description / comments / background sound about it. It is here. This is a clear case where to photos do not even come close to telling the story.

BTW, this is one of my favorite examples of using modern technology to enhance photography. And all the original work was shot LF

 

[Jamie123]

True, but also true: no word or series of words can tell a truly complete story due to the limitations of the medium.

No, not really true. Words are the medium of storytelling and you can easily tell a 'complete' story with words. They're not always that good at painting a complete picture, though.

 

[Jamie123]

Buy yourself a book like Alec Soth's Niagara and you will find out for yourself!

But that's a book that heavily relies on text to tell the story as it's filled with love letters.

 

[Bob Michaels]

My next exhibit which will be at the Univ. of Mississippi in Jan - Feb will have 1-3 paragraph mini-stories under each photo rather than short captions. It will be interesting to see the reaction. Here is an example:

This church in Regla, just across the harbor from downtown Havana, serves two religions simultaneously.

This woman could be a Catholic praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary in a church built in 1810 and consecrated by the Archbishop of Havana.

Or, the woman could be Santeria invoking the good will of the spirit Yemayá which is represented as the Virgin of Regla. Santeria, an Afro-Cuban religion, has always physically depicted its orishas or spirits as Catholic saints to avoid problems with the early missionaries.

While the majority of Cubans are of mixed race, the Regla community has a decided bias toward Negro genes. It is almost exclusively Santeria in its religious beliefs.

​

 

[Roger Hicks]

No, not really true. Words are the medium of storytelling and you can easily tell a 'complete' story with words. They're not always that good at painting a complete picture, though.

Well, now we need to start trying to define 'complete' -- just think how few farts are reported, even when (no doubt) they happened -- and we also start getting into signs, symbols and all the paraphernalia of semiotics, before we even start on exegesis.

Cheers,


R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

My next exhibit which will be at the Univ. of Mississippi in Jan - Feb will have 1-3 paragraph mini-stories under each photo rather than short captions. It will be interesting to see the reaction. Here is an example:

This church in Regla, just across the harbor from downtown Havana, serves two religions simultaneously.

This woman could be a Catholic praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary in a church built in 1810 and consecrated by the Archbishop of Havana.

Or, the woman could be Santeria invoking the good will of the spirit Yemayá which is represented as the Virgin of Regla. Santeria, an Afro-Cuban religion, has always physically depicted its orishas or spirits as Catholic saints to avoid problems with the early missionaries.

While the majority of Cubans are of mixed race, the Regla community has a decided bias toward Negro genes. It is almost exclusively Santeria in its religious beliefs.

​

Dear Bob,

Without your admirably brief explanation, it would be equally possible to hang half a hundred other stories on the same picture, in dozens of other countries. If I say no, he's lying, it's in North London (or as it might be, suburban Paris) and it's part of a Brazilian wedding, people have to take your word against mine. Personally I'd back your word, because I just made up my 'contexts'.

And, as Sparrow pointed out, what's actually in the picture is content; you supply the context.

Cheers,

R.

 

[dcsang]

never understood this term of "story telling"

You're kidding me right?

Dave

 

[Sparrow]

Let's all just take photographs of our cats with our expensive cameras and exotic glass and forget about all of this story-telling nonsense.

... that would be a bit boring surely ...

 

[Jamie123]

Well, now we need to start trying to define 'complete' -- just think how few farts are reported, even when (no doubt) they happened -- and we also start getting into signs, symbols and all the paraphernalia of semiotics, before we even start on exegesis.

Cheers,


R.

True, we would have to define 'complete' first and, to be honest, I'm not quite sure what it means in this context.
I didn't really mean telling a story in the sense of an account of events that happened. You can tell a simple story with words. Like: A man got up in the morning and got dressed. He went out of the house and was on his way to work when he got hit by a bus." End of story.
Of course that's a very silly story but it is a story nonetheless. Telling that same story with only images and no words would already present a few difficulties.

Anyways my point was just that what Pablito said just doesn't ring true. There are many limitations to the word, especially the written one but saying that words can never tell a story (not a specific one) is like saying that a piano can never play a song.

 

[jsrockit]

Viewing and understanding images is informed by one's experiences. Without the proper experiences, the image will be just as foreign as any language you do not understand.

While the image Dennis posted tells me a depressing story that feels familiar, I'll admit that I don't know which war for sure... I can guess (Civil) but I don't know for sure without someone verifying it. For someone in a tribe somewhere who had never seen a photo or knows nothing of our wars, it could just a be a weird photo of a lady and a boy in strange animal skin posing with a piece of strange animal skin in some weird location they've never seen before (a studio).

 

[ChrisN]

I thought this one told a (short) story well:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2007535&postcount=842

 

[Sparrow]

Viewing and understanding images is informed by one's experiences. Without the proper experiences, the image will be just as foreign as any language you do not understand.

While the image Dennis posted tells me a depressing story that feels familiar, I'll admit that I don't know which war for sure... I can guess (Civil) but I don't know for sure without someone verifying it. For someone in a tribe somewhere who had never seen a photo or knows nothing of our wars, it could just a be a weird photo of a lady and a boy in strange animal skin posing with a piece of strange animal skin in some weird location they've never seen before (a studio).

... and he would form a better narrative if you spoke to him loudly and clearly in English? ... I think not

 

[Roger Hicks]

Viewing and understanding images is informed by one's experiences. Without the proper experiences, the image will be just as foreign as any language you do not understand.

While the image Dennis posted tells me a depressing story that feels familiar, I'll admit that I don't know which war for sure... I can guess (Civil) but I don't know for sure without someone verifying it. For someone in a tribe somewhere who had never seen a photo or knows nothing of our wars, it could just a be a weird photo of a lady and a boy in strange animal skin posing with a piece of strange animal skin in some weird location they've never seen before (a studio).

Which Civil War? Irish? Spanish? Definitely not American.

Frances reckons it's WW1. I go for the Second Great Patriotic War (the Russian name for WW2, because the cap looks Russian to me).

And, of course, are we looking at a real widow and semi-orphan, and why was the picture taken? As you say, for most Western observers, we can work out most of the story, or alternatively, one story. But now substitute an obviously Nazi uniform. One partial story is identical (wars leave widows and fatherless children, as they did with both my grandmothers). What other stories are told?

Cheers,

R.

 

[jsrockit]

... and he would form a better narrative if you spoke to him loudly and clearly in English? ... I think not

No, so thank you for supporting my point.

 

[jsrockit]

Which Civil War? Irish? Spanish? Definitely not American.

Frances reckons it's WW1. I go for the Second Great Patriotic War (the Russian name for WW2, because the cap looks Russian to me).

There you go... I'm probably supposed to have a better idea, but I didn't. Proves our points as well. The only story a photo can tell is the one that the viewer brings to it based on preconceived notions / experiences (which may or may not be accurate).

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Most of the time, a photo is just a photo. If a specific interpretation is important to the intent, it needs words attached to it. Otherwise, each viewer is going to read their entire life into it.