A Practical Method to Tell a Story with a Photo

Underwater wrecks are perfect subjects to tell stories and to make working the imagination of the viewers.

What, When, Where and Why?

In a photo report, the golden rule is "What, when, where and why". The photo journalist should always ask himself these questions before making photos. He must develop qualities of listening, observation, and contact before triggering his camera. For the nature photographer who wants to make narrative pictures with impact, finding an answer to these 4 questions (the golden rule), “What, when, where, and why,” before pressing the trigger, will be an undeniable help.

Whether in documentary photography or in artistic photography, the photographer will be contributing his own perspective, or in other words, his “vision of the stage”. This is accomplished through the golden rule.

The narration of a single photo or series will be reinforced through the photographer’s ability to connect the subject and audience. Let’s take the concrete example of a deer. Photographing a deer in the mist or with some morning frosts will enable the viewer to locate the season. Showing a deer bellowing is important, but one must also provide the answers to the questions “where?” and “when?” by providing the location and date of the photo. This will reinforce the emotional impact.

The formulas which I have just described are effective ways to create high-impact narrative pictures. However, I also have an alternative method.

My Method of Telling Photographic Stories

My method of telling stories is to set up an intellectual process that allows me, as photographer, to stay focused and refrain from distractions on field. This method breaks down into three distinct stages.

Identifying Interesting Themes

Usually, a photographer takes the best photos when he likes the subject and knows it well. A photographer must always strive to define what pleases him most because this will affect his shots. For example, I am not interested in insects. I never take close-up photos on land, although I like close-up photos underwater. On land, I enjoy viewing wetland birds or big mammals. All of my photos thus revolve around these themes.

Once a photographer has identified his favorite themes, he will have to focus on them. If he scatters, he will never be able to focus on creating interesting narrative photos with high impact.

Moreover, repetition results in intensive practice. It allows the photographer to progress and improve his story telling.

When a photographer focuses on a particular area, he eventually becomes an expert. Moreover, with experience, the photographer will discover unique and creative paths. Finally, he will develop his instinct and concentrate his efforts on his goals, ignoring distractions along the way.

Completing Multiple Tests

Once the photographic domains have been well defined, the photographer will have enough information to define his vision of scenes and places, thus developing his technique. He will endeavor to improve techniques such as framing, compositions, choice of lights, depths of fields, creativity, etc.

Each time, it will be necessary to carry out multiple tests in order to uncover modified methods.

Building Stories

Once the foundation, of well-defined themes and creative techniques, has been laid, it is time to weave the story.

Before looking into the view finder or the back screen of a camera, the photographer must have an idea of what he wants to show. He must have a clearly defined photo project. If this is not the case, the photo session will end badly, resulting in a loss of time.

The photographer must learn to quickly spot different elements like the background, the foreground, the negative space and the points of interests within a scene. Then he must create visual interactions between all of these elements. Above all, he must identify the disturbing elements in the image. These are the ones that bring nothing to the story, and often disrupt the picture. These elements must be removed from the framing.

Once all of the important elements have been spotted, he must ask himself what message he wants to convey. For this, he must analyze what he feels by looking at the scene or the place. When he has identified these emotions or feelings, he must identify a way transmit them through the photo. Technique is used for framing, composition, and etc. It may also be used to establish reinforcement elements for the audience.

The photographer must not forget that technique is the servant, and not the master. The photographer is not dependent on technique. If a technique is not suitable for taking a picture, he should find a more suitable one. A photographer should avoid wasting time by using a technique that does not fit the scenario.

Finally

Creating high impact narrative nature photographs requires experience and know-how. Photographers must never forget that photography is a choice. The perspective of the photo illuminates the photographer’s expression of himself. It is an apprenticeship that requires time, tenacity, and patience. All of the photographers whose ideas continue to impact this generation had one thing in common. They each had time, tenacity, and patience. Their pictures are self-explanatory and self-sufficient when viewed. I hope that this article will make you want to follow their footsteps, progressing from the stage of passive photographer to active photographer.

Be humble, patient, constant, persevering, and persistent because the road to excellence is long.

Some Essential Rules for Telling a Story with a Photo

Landscapes are perfect scenes to suggest emotions and questioning. Landscape in southern Texas along the Rio Grande.

Some Basic Rules for Building a Photo Story

The photograph that will be produced will not necessarily be technically perfect. It could, for example, be noisy. It might miss a bit of crispness or sharpness on some parts. A photograph may be imperfect, but the moment of its impact is very strong on the public. Technique is nothing compared to emotional power.

I believe that once all the photographic rules have been acquired, it is important to forget them, sometimes, to create an original photograph. It is interesting for a photographer to create his own rules from the moment the realized picture has impact. For example, I often make photos with centered points of interests. I often do not respect the rule of thirds.

The technique must be at the service of the photographer. In no case should it guide his gaze and his emotions. Technique is not necessarily a priority. Primarily, the photographer must be moved by the scene. Then, he uses the technique to convey his vision of the scene. Framing, composing, using black and white, or color, and using all the elements of the reinforcement of the reading must help to create photos with strong impacts on the audience.

Framing must be varied. The photographer must focus on whether he is taking the scene vertically or horizontally. The most interesting photograph will be retained during the editing phase. In the heat of the action, it is not always easy to see and check the best framing using the viewfinder or the control screen. It is better to take many pictures and delete the less interesting ones later.

The angles of view must be varied. The photographer must use techniques of low angle, bird’s eye view, or at the same level of the subject. For example, in wildlife photography, the pictures with the most impact are those where the eyes of the animal are at the height of the lens. Just as for framing, the best shot will be retained at the time of the editing on the computer. Shooting at a low angle makes the animal dominant to the viewers. An angle of view at the same level as the animal’s eyes implies adoption or equality to the viewers.

By varying the framing and angles of view of the photographs, a wide variety of potential images are produced. It is for this reason that the technique must be instinctive. I often tell the participants of my workshops that the technique is the "third arm of the photographer". It is instinctively used without realizing that it is actually present.

Also, the photographer must vary his compositions. For westerners who write from left to right, the sense of reading from left to right induces notions of escape, imagination or progression. A sense of reading from right to left for a westerner induces regression, confinement, introspection. The photographer must not forget that the sense of reading causes the transmission of messages in a different way.

I advise photographers not to use the technique of compositing. It means adding elements in a scene to make it truer. I think that you should stay in the photographic field and not go into the “photographism” which is another artistic discipline.

In the case of an artistic photography, it is interesting to create a picture with a lot of poetry that enables the audience to dreaming and equip their imagination. The bokeh technique is a real plus in this case.

Once on the field, whatever the place, I always advise the photographers to soak up the atmosphere of the location. This is true in landscape, underwater, or wildlife photography. Nature has a particularity to always release extraordinary odors. The morning or evening shaving lights create contrasts and lights that give the photographed scenes a rare dimension which normal daylight does not provide. The more a photographer is in fusion with the scene he is to photograph, the more his photos will be expressive. This is because the scene will be saturated in the magic moment “where all is one”.

Soaking up the ambiance of the scene or the place to photograph also requires the photographer to keep all of his senses alert. The emotional sensation of fusion is not sufficient. The photographer must look, listen, touch, and feel all of the natural elements that are facing his lens.

Often, a photo session is not enough to capture all the nuances of a scene. A photographer needs persistence and must come back often in order to more fully capture the entirety of the scene. And even then, it will never be enough. In my case for example, I sometimes go back ten times to the same location to capture different shades of light. I even return at different seasons for photo projects that last for longer durations of time. Therefore, the end result might be hundreds of pictures of the same subject or scene, yet at different times, capturing different moments. It is at the time of editing that the choice of the best photos will be made.

Last but not least, I often advise that a photographer must learn patience to create pictures with great narrative power. This is true in both wildlife photography and landscape photography. Persistence and tenacity is not always sufficient. Indeed, at each return to a given location, the photographer may have to wait hours before the perfect moment to push the trigger of the camera.

Patience and tenacity are the two greatest qualities of photographers who wish to tell beautiful photographic stories.

All of the tips I have covered so far are essential to creating a narrative, high-impact photo. Nevertheless, I often reinforce my photos with a technique known as "photo report".