Telling Your Story

Telling Your Story: How to Create a Powerful Photo Essay 

Photography has long been considered a powerful storytelling medium, and the photo essay is simply a more deliberate method of telling a particular story or chronicling a certain event.   Photojournalists such as Lauren Greenfield and Deanne Fitzmaurice have captured our imaginations and touched us through powerful photo narrative, and with today’s digital technology and a few storytelling techniques, you can begin experimenting with your own photo essays. 

Here are a few tips to help you get started:

·       Clearly Define Your Story:  It can be as simple as the first day or school or something more complex such as a controversial topic or current event.  Whatever the case may be, make sure you can clearly define it and explain it in one or two sentences.  The clarity gleaned from this exercise will help guide you throughout the process.

·       Go a Little Deeper:  Consider what aspects of the story you wish to convey.  Is it the wonder of seeing a natural wonder for the first time? The excitement of playing in a first little league game? Spend a little time contemplating the topic as you may uncover other aspects of the event to explore.

·       Plan Your Images in Advance:  It doesn’t have to be exact, but think about each photograph as a paragraph or chapter of your story.  How many images you take is up to you as each story is unique.  You may find that ten images portray the event as you wish while others may take fifteen or twenty.  There is no right or wrong number;  just make sure that each photo serves a particular purpose and plays a role in moving the story forward.

·       Consider How to Share Your Story: Continue to play with your creativity by enlarging the photos and having them mounted or framed as a series. We’d be happy to help you put the final polish on your photo essay. The completed result can become a wonderful conversation piece hanging in your living room or even in a local community center or art gallery!  

Taking It All In:

Your Guide to Fantastic Panoramic Photographs

Summer vacations often include locations with amazing outdoor scenery and stunning landscapes.  The desire to shoot panoramic photographs once meant investing in expensive equipment, but digital photography advancements mean that you can create picturesque panoramic s with your existing camera and computer. If you’ve hit the road in search of the great outdoors, make sure your images do Mother Nature justice.

Get in the Mode:  Check your camera to see if you have a panoramic mode.  If you aren’t sure, thumb through the menu or the manual to find out.  The panoramic mode is designed to help stabilize lighting conditions between photos in the series, and it will not change exposures between pictures as it would in automatic mode. 

Learn to Stitch:  Most of today’s image editing programs have a stitching tool that is designed to create a panoramic image from multiple pictures.  You may also be able to find a free software plug-in specifically for this purpose.  Check online for the options available.  You should be able to get what you need at no cost.

Stand Strong: Make sure to stand in the same position throughout shooting your series of images.  A slight adjustment of your location can result in photographs that don’t properly line up during the stitching process.   A quality tripod can help you retain your position while also keeping your camera stable. We offer a number of quality models here: http://www.promaster.com/products/tripods

Be Open to Overlap:  Make sure to leave some overlap on each image so that the photos can be properly combined.  When shooting the subsequent image, consider a 15-30% overlap of scene from the previous one.

Keep it Clean:  Nothing can ruin a fantastic panoramic picture like a finger smudge or dirt spec on your camera’s lens.  Keep a lens cleaning solution and cloth in your camera bag.  Many vacation photos have been ruined due to smudges and dirt, so a little preparation really pays off. http://www.promaster.com/products/cleaning

 

Try it Vertical:  Shooting a waterfall or other vertical wonder of nature requires the same basic principles as shooting a traditional horizontal panoramic.  Feel free to play with the images until you get the feel for shooting vertically.  You may find that the vertical element gives an additional creative twist to your panoramic photography!