When I first started out, I’d take my film down to the photographer on Newland Avenue, near where I grew up, and he’d make what everyone called a contact sheet. The strips of negatives got cut, slotted into a frame to keep them flat, and exposed straight onto a sheet of photographic paper. Thumbnails of everything from the roll, all in one place, so you could work out which frames were actually worth printing.
Lightroom’s my contact sheet now. Same idea really, I import the whole take and go through deciding what’s worth developing further. Different tools, same decision.
What’s that got to do with telling a story? Everything, actually. A contact sheet is where the story starts getting built, because a narrative needs a shape, a beginning and a middle and an end, and so does a set of photos from a day out. Looking at the whole roll at once, you see how the shots sit next to each other, not just whether any one of them is sharp. Which ones you choose to develop isn’t really about which are technically best. It’s about which ones actually tell you what happened.
That’s roughly how I pick what goes on this blog too. A shot of my mate JD mid haircut, or my dinner right before I demolish it, they’re doing the same job: filling in a piece of whatever the day was. I try not to forget the photo of dessert before I eat it. Miss that window and all you’ve got is a plate with cake crumbs on it, which, as a photo, says nothing.
Back to the idea of an arc, though, because that’s the bit that matters. When I head out for the day I usually start with a few throwaway shots just to get my eye in. Sometimes I’ve got a plan. Usually I haven’t. Mostly I’m just trying to catch the feel of wherever I’ve ended up, a café, a church, a pub, whatever’s in front of me. Each shot leans on the last one, and by the end of the day there’s a sort of thread running through the roll, even if I didn’t plan it that way.
Paid work’s different, obviously. If I’m hired for an event I’ll sit down with the client first and talk through what actually matters to them: what the venue’s like, whether there’s awkward lighting or someone’s got mobility issues to work around, which moments they’d never forgive me for missing. Having that list of must-haves, the Kodak moments I mentioned in the last post, gives me something to hang the day on.
Say I’ve got a wedding booked. I know I’m shooting the bride getting ready. I know I need to be at the venue before the couple turns up. I need the rings photographed before they’re on anyone’s finger. I’ll want portraits of the guests milling about too. Planning all that out in advance is the only reason I’m not a nervous wreck on the day itself.
Not every story needs a series, though. Sometimes one photo does the whole job. It holds what’s in the frame plus everything that isn’t: the emotion, the context, sometimes a proper mystery.
Take an empty café table in soft morning light, half a cup of coffee gone cold, a notebook left open. That’s a story on its own. Who was sitting there? Why did they leave? What were they writing? The photo doesn’t answer any of it. It just hands you the question and lets you sit with it.
Different people will read that image differently depending on what they’re bringing to it. It’s really a conversation between whoever took the photo and whoever’s looking at it. I set the scene, choose the light, press the button, but it’s the viewer who finishes the story in their own head.
Same goes for people. A portrait of someone staring out of a window, somewhere else in their head entirely, makes you wonder what they’re thinking about, or where they’re going, or what just happened to put that look on their face. It’s more than a face in a frame at that point. There’s a whole narrative sitting underneath it that words wouldn’t do justice to.
Telling a story with a camera isn’t really about the picture-taking bit at all. It’s about deciding which moments are worth keeping and finding a way to shoot them so they carry more than what’s literally in frame. Sometimes that takes a whole roll. Sometimes it’s one frame and you’re done.
Next time you’re out with a camera, don’t just take pictures. Ask yourself what you actually want someone to feel looking at this later, whether that’s a quiet morning in a café or a wedding with two hundred people watching. Look back through your old photos sometime too, in order, like a reel rather than a folder. It changes how you see them. Might even change how you see the next roll you shoot.
Also in this series: Part I — An Introduction · Part II — Why Do We Photograph? · Part III — The Emotions of Photography · Part IV — The Art of Storytelling · Part V — Identity & Self-Expression · Part VI — Connection Through Photography · Part VII — The Philosophy of Impermanence · Conclusion