ITAP 6 Narrative and Structure

ITAP 6 Narrative and Structure

Principles

Developing Character

Developing Narrative

Developing Stories

Narrative Techniques in Context

Three Act Structure   

Developing Narrative

This was a fascinating lecture, which I found dynamic, enthusiastic, interesting and informative, but now I have come to write up I am at a loss as to what direction to take or how I can adopt it into my working practice as a photographer, which is frustrating as I am aware of the importance of conveying a narrative to make a picture more than the some of its parts. This narrative is one of frustration as I see relevance of the parts, but find it difficult to articulate the concepts as they are presented in these principles. There’s a lot to be said about writing things up while it is fresh in the memory, so I will adjust my working practice.

To me, it seems pointless to rehash two elements of the presentation and convey them here to demonstrate some level of understanding as it is the way I integrate the principles into my practice that is off account. 

All images have a narrative, the more it resonates with the audience, the more affective it will be. Currently we are exposed to more images than ever before, so the need for a strong and emotive narrative is more compelling than ever to achieve an image of value, relevance, or purpose.    

Within street or journalistic photography, there’s much to be said for the intuitive nature of seeing an image that you want to capture then developing the story post production with cropping, adjusting contrast levels, shadows, colours, and contextualising it by title, But some of the strongest narratives can be revealed only when you get the image on a large screen and see an unexpected, a chances happening, a random detail that elevates the picture by virtue of chance or actuality.     

That’s so nice when it happens, but as we can not rely on chance so there’s only one alternative left and that’s to work through our ideas plan them out, content, framing, light and background. If the unexpected happens and enhances your image, embrace it, learn from it and plan better as to what you would ideally like to capture.

Now, if I had the understanding as to how to link some banging music to the blog I could at least demonstrate the only bit of the lecture that I remember, that sound is 50% of any moving images narrative!