Photography Storytelling by Michelle E. Black

1. Photography Storytelling by Michelle E. Black: photography Storytelling by Michelle E. Black. My name is Michelle, a black and I tell stories with my photography, also known as photo essays. No matter where I found myself in life or what I was doing, I always took a camera with me and documented it. Whether it be the excitement of a Little League baseball game or on my various adventures, I have traveled throughout the world, finding the common thread. Even in the harshest of landscapes. A photo is but a moment in time. But sequence together, the story can be told. You don't have to travel to exotic places and see exotic people in order to tell a good story with your images. One can taken amazing photo and build a story around it. But each of these photos that I have shown are one of a sequence that tells a story of my adventure. I want to share with you how different elements, when sequence together, can engage your intended audience and encourage you to ask yourself the right questions that will help you put your story together. Whether your intention is to tell a compelling story that helps promote a brand or simply to make new friends, whether it be for your loved ones or to document a chapter in your life, you can be of something fun, like a snowball fight or a tulip festival in Woodburn, Oregon. We all have stories to tell. In this class, you will learn how to get your audience engaged and help pinpoint what you really want your message to be. This is not a technical class, but a class to inspire you to use a variety of images to tell a creative and compelling visual story. So now you've seen a little bit of my work, and now I encourage you to take this workshop so that I can see a little bit of yours and we can create some beautiful stories together. 2. About Photography Storytelling 1: Hi. Welcome to his photography storytelling with me Micheli Black. Now I've been a photographer for most my life, documenting it as I went along, either on great adventures but also photographing the details of my everyday life. I have said before that at the end of my life, when God asks me what I have learned from it, I will have an amazing slide show to show him we all have stories to tell with the camera on every phone. We now have MAWR images than ever to illustrate those very stories, and there's in this workshop. You will learn what questions to ask yourself so that you can get in the direction you want to go in. You'll also learn a variety of images that can round out your story and keep your intended audience engaged in wanting more. You'll also learn about transitional images to keep this story moving along and the benefits that editing could do to fine tune it. My intention for this workshop is to inspire you to work with what you already have or motivate you to create some self assignments and get your own stories out there, whether it be for your business or for pleasure. This workshop can help you do both. So please join me and let's create a story together. 3. Questions to Ask: all right, so welcome to photography. Storytelling Now to get started. Before we start talking about the types of images, I want to ask a few questions to get you started. Who is your intended audience? Is it for business or pleasure? Friends or family? Or is it for potential clients Knowing who you're directing your story to will help you pick the images you need to for your story to what emotions do you want to revoke? Do you want them to feel inspired? Joyful? Where do you want to stop them in their tracks and give them something to think about? And three. What is your story about? Is it about a sports team season or a day in the life of a toddler? Or do you want to showcase a product in a relatable fashion? Knowing what your story is about will help you put your story together, obviously. So now, after you have ask yourself these questions, we can now go to what types of images you want to use in your story. So there's always a variety of images that we can use. The one that I we're going to start with next are the details. So what are the details all about? 4. Details: Okay, So now that you've answered those questions and you know the direction that you want your story to go in, let's talk about the images themselves. Now, to tell a compelling story, you need a variety of images, one of which are detail shots. Now this is pretty self explanatory. It's obviously the details of your story close ups of either the food to love or, um, something that indicates where it is. Your story takes place like, for example, this tulip, um, flower or bathing suit. Tie those air, all detail shots that kind of tell you, kind of give you direction as to what the story's about. Sign Itch is also a great detail shots as well as this little tiny frog. It was a summer adventure where we went to the country to visit my aunt and my son loved catching these little frogs. Um, he another day in the life of a toddler boy was when he made me stop what I was doing and show me the tiniest snail I've ever seen in my life. Or, for example, this other detail shot of my daughter's best friend, who who had been grounded for a week and painted her nails so elaborately I wanted to take pictures of it. It was then that my daughter said no, wait and put Sharpie summer on it, and that completed the shot. Weddings also were a great indicator that helped me focus on detail shots. This one is a personal one of mine, where my uncle was no longer with us, but yet he was in spirit as they set a chair aside for him. And this is how they honored his memory at my cousin's wedding. Or like, for example, this detail shot of Debbie Cement Telly's beautiful handwriting. Um, as she often teaches workshops and does here on skill share as well. Debbie Semin Telly. So that's a great two dealt detail shot that that I took when I met her for the first time . And then again, I have other detail shots of her in her other workshops. So these these all add to the story and kind of move it along and add depth to it. So the next that we're gonna look out is actually vantage points. Advantage point in your photography will also give you, um, some great things to look at, so that will be our next chapter 5. Vantage Point: All right. So the next thing I'd like to talk about his vantage point. From what perspective are you taking? The image you could be from above or below. Or it can be. I level for this puppy, for example. I'm at eye level for the pier. I'm actually crouched down. So that way you can see the names of the fallen soldiers engraved on the ocean. Ocean side pier, Um, for the trees. I loved that it was the treetops and how they were that seemingly hugging me. And then for this ST Kitts beautiful ocean scene. I actually had to get in the water with my camera, which would, by the way, was not waterproof, but very carefully. Photograph, um, this boat from that vantage point for the little girl, I wanted the heart to encompass er's or had to be above her. And for obviously the world sculpture I had my friend in the four ground were actually, you know, across the street. But I've positioned it where her hands looks as if she's hugging the sculpture again for the puppy eye level. I am actually on my stomach, photographing this little puppy, and she looked my lens several times. But I am in love with the image that it came out. And the last image of Manning Santiago, a professional skateboarder. I'm actually in the What are they? Hot springs. He was filming some sort of, um, app documentary or something, and I asked him if I could take his image and this is what he gave me. So it's a great image, but these are all different vantage points and to be a little bit more selective. And sometimes you have to adjust how you photograph something in order to get the best vantage point. Or you could do what's called bracketing and Change. Take a photo of one vantage point, gets lower, take another, take another and then pick the best one out of a lot. So with that, we will go on to talk about overall pictures. 6. Overall: Let's not forget the most popular part of photography that people often use, and those are overall photos. Those are the ones that are usually landscapes. It kind of capture the entire environment that you're are telling your story about. From the farmhouse in the countryside to the city top from the Empire State Building. It could be a picture of the road and a crazy sign that says You're definitely in the mountains now or an overall beach shot. These are all pictures that help tell the story as you go along. So the next we're gonna look at the difference between candid and posed Portrait's. 7. Candids vs: all right, so let's talk about Portrait's. There are two main types posed versus candid now. Sometimes you can set up the shot, and that's opposed portrait. But then the actual emotions and actions that happen after that can be candid as well. So you can set up these different shots and get the best of both worlds. For example, I love this photo I took of one of my favorite kulum cameras in my collection, my daughters actually holding it. And when I got the picture back, I realized that I had captured the clouds reflecting and the lens itself. Love that with the photo on the right, that is my middle daughter. And she put the towel around her and was being a super Shiro, and I just took a photo of it. So she's posing, and yet it's a candid as well. And this one was a posed portrait that turned into a candid All I said to my youngest daughter was pleased, and next to your sister, I have one shot left, and this was her reaction. She was very tired that day, and I guess it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It takes picture anyway because it just seemed to represent parenthood in a nutshell. Then you have the one on the left, which is a Mikan jury classroom. They're all looking at May, so it's actually a post portrait. It's not a folder journalistic one and the one of my three Children, which cracks me up because that was my son being my son. Then you have candids where you're simply documenting what unfolds in front of you. Like this whole van full of softball girls singing to the top of their lungs. Two songs cracked me up, or this one where my husband called my attention because he said, you might want to take a picture of it. And it was of my youngest son shaving Just gone, the shaving kit for Christmas. And, uh, and it came out to this amazing, candid moment. Or this one where my brother and daughter are playing with Nerf guns and are about to shoot me. The photographer or even this one, is a great candid where my oldest daughter is comparing her baby with her little sister. I love the shot, so candids and post portrait's are great additions to any story 8. Action: then there are action photos now. These could be where you anticipate the play that's coming. You put yourself in the position, like on the baseball team here, or you know that something is to happen at the end of a graduation ceremony and you want to capture in action. Or sometimes it's a happy accident, like a butterfly as your flying by as you're taking a picture of the poppy fields for the reaction of something you don't know what was said. But yet at their end of the wedding ceremony, you capture the expressions. Those are all great action photos. Or it's just capturing these endearing moments of when puppies attack your son or best Deal Day and the fireworks or the result of a fantastic snowball fight that he had been documenting as they went along. And when you're taking pictures of sports, it's just you know them with determination. These all make great action photos and help, you know, story. Go along 9. Editing: Okay, so now you've collected all the different types of images you've looked at. Do you have some overall images? You have some detail shots, some action. You've either used posed or candid shots, and now you're ready to start putting your story together. So here's where I'd like to remind you of a few things while you're editing, I'd like you to be diligent about letting go of the ones that are unnecessary or redundant . You may have to look at your slide show over and over and over again in order for you to, um, start deleting more and more pictures from it. Don't fall so much in love with your story that you're not able to do this to crop your image wherever necessary. Sometimes when we're taking pictures, we are so into the emotion of the photo that we don't see the photograph as a actual photograph. So when you can crop in and crop out the unnecessary things that distract you from your photo three. Adjust your lighting so sometimes you will have faces that are too dark or um to light. In any software program you have, you can adjust the lighting. Ah, I will have some references at the end of this video that can take you to other, um, software programs that work nicely but tried to detach yourself from this process. So that way you see what really works and what doesn't. And then if the image doesn't quite look great, don't include it. And four, repeat, you're gonna have to repeat this process over and over often times when I'm putting a slideshow together or putting a story together to be shown I am. And if his special have music, I am doing it over and over and over again until it gets the right feel. And sometimes done is better than perfect. So at some point, you are gonna have to put brush down and just except the painting as it is, so to speak. So but definitely repeat this process over and over. Um, as a stylist, one of the things that we know when we're done is we're done. We're moving different things from the actual picture. So the same goes with that it in your story. You know, you're done. Um, when you go through your slideshow and it evokes the emotion and tells the story as you wanted to be told. So good luck with the editing. I can't wait to see what you your results are. 10. Transition End: So, lastly, I'd like to talk about transitions, a certain photographs to transition, the different chapters of a particular story, whether it be a road going towards the journey or a sunset at the end of the day or an action photo. Sometimes it's a detail shot, you know, setting the mood, and sometimes it is an action shot taking you in. Another part of the story stands at the end of the story. Oftentimes there's a sunset that kind of closes the story out. So whether you're going on a great adventure or you're photographing your every day life, everyone has a story to tell. And I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with in the stories you want to share as a result of this workshop. So thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.