"Telling" a story

[iliafarniev]

<p>Nice shots, Allen, but photography is indeed different from written words. What, in your opinion, are the story these pictures you kindly presented here do tell?<br>

What is it you call a story here?<br>

1. A piece of coherent information which present clear and singular meaning ? Or.<br>

2. A piece capable to generate contextual and emotional responce(s) in viewer(s)?</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p >story these pictures you kindly presented here do tell?<br />What is it you call a story here?<br />1. A piece of coherent information which present clear and singular meaning ? Or.<br />2. A piece capable to generate contextual and emotional responce(s) in viewer(s)?</p>

<p > </p>

<p > “but photography is indeed different from written words”</p>

<p > An equal claim is the different of dissimilarity between mathematics and literature .However, both are on a journey of seeking truths; the poetry of life exists in both.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Photography communicates in it’s own way, no different in it’s messages than any other medium. Unfortunately, the better works, as in any other media, do not paint by numbers giving little effort for those wanting to understand. </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>Artistry (the activity) may be a quest, but I don't think quest "constitutes art." </p>

</blockquote>

<p>John, maybe you're right, in a way that quest does not constitute art but encompasses everything and anything, which also includes art. A story within a story within a story within a story...Quest is perhaps a too heavy word choice, as it alludes to a romanticised notion of seeking, searching, and trying to obtain something palpable out of living life, which isn't at all that romantic as we can imagine it to be. So a simple " search" might do as well.</p>

<p>A search for absolute clarity is still futile I think, at least in the way I would imagine " clarity" to be , as something that consists of ONE solid perspective, a "zero". The strangely fascinating ' Sunflower ' image in your gallery is to me clear in providing some other perspective to the one we might be more accustomed to, even though this other perspective that you showed is also perfectly normal, acceptable in it's inevitability. Alluding to the possibility of a confrontation <> alignment of these and every other perspective(s) might be what art is all about and what the artist is and must set out to do.</p>

[aral]

<blockquote>

<p>"Photography is no different from the written word; it follows the same mores and patterns; why would it be any different because it is visual communication?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Photography being visual (and still) communication is exactly the reason why it is so different from written word. It's communication power is limited to what can be seen, understood and perhaps triggered from visual capture of short time interval of certain real situation. My point is that, although much can be communicated visually, everything can't be. I think the limitation just prevents a photo to tell a story. It can show situation, communicate perhaps an elementary feeling (or trigger it), but not a story as I understand it.</p>

<p>The thing that comes to my mind is that photo can be thought of as a sort of a visual equivalent to short one-sentence aphorism. It's purpose is not a story, but to present an elementary feeling or thought in a new way. To make you halt for a moment and think about it.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p >“My point is that, although much can be communicated visually, everything can't be. I think the limitation just prevents a photo to tell a story”</p>

<p > </p>

<p >You could equally argue that although much can be communicated by words, not everything can be; take for instance a photographs of a house as opposed to mere words describing it. To argue that visual communication is the lesser storyteller is to deny the impact and storytelling abilities of the great photographs of the past centuries. A good example is the classic photograph of what is called the napalm girl ...would the written word have offered more of a story or less? </p>

<p > </p>

<p ><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/asia_pac_enl_1115306756/html/1.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/asia_pac_enl_1115306756/html/1.stm</a></p>

[aral]

<blockquote>

<p>You could equally argue that although much can be communicated by words, not everything can be;</p>

</blockquote>

<p>My point exactly.</p>

<p>To put it in a "mathematical way": the sets of what can be effectively expressed with words and with images do not coincide. The sets could even have an empty (or perhaps very small) cross-section.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Ales: Let's try another approach. Do you consider a story to be a story only when you have every last conceivable detail provided to you? Is a novel that leaves even a single sub-plot unresolved failing to tell a story? How about two sub-plots? Three? Ten? If you want to use set theory to illustrate your point, then you must also be clear about the other terms you're using. Please provide your working definition for "story." That will help.</p>

[aral]

<p>Matt,</p>

<p>I like to think of a story as defined in webster's:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p ><strong>1</strong>. An account describing incidents or events; "a farfetched narrative"; "after dinner he told the children stories of his adventures".</p>

<p ><strong>2</strong>. A piece of fiction that narrates a chain of related events; "he writes stories for the magazines".</p>

<p ><strong>3</strong>. Structure consisting of a room or set of rooms comprising a single level of a multilevel building; "what level is the office on?".</p>

<p ><strong>4</strong>. A record or narrative description of past events: "a history of France"; "he gave an inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president"; "the story of exposure to lead".</p>

<p ><strong>5</strong>. A short account of the news; "the report of his speech"; "the story was on the 11 o'clock news"; "the account of his speech that was given on the evening news made the governor furious".</p>

<p ><strong>6</strong>. A trivial lie; "he told a fib about eating his spinach"; "how can I stop my child from telling stories?".</p>

</blockquote>

<p>OK, take out No. 3 and No. 6, and this is it.</p>

 

<blockquote><strong></strong></blockquote>

[Matt Laur]

<p>OK, that helps.<br /><br />When someone tells a "farfetched narrative," do you find that it has to be a complete work, relating every detail that might be of interest to the audience? Or can the teller's narrative simply relate that about the scene or event(s) which stir the imagination and entertain?<br /><br />What if someone were to say to you, "... and as I was walking between those two modern office buildings in the middle of the busy city, I came upon a rough-looking blacksmith, earnestly forging wrought ironwork over a hot flame in the middle of the sidewalk!"<br /><br />Would that be a bit of a <em>story</em>, then? Do you care what the narrorator had for lunch, or whether the blacksmith was using propane vs. coal, what the alloy of the metal was, or even whether we'll even know why the narrorator was on that street, or what the blacksmith creating? Isn't it enough that you experienced - vicariously through the narrorator's <em>story</em> - that momentary surprise of encountering a blacksmith working on the sidewalk? Is the telling of that moment of surprise and interest <em>not</em> a story? Since I contend that the relating of such a narrative <em>is</em> the telling of a story, however brief, then so is <a href="../photo/8979331"><strong>this photograph</strong></a> (tip o' the hat to Ton Mestrom).</p>

[joe_jackson4]

<p>Erm, Matt, that's just a picture of some bloke doing something in the street... Not much of a "story" is it...?</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Personally I think a photograph "telling a story" is an exaggeration. A photographs may show what something looked like when the photograph was made. It may be constructed of elements in such a way that it suggests events (but typically not many events in one photo). A set of photographs may illustrate a story powerfully, but the details and facts of the story really have to be told in words. If the reader is just given a picture, without any context given in words, no one would be able to decipher what was really going on. Books have been traditionally illustrated with drawings, which give a hint to the viewer of what the author or illustrator imaged things to look like in the story. But without the text, the reader is clueless of the sequence of events and the details. This is why a photograph or an illustration alone can not tell any complex story, any story with details in it, and words are the medium which is used to tell real stories, perhaps illustrated with pictures - or not, if what things looked like is not considered relevant.</p>

<p>I think it's pretty pompous of photographers to claim that they tell stories with pictures. At best they can support stories by illustrating them. And if they're good illustrators, they'll grab the eyes of viewers who may then read the details of the story. Without words the interpretations of the picture will vary so widely from viewer to viewer there is actually little or no actual information transferred from the photographer to the viewer.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p><em>that's just a picture of some bloke doing something in the street... Not much of a "story" is it...?<br /></em><br />Exactly. It's not <em>much</em> of a story, but it has narrative elements. Just like a sentence. Or a paragraph. Or ten paragraphs. Or a chapter. Or a novel. Where (precisely!) do you draw the line, well enough that you can say a photograph can't deliver a narrative? How little text does it take to fall below the same threshold?</p>

[iliafarniev]

<p>Matt. Your suggestion seems to bring us to conclusion that EVERY THING tells a story, a picture, a word, a propan ... That does not make much sense, is it not?</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>No, Ilia, my point is that a photograph <em>can</em> do so. Not that all - or even most of them - even come close to doing so, or need to. </p>

[iliafarniev]

<p>Thanks, Matt. I will appreciate if you bring here one good example of photo which in your opinion tells a story in clear and distinctive way and another one which does not ?</p>

[joe_jackson4]

<p>Matt, for me the issue is not whether a photo can tell a story or not... The question is how much of a story can a photo tell me... For a single still image, the answer is pretty clear: not very much at all. That's just common sense.</p>

<p>Yes, a set of photographs can tell a story, particularly if presented in some form of sequence. For example, if I watch a movie with the sound turned down, I basically see a bunch of photos strung together very quickly... In many cases, I may be able to follow the general gist of the story reasonably well. But show me a single frame from that movie and I won't be able to say much about the "story" at all. Unless I'm already familiar with the story, I'll just have to guess.</p>

<p>Now, you can argue that a still image may tell us some form of "story"... Fine. No problem with that. But given that a single photograph is a piddle-poor way of giving an account of a series of events over time, it ain't gonna be much of one, is it? (Yep, we can hold the shutter open for a while, and record the passing of time for more than just a fraction of a second... But the end result is merely a single still photographic image, and that's simply not a very effective way to tell a story.)</p>

<p>And yes, we can show an airliner crashing into a skyscraper, or a naked child running down a road in front of some soldiers, or whatever... But that doesn't tell us much of a "story". It simply shows us a visual representation of what was happening during the (typically very short) time the shutter was open. And that's simply not enough to be considered to offer much in the way of narrative, in my opinion... Can a photo make an effective, eye/imagination-grabbing picture for the front of a newspaper or book...? Sure. But it's not telling the "story".</p>

[aral]

<p>Ha, Ilkka has got it to the point. And Paul.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Yes, a set of photographs can tell a story, particularly if presented in some form of sequence."<br>

<br>

I glad we can agree on that simple fact , not so sure about if it needs to be in a sequence; however, the photographer’s story is not a novel, or, Tolstoy’s War and Peace...which is different media communicating in a different way. <br>

<br>

There seems to be a confusion that a photograph should read like a book, if it did, well, it would be a book not a photograph. A photograph has its own way of communicating its story, and like any good book requires an imagination and thought. <br>

<br>

Just for the record, i really don’t think any photograph thinks their photograph tell a story the same as a piece of narrative. Nevertheless, a story it does tell which can be equally as revealing in its ability to communicate as any piece of wordsmithing. </p>

 

[Allen Herbert]

<p>A thousand.....</p><div></div>

[john_elder1]

<p>I suggest to all who have participated in this discussion to go back a few years and look at some Life magazines. For those of you not familiar with the concept the tool used in those magazines to communicate was a series of photographs called a photo essay. For those of you who aren't familiar with his work, check out the famous photo essays of Eugene Smith and his last book Minimata which told the story, through photography, of mercury poisoning in Japan. Those who don't believe photographs tell stories are ignoring almost the entire history of photography. Its laughable.</p>

[aral]

<p>Allen,</p>

<p>the photo of old woman to some extent communicates her emotion. But no story at all. Like why is she crying? Could that be tears of joy? Sorry, can't guess it for sure from the photo, it's simply not enough information.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>John: the thread has really come down to an Olympic Semantics Wrestling sort of thing. It does seem fair to mention that the OP is talking about <em>an</em> image's ability to provide some narrative, not a series of images. A photo essay can, by virtue of the additional context that it provides, deliver far more "story" than can a stand-alone image. Which isn't to say that a stand alone image can't provide some insight into a chain of events (a <em>story</em>).<br /><br />Such a narrative element just needs to provide plausible clues about a past and the present, or about the present and the future (or, all three, if one is able).<br /><br />To answer part of Ilia's question/request, above, I'll make an attempt using an image I have handy, already posted here. No, it's not much of a photograph. But it has a narrative to it. It also serves to point out that the viewer of an image may not see the narrative without being literate in the symbols and visual clues with which the photographer is communicating.<br /><br />With the shot below, some people will say, "Come on, Matt, it's just a guy sitting there with a dog. There's no story being told, no narrative."<br /><br />Others will see a elderly guy with a tired but happy look on his face, resting his bones on a tree stump log, while a mudded-up, hot and winded (note the tongue hanging out) pointing dog does a full-body bonding hug to show her appreciation and delight at what they've just been doing. You can tell the dog is physically fit, which tells us much about its lifestyle and purpose.<br /><br />On the right we see a row of just-shot game birds, and the shotgun used (along with the hunting dog) to bring them in out of the field. We can tell from the body language of the two subjects that they've just finished that task, and enjoyed the challenge. We can tell from the careful position of the breeched shotgun, the garb, and the non-casual line-up of the birds that the old gent is not new at this, and takes safety and etiquette seriously. We can tell from the structure on which they're sitting that they're in a rural spot, probably a working farm, since those are obviously apple or other fruit crates stacked up there just behind them.<br /><br />So this image, for an audience familiar with the matters at hand, absolutely tells a quick story about what's just been happening, about the subjects in it and how they relate to what they've been doing (they're pleased at how they've just spent their time, they're not new to it, etc), and puts the scene into a type of place that tells even more about how the preceeding events likely went. A similarly narrative shot having to do with rugby players or a quilting bee would probably be silent to me, narratively, since I don't have the cultural or visual vocabulary to see the narrative in images on those subjects, unless they're telling more universal stories. But does the story of this man and his loyal dog have to include information about whether that's a 12 or a 20 gauge shotgun, or whether that's an English Pointer or a German Shorthair without a docked tail? No. Are any of the words I used above necessary (as a caption) for some audiences to feel the narrative? No. For other audiences, no amount of accompanying exposition would make this image matter to them, regardless.</p><div></div>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>John, take your favorite novel and show how you'd tell the same story with pictures only. Let's expose the novel and the pictures to separate audiences (randomly selected). Let them describe the story. Which method of communication do you think will be more efficient and especially, unambigous and accurate? To call a photo essay 'a story' is pretentious. It might be a story in the same sense like a cave painting but it's a very primitive form of expressing stories of any sophistication. What is more, as a story-telling method photography is extremely inefficient; a photographer for LIFE or National Geographic might spend a year of their working lives on a single essay which gives very little details in way of a sequence of events in time. If the same space is used for text, or a blend of text and photographs, much, much more information can be communicated. A photo essay with no words is a pretty pathetic attempt at communicating stories.</p>

<p>Allen, your photo includes words. So there is a woman who is sad, probably because her husband died. That's one sentence. A real story might tell details of their lives, what they did, how they met, fell in love, what their life was like, where they went, how he fell ill, and died, what their children do. That might be a story, when told out <em>in detail</em> . A one sentence story is just one sentence. Pretty unsophisticated and when told in words, no one would think it's much of a story. The fact that you can see how she looked like after the funeral is hardly substitute for a proper description of a sequence of events. An interesting story has to have a sophisticated plot.</p>

<p>I am all for using photography to illustrate stories. I think this is a wonderful application and the result can be artistic, effective, sophisticated, and beautiful. But a set of photos without significant text - the only story that that tells me is that the photographer is unable to write well enough to have text published (surely there are details of the story which could better be communicated in words) and is such a difficult person that they can't work with an author who could write something. Which is a sad story but ultimately it just describes the failing of an education system. It's like a story which is not told, and the reader is left uncertain about what it is about. Now, if the photo essay is on a topic which is known to everyone (like e.g. showing pictures of events related to recent news) then the actual story is already in our minds and the photographs just add something to it, but the whole thing would be meaningless without the background of news which is typically communicated via words in newspapers, magazines, and TV which set the viewer's brain to understand the hints to the story. But try to tell a story unknown to the public with any sophistication with pictures only and you'll fail miserably.</p>

 

[saskphotog]

<p>Matt's photograph is a good example. </p>

<p>To repeat what I said long ago, the "literacy" of the viewer is essential for any storytelling a photograph (or any other medium) can tell. And I would like to raise again the question that, if the story content depends on some sort of interaction between what the photographer thought he was doing and what the viewer brings to the viewing, from where does "the story" actually originate, and what is its "real" content? </p>

<p> </p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>So Ilkka, it really does seem that you're not talking about what a photograph can or cannot do, but what "story" is in the first place. The implication is that brevity or lack of lots of detail mean that a narrative isn't ... a narrative. Your cave painting example is a very good one. Of course a few crudely drawn critters, running human shapes and airborn spears can tell the story of a hunt. It doesn't mention what the weather was, or whether one of the hunters was an orphan or about to get married or wearing a brand new designer loin cloth, but it can say "five members of our tribe fed us this month after hunting a bison on foot."<br /><br />So what if it's not sophisticated? If the cave painting isn't a Rembrandt, is it too unsophisticated to be called a painting? Is a a short story not really a story because it's not a novel? You can't dismiss a shorter narrative as being unable to provide a narrative. You're essentially saying, "I won't say how many details are necessary to make it a story, but I know it when I see it." That sort of vague hair-splitting on the subject completely misses the point of whether a photograph can be narrative in nature, and dwells instead on equating "story" with a complex, lengthy form. That's simply not the common or <em>only</em> usage for the word. <br /><br />None of this has <em>anything</em> to do with whether you, personally, find any given photograph to be gratifyingly narrative in content, structure, or context. That's completely subjective, and I'm with you there. But we could say the same things, exactly, about songs, poems, paintings, short stories, novels, or any other form of human expression. A photograph <em>can</em> contain the information to communicate a narrative, however very minimal it may be. That has nothing to do with whether it's necessary or even interesting to many people. </p>