It’s not just a snap
It’s not just a snap

How photographs convey multiple layers of stories

Photo by Marco Xu on Unsplash

Up until 2 years ago, photographing just meant clicking a shutter to me. Then, I fell madly in love with it.

I found myself alone with an old mirrorless camera in my hand, wandering the streets of Bologna with no clue about what it meant to take a picture, except for the few basics notions about the exposure triangle: at that time, I had no idea that these cold numbers said very little about a photograph.

There is a whole world behind it, an entire narrative arc beginning with the choice of a subject and ending with an image, which of course is the sum of the story it’s meant to convey and the story of how it was conceived. Now that I look back, it’s safe to say that someone so much into verbal and written storytelling as I am could not help falling in love with photography too.

I can’t say I’m an expert right now, but if these two years of practice have taught me anything (aside from the fact that you never stop learning something you’re passionate about) it is that the technical aspect is just a small part of the whole story. It’s just an instrument to tell a story, not the story itself. I see it as the pen and paper (or the screen and keyboard) for a writer.

Because that single image, captured in a fraction of a second, tells a lot about who took it and about who looks at it as well.

First layer: planning

There is no photo without planning. Before a portrait photography session begins, the photographer sets up the scene and places the subject inside, choosing each setting in accordance with the theme of the shooting session.

In landscape photography, it’s not possible to build the entire scene from scratch as in the case of an indoor portrait or a still-life picture, but planning still plays a strong role. For starters, several apps and websites allow the photographer to get a glimpse at the spots around them, and about the best day and hour to capture them. A landscape photographer may get on the spot in advance (even a few hours earlier) and begin to experiment with the composition: this way, everything will be in place by the time the picture is meant to be taken.

Believe it or not, even street photography is not a completely instantaneous process: while this discipline might look like it’s based on instinct and luck, a good street photographer is so experienced he can kind of anticipate what has the potential to become a good setting for a photo.

If I have to compare it with a step in the writing process, it corresponds to the “What if” moment, when we begin to explore the possibility for a story to be told. From that point on, the writer/photographer will take the steps allowing them to show the world the story they painted inside their head.

Second layer: shooting

It’s the moment when photographers look at the scene in front of them and measure it against their expectations. It might meet them, exceed them, or it can even fall short, and this is where the on-site adjustments take place. In the case of a writer, it’s when he/she sits down and puts words on paper, and they have a chance to see how they feel in the outside world.

The way the light enters the scene might be slightly different from what we expected, maybe it’s brighter or dimmer. If it’s an outside shot, weather plays quite an important role, and it can change quickly. These small adjustments are the story here, together with the choices about composition.

“Composition” is the process through which the photographer decides what to include in the picture and what to leave out, and how to arrange the elements “making the cut” so that the observer’s eyes are directed where they need to be.

It’s the reason why so many times, after we’ve released the shutter, we feel disappointed by the result. What we saw with our eyes was so good, then why doesn’t the image in the camera preview live up to the real scene? To keep up with the metaphor with the writing process, this happens because at a certain point we have to decide what to sacrifice: we can’t fit the entire scene inside the picture or inside a book, not even with the widest-angle lenses in the world or with an endless supply of ink and paper. Some digression will add something to the story, some others will spoil it and produce a confusing soup.

Third layer: postprocessing

Here comes what can be regarded as the style we use to tell a story, even if talking about postprocessing is kinda like walking on ice: everyone has got their opinion about it, and it usually lies at either end of the spectrum. For some people, post-processing is a way of enhancing the picture so that it reveals its true potential, for others it’s cheating.

I tend to prefer the former point of view: the digital negative is the raw story as if it was told by a machine, while post-processing expresses how I put it on paper, the words I choose to make it mine and to present it to the world.

The amount and nature of post-processing deemed reasonable for an image is something quite personal, and it could potentially turn a photograph upside down. A general rule of thumb is that if the composition is good there will be no need for sensitive tuning such as boosting saturation and contrast or enhancing the colors in an unnatural way to have the picture convey something. A vocabulary too polished can spoil a story, in the same way as an excess of post-processing can spoil a picture. It will make it stand out for sure, but it’s not necessarily a good thing.

Spot-on and discrete post-processing, on the other hand, can help the spatial arrangement of elements in the scene in enhancing what the photographer wants the viewer to see while setting up a certain mood, like an accurate choice of words will add a personal touch to the story.

Fourth layer: the viewer’s eye

As much as the photographer can try to convey a message with the choices made when planning, shooting, or editing, everyone who’ll ever see the picture will have their own personal impression about it.

Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash

If the photographer has made a good job with the composition, the viewer will see exactly what they wanted them to see, but everyone will have their own takeaway about what they observe because there are no clear words to express it. This, in my opinion, is the biggest difference with respect to the writing process, and it is fascinating to think about how our brain can come up with a story (or many stories) just looking at an image.

Here is an example:

This picture is far from being technically perfect, but it is an attempt at telling a story. Even a short piece of flash fiction would have given us a setting and a precise story development, while in the case of this picture this is up to us. We can make up our own hypotheses just looking at it.

What is the figure on the left saying to the one on the right? Are they fighting, or just deciding where to go from there? Where will that road take them?

(Spoiler: in a place full of chestnuts).
['Giulia Picciau']
['Stories', 'Storytelling', 'Photography']