Story-telling through images, part of your Creative Strategy

 

Story-telling through images

Story-telling through images builds on our previous posts, the importance of having a message and using a framework such as Japanese aesthetics where we talk about how to kickstart your creative juices. Here we talk about the art of story-telling as a way of focussing your message.

Typically story-telling requires the following images:

  1. Signature Image: the main image telling the overall story,
  2. Portrait Image: the main character in the story,
  3. Wide Image: setting the scene and giving a sense of place of where the story is told,
  4. Detail Image: closeup fine detail, and
  5. Action Image: showing the main character doing what they do.
story-telling through images

Story-telling through images

When using images to tell a story, ensure each image contributes to the overall story. Use techniques such as composition, colour and tone to focus attention and set the mood for the story.  By using a series of images to tell a story you a setting yourself a framework to work within, which as we discussed in a previous post is a useful technique to force yourself to be creative.

Having to think about what each image is trying to show and how it will contribute to the overall story and how the images blend together in terms of tone or colour etc. will help you to be creative. Using story-telling to get your creative juices flowing is another useful technique in your arsenal of tools.

 

Call to Action

Next time you are out and about with your camera, take a more documentary approach and have a go at story-telling:

  1. think about the story you wish to tell,
  2. plan the content for each of the image elements (portrait, action, etc.),
  3. make sure that your story has a begin, middle and an end,
  4. check that you can tell who, when, what, and where within each of the images, and
  5. ensure that your images come together to tell a story.

Of course, it doesn’t have to stop there, you can try and squeeze the whole story into a single image and set yourself a real challenge.

 

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