How to Tell a Story With One Photograph
By Ceci Ellis
Sharp focus gets you a nice photo. It doesn't automatically get you a memorable photo. I got reminded of that recently by a photographer I respect, who looked at a shot of mine that missed focus on the one spot you're "supposed" to nail, the eyes, and told me it still worked. That comment stuck with me enough that I went looking through my own library for more proof he was right.
Desert Spiny Lizard at Pinnacle Peak
The photo in question is a desert spiny lizard I caught on a hike at Pinnacle Peak. Technically, the focus landed a little behind where it should have, right on the edge of soft. If I were judging it purely on sharpness, I'd have deleted it. But the story isn't in the crispness of his scales. It's in the posture: chin lifted, eyes on some middle distance past the frame, planted at the top of a rock like he's surveying territory that belongs to him. You read that as a character in a moment, not a specimen. That's the whole difference between a technically correct photo and a photo that tells you something.
Not every storytelling photo works the same way, though. Some of the best ones aren't even the shot you meant to take.
My cat Bug stealing the still life shoot.
Case in point: a still life I'd carefully set up on a cutting board, dried flower pods arranged just so, moody purple backdrop, the whole thing lit and staged like a product shot. Then my cat wandered directly into frame, planted herself behind the arrangement, and stared straight down the lens like she was daring me to complain. I didn't plan that photo. But it tells a much better story than the still life ever would have on its own: the gap between what you intend to capture and what actually happens the second you turn your back on a cat.
And then there's the photo that's just a joke, and doesn't pretend to be anything deeper. My amazon parrot, perched directly on top of my camera and lens, feet gripping the barrel like he's the one about to take the shot. There's no hidden meaning to dig for here. The story is right on the surface: the photographer got upstaged by the subject, and the subject knew exactly what he was doing.
Sunny the Double-Yellow Headed Amazon Parrot Photographer
Three photos, three completely different ways of getting there. One works because I waited long enough to catch a moment of genuine character despite a technical miss. One works because reality interrupted a plan in a way that was more interesting than the plan itself. One works because it's simply funny, and doesn't need to be anything else. None of them are the most perfect images in my library. However, I'd pick all three, over a technically perfect shot without a second thought.
If there's a rule buried in all this, it's that a story-telling photograph asks a different question than a technically good one does. A technically good photo asks, did I nail the settings? A story-telling photo asks, does this make someone want to know what happened right before, or right after, the shutter clicked? Sometimes those two questions have the same answer. Often, they don't. When they don't, I've learned to trust the story every time.
