Transcripts
1. Introduction: Following a story and following curiosities to bring a series of photographs to life that tell a story is one of the most exciting aspects of photography that you can really dive into. Am Desdemona Dallas. I'm a photographer, portrait photographer, a documentary photographer living and working in New York City. My photographic series have been published online, and for various in print publications. If you've watched any of my other classes, you know that a lot of my photography focuses on portraiture, and working one on one with subjects. Another aspect that I love about photography is narrative storytelling. Through this class, we're going to be talking about how to take still images, and put them together in a series to create a narrative around a theme, a concept, a place, a relationship, or really any kind of thing that's bringing you intrigue in your life right now. I'll be bringing you through my entire process, all the way from concepting, to shooting, to equipment, image selection, and then finally, putting together your final narrative. The art of storytelling in photography can be utilized by such a wide range of photographers. So whether you're a hobbyist or a professional, or an art photographer, this class is definitely for you. Any way that you can start to expand on how to really resonate with a narrative or a story that's going to help you to broaden your own understanding of photography, and continue to establish yourself and your artwork. My deepest hope is that through this class, you'll learn a photographic language that will help you to take these ideas and concepts and themes that you have in your life, and share them with others. So I'm so excited to bring you on this journey, and I hope that you'll join me in learning how to use photography to create impactful narratives around themes and concepts.
2. Class Project : What You'll Make: For this class project, you're going to leave the class with having your own short photo narrative series. Taking the tools that we're going to be talking about in class, from concepting to how to get prepared for your shoot, to shooting an image selection. After going through the full class and reviewing all of those steps, I want you to take those steps and create your own photo narrative. Using some of the tools that we talked about in image selection, narrow down your selections into three different photographs that you think tell a really short, concise narrative around this specific theme or idea that you are focusing on. Use this opportunity to be really specific around your storytelling and your image selection, and choose powerful images that really bring your theme to life. Make sure to share them in the project gallery and I will, of course, be sure to look at all of the projects and give my own feedback. If you are looking for inspiration, you can check out the projects and resources tab under the class and look at some of the photos that I posted from one of my own series.
3. Getting Inspired: Before we move forward into the concepting part of the class, I'm just going to give you a few examples of photo stories that I've worked on over the years to help inspire you to really look at all the different options you have for crafting your own narrative. Some of the ideas that you can work with can be traveling, relationships between people, location-based narratives, self-portraiture. There are so many different ways that you can encapsulate a narrative around photography. I'm just going to give you a few examples so you can start to really get your own creative ideas flowing and have a little bit more of an understanding of some examples of just how varied a photo story or a photo narrative really can be. My first ever photo series was a documentation of my roommate in a house we lived in. Throughout the series, I was exploring relationships between people, the landscape, and each other. You can see in the photographs that I've really tried to get the nuances of who each person was. In this representation of my photography, I was really exploring ideas of light and how to hold onto these smaller, simpler moments between people. One of my favorite photo series I've ever created is my series entitled life on a Cannabis farm, which was published with Miss Grass. Rather than focusing on the relationship with people, this was a time in my life where I was very much alone and exploring the ideas of isolation and its impacts on me and my own psyche. Through this exploration, instead of photographing people, I photographed the spaces around me. I tried to really encapsulate how still and quiet that life was. Something to think about while you're considering your own concepting, is if you want to bring in a self-portrait. Through my cannabis series, I was the only subject that there was available. I spent a lot of time capturing myself in my own daily routine. If you don't have anyone to photograph, focusing on self-portraits can be a really great way to bring about the narrative around your own life and your own self. Another great way to explore photography narrative is through travel. Series don't necessarily have to be based around people. They can also be based around locations. My series, American road trip, published with Nowhere Magazine about life on the road, was all about my experiences traveling. In this series, I focus more on capturing buildings, forgotten places, and the essence of what I was seeing around me while on the road. Photographic stories can be told in so many different ways. These are just a few. Take time to consider what approach will work best for you. Be open to experimenting and trying new things. Follow your innate interests and passions to lead you to a story that is going to intrigue you personally. After watching this video, I want you to do some digging. Find photo stories on the Internet that you are drawn to. Research the photographer and see what their approach was. How did they approach their subjects? What is their process? Study their photographs and take some time to really think to yourself, why do you like those stories and what draws you to them?
4. Concepting Your Narrative: Now we're going to get into some concepting. One of the first steps for me in concepting is to pull up my journal and just start to spend some time asking questions to myself. What has been around me that's been inspiring me? What around me has been bringing up questions for me? It's this questioning of my own self and my own internal landscape that allows me to really start thinking about what I want to start focusing on in this process of creating a narrative. For this video, I'm going to have you do a little bit of a journaling practice. Pull out a pen and piece of paper and sit down somewhere comfortable where you can really allow yourself to get into this imaginative process. Something that I want you to think about first is what is creating questions in your life right now? What are things that feel inspiring to you? If you're having trouble finding an answer for developing these questions within you, then start to look outside of yourself and find things in your surroundings that you think are inspiring. Once you've chosen a story that you feel like you personally connect with, start doing some research. For instance, if there's a specific location that you chose, that you really like, research that location, see what the history of that space is, how did it come about as a place? How was it used in the past? If you're focusing on a certain person or individual, spend some time interviewing them, see where they're at, see what questions they're asking in their life right now. Maybe you can actually start to have a collaborative process with them. Really give yourself a chance to dig deeper into the story idea and into the narrative. The more that you dig and the more that you understand about the place or ideas that you're being inspired by, the deeper you are going to be able to go into that exploration. Something else I find that is helpful to do before I set out to actually start taking my photos is to create a mood board. I look through the Internet and also photo books that I always have on hand to start to culminate an idea of how aesthetically I want to tell the story. What do I think lends to the photo story? What types of colors do I want to use to really highlight the story I'm trying to tell or the emotions and feelings I'm trying to evoke through telling this story? In creating the mood board, it really allows me to be in the aesthetic exploration of the final narrative that I hope to create. Having a mood board created beforehand allows me to have more exploration when I'm actually there shooting. It gives me a little bit more space to be in the moment if I'm always able to connect back to that same aesthetic that I came up with before even engaging with the story one-on-one. The concepting part is the most fun. It's before you have any real logistical issues going on. It's where you can just let yourself go wild in the ideating process. Give yourself a lot of time and space to be creative and really follow your curiosities wherever they take you. Anyone who sees a photo narrative that you've created out of your own personal curiosity or a story that you resonate, that's going to, in turn, make your audience also resonate with that. Just follow your own creative impulses in this concepting portion of the class.
5. Before You Start Shooting: Now that you've been able to spend a little bit of time concepting your shoot and your story idea, we're going to talk about some things that you're going to want to consider before actually going out and shooting. The first thing that you want to think about is what equipment you're going to use. This is definitely a class where you can literally just use your iPhone. However, if you want to use a little bit more professional gear, I'll show you what I'm going to be using. For something like an entire photo narrative, I really like to have a few different options. Something that you could use is a 24-70 lens or a different zoom lens where you can be taking wide angles, but also be getting those up-close shots. Because you're going to be wanting to think about a wide variety of shots for the specific storytelling. What I always bring with me is my 35 millimeter. This is going to allow me to get wide and medium shots. I'll be able to really pull out and get the full story and this is really great for taking portraits, getting a little bit closer. The other lens that I always use, actually my favorite lens that I use is my 50 millimeter. This is really amazing for portrait photography. It's also really good for shooting intimate moments. If I want to get really much closer into something, or if I want to also take still life. We'll be talking a little bit about still life within this class and taking photos of inanimate objects. A 50 millimeter is really great for those smaller and more intimate moments. I'll be using my Canon DSLR. You don't necessarily need a Canon but having the option to use a 50 millimeter is really great. Fifty millimeter is super versatile, you can get, like I said before, really great portraits and also really amazing still lifes. Again, either choosing a 35 millimeter or a 24 millimeter is going to give you this ability to capture more of the whole landscape of the narrative that you're trying to choose. When you're telling these stories, it's helpful to be able to zoom out a little bit and really give someone the entire scope of the space that they're in. Something a little bit wider is going to be able to give you the opportunity to really use the location a little bit more than just focusing on a person's face or focusing on these more smaller details that you'll get with, something more like a 50 millimeter. Another really important thing to consider before going out and shooting is your location. We talked a little bit about this in our previous class. For choosing a story narrative, maybe your entire focus is location. I shot a series last year in quarantine that was focused on my garden, I called it garden and isolation. The entire basis of the story was just the loneliness of this garden, the emptiness of this garden. I was really trying to capture that through this photographic narrative. Another way that you can use location in a really effective way is using location to actually bring out the personality of your subject. If this isn't so much a location-based story, and it's more about a subject or an entire group of people that you're focusing on, think about what location can actually bring out more of the characteristics of this person or this group of people. For example, my photo series, Love Shack was all about this family living up in Canada. I chose to photograph them in there, the intimacy of their own home. I felt like stepping into a space that they felt really comfortable in, really allowed me to have a more intimate process with them and become closer with them. It gave them an opportunity to really feel safe to open up to me because it was a place that they were used to being in all the time that felt comfortable to them. Another example of this is my Bathtub series. In this series, I actually invited people into my own home and asked them to become vulnerable in a space that I had created for them. Really think about your location and the setting and emotions that your location can bring out in people. Is the entire story based around a location? Or are you bringing people to that location to actually bring out a certain personality or a characteristic or highlight something they might be interested in. These are really important things to think about when you're diving into considering what is going to be the backdrop for your photographic narrative. One last thing to consider it before actually going out and shooting besides equipment and location is lighting. Are you going to bring your own light with you? I love to work with some little LED lights that can bring a whole different vibe to my photographic narrative. If I'm throwing in these little neon highlights every once in a while, or if this is a location-based story, what time of day are you going to shoot in that location? Are you going to go there in the morning or in the mid-afternoon or evening? A really great example of the way that I use natural light is in my first photo series that I showed you in Paonia, Colorado. In this series, I was really trying to use light to highlight different aspects of my subject's character. I used natural light to really bring about different emotions and hoping that with utilizing the light in different ways, I was able to get my audience really captivated on the characters that I was representing. Just to recap, before you actually go out and start shooting, think about the location of your shots. The equipment that you're going to bring with you, and consider the type of lighting that you want to use. Is it going to be natural lighting? Are you going to bring some of your own lights? If it is natural, what time of day do you want to shoot? These are all really important things to consider before you actually go out and start shooting so you can be as prepared as possible. Also, give yourself the ability to respond to what's happening around you and be spontaneous and really interact with your subjects and the space around you in the moment.
6. What Shots to Use: Once you've chosen your topics that you want to create a narrative around, and you've got your equipment set up and you've put your storyboard together. Now we're going to go out and start shooting. One of the most important things to consider while you're out shooting is composition. Composition is actually how you put together your shot. What's in the shot, how you're thinking about the shot, what you're including in it, what you're not including. This is going to be what really helps you to capture that narrative and make it strong, so that people are feeling really drawn into each one of your photographs. Remember as you're making these photographs, even though they are part of an entire series or narrative, you want each one to stand out as having its own unique story as well. We're going to start to really break down how to consider your composition and really think about what kind of shots you want to capture throughout your entire series. For this video and talking about composition and different types of shots, I'm going to be focusing on one photographic series that I did over the course of one day. Back in 2017, I photographed the Mayday protests in New York City. Now this is a series of protests that happened every year on May 1st. It was originally started as a labor rights movement, on this specific day in 2017, a variety of different groups from Black Lives Matter to environmentalists and labor unions rights activists from Latin America, were all coming together to show the world their specific platforms and messages that they wanted to have heard. Throughout the specific series, I was really trying to capture the descent and disruption that was being brought about by these protesters, trying to bring their ideas and messages to the greater public. I'll be showing variety of photographs from that specific series to talk about, how do you capture your environment, how do they get different types of shots, the difference between a wide shot and a portrait shot, and talking about how to use all of these different types of shots to pull together one cohesive narrative. The first shot that we're going to talk about is the wide shot. These are shots taken with a wide-angle lens, such as a 24 millimeter or 16 millimeter, you can even get a wide shot with a 35 millimeter. Within these shots, we're able to not only capture a subject, but you can also tell more to your audience about the subject's surroundings. In the wide shot for my Mayday series, I was focused on capturing the messaging of the protesters. I wanted to make sure that there were banners in my photographs that clearly stated why people are in the streets that day. I was also thinking a lot about my surroundings. I chose wide shots that included the cityscape to give a sense of the chaos of this day and just how many people were involved. When you're thinking about shooting your wide shot, you want to always consider the larger story. What is the backdrop to your series? Who or what else is impacted by the story and how are the subjects interacting with their surroundings? In these wide shots, maintain an awareness that goes beyond just your subjects and really talks about how those subjects are impacting the space around them. While you're out shooting and creating compositions, you always want to consider your foreground, middle ground, and background. Depending upon how you use these three different layers of your composition, you can tell a very different story. In considering these three layers, think about what you are putting in focus. For instance, here in the shot, the police officer in my foreground is out-of-focus. This leads the viewer to look at the middle ground where the young person's being arrested. Yet we still have the presence of the police officer, which is very close and gives the viewer a sense of perhaps danger or feeling of being watched. Here in the second photo, I have the person in the very background in focus. In this photograph, I was working to portray how others in the street may have felt about the protesters, having her in focus in the background draws the viewer's eye to her. However, as she is in the background, she's still not seen as the main character in the photograph. You can see how choosing what is in-focus in your photograph and understanding how to work with these various layers can really change your audience's understanding of what is happening in the photo and shape their experience of your photograph. When shooting and thinking about composition in this way, what you want to think about is what is in focus? Is the story in the foreground, middle ground, or background? How does changing your focus change the narrative of the image? Now let's take a step a little bit closer and focus on our portrait shot. Generally, for the portrait shot, I'm going to be using a bit of a smaller lens, so it's not going to be this wide-angle 35 for 24. Usually with portraiture, I'm going to use a 50 millimeter. Portraiture can be definitely taken in a journalistic way. It doesn't have to be in a studio. You can do street photography or take more journalistic narrative photos through a portrait lens. Unlike the wide shot where you're including a lot of your background and backdrop, in the portrait shot, it's helpful to really cut out that background noise in order to narrow down distractions. For these photographs, you want your audience really focused on the person who is in the photo. Here, you can clearly capture someone's mood or their personality through gestures and body language. But you don't necessarily always want to focus on people. While out in the world shooting your photographic narrative, consider where else the story is, stay tuned to the little details that may get lost in the crowd. Where else is the narrative? Inanimate objects can also tell a lot of the story, and we'll get into that a little bit more in one of our future videos. Have an awareness of the little details that might also lend to help tell your story. Now that we've gone over a wide variety of shots, hopefully, you have a good sense of what are different tools and techniques you can use for your specific composition to really show the narrative that you're trying to encapsulate. Remember you want to draw the audience in using foreground, middle ground, background, what you want your focus to be and think about the difference between using close-ups and wide shots to convey different types of emotions and bring your audience into different aspects of the story. When you're choosing your final selection, be sure to really use a variety of different types of shots to give people a chance to understand the full complexity of the story that you're trying to share.
7. Working With Subjects : Make It Collaborative: Photographing people can be one of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of doing photographic narrative. You really want people to feel comfortable enough around you that they can show their full selves. In that essence, you can actually capture what it is you're trying to tell through your photo narrative and through the photography. So in this video, we're going to go over some of those variety of techniques to really give you an opportunity to understand all the different ways you can use to photograph subjects in a way that can really illuminate their personality, their full story, and show the true essence of who it is they are and what their relationship is with your story. Before setting out to photograph your subjects, here are a few questions that you can consider. Who is the person in the narrative? What is their relationship to the overall story? What part of their essence or personality are you most drawn to? In documentary photo series, such as the one we are creating, it's most common to use the natural light that is around you. It's important to learn how to work with the light you have. In this example of a photo session I did with my mom, I show here varieties of different lights I used. First, using the single lamp that was there, then using flash on my camera, and then using the light that was coming just from the window. Each of these light settings creates a different mood. Working with just the light that I had, actually gave me quite a lot to work with. In the end, I really loved the photograph with the natural light from outside. I feel the light here is soft and gives a lot of mystery as so much of the photo is faded into black. But remember that, as you're photographing your subject, don't feel dismayed if you don't have a lot to work with. Just get creative with what is present for you, know that even in working with that, you can actually create so many different moods. Try to really lean into the subjects, personality, and what it is you're trying to bring out in them. Do you want it to be darker or do you want it to be more light? How do you want shadows cast across them? These are all things that you can take into consideration as you're thinking about how to use light in these photographs. When you're photographing your subject, even the slightest change in the camera angle can really impact the entire feeling of a photograph and your audience's relationship to the subjects. In this series of photographs, my mother stays in the same exact place, but I feel the relationship the audience has to her is different with every angle. If you shoot from above, your subject can feel small, while shooting from below gives them a larger-than-life presence or shooting from a wide-angle, once again, makes a subject looks smaller in relationship to their surroundings, versus if you're closer, they can become really the main player in the narrative of that photograph. Play around with the angles and see if that captures different sensations in your work. When shooting subjects, I like to switch back and forth from photographing stage shots and natural shots. It can be challenging to get a subject to act natural, but try to get them to do something they feel comfortable with. Ask them what they would normally be doing if you weren't there. Try to get them to walk around with you and capture them as they're walking through an environment that helps to bring out their story. It might take time for them to feel comfortable with you, but just keep shooting until you get what you need. Using an opposite approach to getting your separate tack natural, you may also want to take some photos that are a bit more staged. In these examples with my mom, I really loved the specific lighting of the spaces and had an idea of how I wanted her to stand and what I wanted her gestures to be. So I set it up. I chose the background and I asked her to stand in a specific way. This photo series with poet Nova Zef, I asked her where she did most of her writing. She told me the subway. That's where we ended up going to take photographs of her actually, in her writing process. I ended up loving this series because I could see how naturally she felt writing in the setting, and it gave this voyeuristic feeling of being with her while she was on one of her daily subway rides. Your subject knows themself best. So let them help you bring out who they really are by asking them where they feel the story comes to life for them. This can be a really great place to actually have a collaborative process with your subjects. When photographing your subjects really let the world around you guide you to the perfect photo. Create an environment where you both can be in conversation with each other and both be a part of the creative process. In the next video, we're going to move away from talking about people and background and talk more about inanimate objects and how objects can be a big part of bringing together your own narrative that you're trying to bring to life.
8. How Objects Tell a Story: You've got your background, and your setting, and your location, and you've thought about composition; all of these things, but maybe there's still a little something missing. Another thing that you can bring into your photographic narrative or a photo story is objects. We don't first think of objects when we're thinking about photography in this way; in telling a narrative, but little objects can actually be a really great way to get the nuances of your story. There are these little pieces that can bring out characteristics in your characters or really tell the story of the scene that you're in. I want to go into how to use objects and still life to really put the finishing touches on your photographic narrative. We're going to come back to the idea of found objects that I briefly mentioned in our previous videos. These are objects that will already be in the space you are shooting. Perhaps it is a group of objects on your subjects desk or something you see on the ground, outside, and the location you are shooting. These are all little still lives that naturally exist, something you are not arranging on your own. Keep an eye out for these little gems. They may not at first seem obvious, but on closer inspection, they give your audience an insight into the narrative that might be generally overlooked. It's these little pieces of detail that can actually tell such a big story. In opposition to just using found objects, you can also create a still life. Sometimes it happens that when you set out to find objects that are already there, nothing really comes to you. You don't really see anything in this space. In that case, you can create your own still life. In the photos I have presented here they look like things I would have found naturally, but in fact they are staged. They are objects that I found separately, then once I put them together I hope that they really brought more of my story to life and it really strengthened the story that I was trying to tell. When you're doing this, consider what part of the story I'm I trying to convey through these objects? What objects when put together can help strengthen the story, and in what environment should I shoot these objects? As always, think about framing. Just like when photographing your subject; when photographing these inanimate objects, see if there are any framing opportunities you have to draw your viewer further in. You want to show, don't tell. There's a very well-known terminology used for writers and directors. Instead of telling the audience exactly what is happening, rather show them. As we wrap up talking about inanimate objects, I want you to think about a few different questions before you start going out and shooting these objects. How can the objects help demonstrate where you are? Are there tools or prompts that your subject is using that you can photograph to help tell more about your characters in the story? What is the environment like? Using objects can really elevate what kind of environment this is in. Is it dirty? Is it really clean? Is it old? What types of objects can you choose to help really bring about the hidden elements of the story that you're still looking to capture? Photographing inanimate objects can really help to bring to life some of the characteristics, sensations, and textures that sometimes get lost from your only photographing landscapes or people. Really think about what kind of objects can you show to demonstrate another aspect of your story. Allow yourself to respond to those curiosities and bring them to life through these still lives.
9. Selecting Your Images: When creating a photographic narrative series, one of the most important aspects of the entire production is going to be your image selection. Your image selection is really going to narrow down what you felt were the most important aspects of that story, and that narrative, and really bring your story to life. Remember always, as I've said before, follow your unique curiosity and unique creative impulses. If you're drawn to an image, there's probably a reason for that. You know this theme better than anyone else. This theme is something that's important to you. When you're narrowing down your photographs, whatever is drawing you in most, choose those photos as your first selection. After that first selection, you're going to want to narrow it down even a little bit more. Usually, a narrative story is anywhere from 3-5, maybe 10 images. You're really trying to capture this concept, and theme, and story into a really small group of images. You want to make sure that all the images you choose are super powerful. As you're choosing and narrowing down, make sure that each one of your images is really bringing something to the story. Do you need that image to help tell your story? Is that image powerful? Is that image actually bringing your audience further into the story? When you're developing a series and not just capturing one image, you want to make sure also that the images all work well together. There might be an image that really stands out to you and is super captivating and that you love, but it may not actually be the best fit with the other photographs in the series. Make sure that you have a cohesive aesthetic and feel to all of the photos that you're choosing. Perhaps that one photo that you love is really a stand-alone photo, maybe it doesn't so much fit in the series and it can be a piece of your work that actually stands by itself. If you're really struggling to narrow down your photographs, go back to original concept and pull out that journaling exercise, and review some of your answers and think, "Does this photograph really help enhance the theme or concept that I originally came into this project with?" If after asking that question you don't, then maybe that's a good indicator that you can discard that photo. Remember that you really know this theme and concept best, and always come back to your own sense of intrigue and what you feel is best for the story. This is the last lesson of our class, so you now should have all the steps to be able to actually complete your class project.
10. Time to Make Your Own!: That's it. You have officially made it to the class and hope now that you're a better storyteller than when you came in. We have gone on a whole photographic journey together from concepting to preparing for your shoot to different types of shots. How to work with a subject, how to work with inanimate objects, and how to actually make a selection of your photographs to tell a strong narrative. I really hope that all of these things are going to help you bring some deeper ideas and themes and concepts that you have working through your head and using your lens to actually bring those to life and share that narrative with others. I really hope through this whole process that you've really been able to empower yourself to tell the stories that are most important to you. Storytelling is one of the most important things that we have to create change in this world and to share our own unique perspectives. Knowing how to tell stories through images can really give you such an important tool in this life to be able to share your unique perspectives with others. Remember to go back to the class project video and share those three images now that you've learned everything of how to actually make a free image narrative series. I'm so looking forward to seeing all your work, so share it in the class project gallery. I have shared my own class project with you. If you want to see an example of a class project, you can go ahead and look at that for maybe a little bit of inspiration and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want to dive into this topic a little bit more, feel free to add something in the discussions. I'm so excited to hear from you all. I'm so excited to see the kind of narrative stories that you're actually going to be capturing in your own life. Know that this is a tool that you have now and forever to really again, just share your own unique perspectives with people. If you're interested in taking any of my other classes, I also have some portrait classes that might be really helpful when you're thinking about working with props or working with subjects. Definitely feel free to take those classes as well. I really hope that this class has inspired you to use your own unique perspective to create something for yourself and others.
Desdemona Dallas, Photographer.Filmmaker
