Photographs that make an impact – what is your story?
You bought a nice, new expensive camera. You read the manual front to back, back to front. You shot a few thousand images. You’ve gotten to know every aspect of your camera and figured out ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Now it’s time to make some meaningful images.
Images with impact. Compelling images that make people stop and look instead of swiping left or right or scrolling past. Photographs with strong compositions that use visual language to tell a story, create a mood or transports the view to a wonderful new plain of thought.
You are now ready to stop taking photographs and start making images.
“Composition is everything. You can have all the gear – or all the vision – in the world, but it’s composition alone that gets you to the more powerful photographs, the ones that connect and stir something in people.” – David duChemin
Colby Brown – How to Tell Compelling Stories Through Photography – Photographers are visual storytellers.
The challenge for photographers – Telling an interesting story in a single frame. Not in hundreds of words in a book or two hours in a feature length movie – a single image.
That is a high order and a challenging goal. Static images have the goal of setting the scene, highlight the subject and convey the meaning of the image. In your images you want to be able to communicate to the view within seconds. The viewer needs an image with a clear message to understand what they are looking at. They also need to clearly be able to figure out what is important within the frame. The viewer shouldn’t be guess at what the photographer wants to show. The subject should be apparent and visual language and composition should direct the viewer’s eyes to the important part of the image.
The view should not be left thinking “what is this all about?” Become a storyteller rather than a photographer.
Better photography starts with better storytelling. What are you trying to say to the viewer? Figure out your story before taking a photograph.