Storytelling and Composition

Pull up a photographer’s YouTube video on composition or read one of a myriad of composition articles and you will be told that a good photograph tells a story. They each give you advice on how to compose your image to tell that story. What is the story you’re trying to tell? Tell the story. Tell your story. Tell a story.

They are not wrong.

But I want to flip this narrative a bit. How about we look at this from another direction. Not from looking at story through photography but looking at photographic composition through story design.

We’re going to be talking theory here to help you frame this concept better. If you want to understand mechanics better, I’ve written a 3-part series on some of the more helpful “rules.” (part 1, part 2, part 3) You might even want to check out part 4 about listening to the scene and telling its story.

You might also want to grab a cup of coffee.

For a brief review, what is composition? It is the structure within your photograph that helps tell a story. It is the order we align the elements in our image to help the viewer comfortably work their way through the image. In writing, we put our stories into structures to create a picture. Our story structures can be immense such as a novel, condensed as in short stories, or concise as in flash fiction.

Let’s look at these more closely and how these structures relate to photography.

The Novel and The Grand Landscape

A novel is a story that is long and complex. Often with several characters and subplots within the main structure of the story. Within the pages of the novel, the characters are developed and have story arcs, we get to know them as friends - celebrate when their lives are going well and cry when they die. The plot and subplots move the reader forward through to the end – we read into the dark hours of morning unable to put the book away, needing to know what happens on the next page. A well-written novel will have layers of meaning that ensnare the reader who days later will be examining the world through the view of the author no matter how distorted or perfect that view is. We yearn for the characters to come to life so we can spend more time with them.

How does this relate to a photograph? Think of your grand landscapes – those landscapes where you are standing at a vista and looking at the world as it unfolds before you. You’re at the edge of a canyon, layers of earth worn away by the river shimmering in the depths of shadow. Or maybe your view is from a cliff overlooking the ocean, waves upon waves undulating to the horizon. Or you come through a thick forest to a precipice and you see before you repeating layers of mountain ridges and peaks leading off to a massive volcano in the distance. What initially draws your eye becomes the main character which then becomes the focal point of your image. The other elements of the image become subplots and minor characters to move the reader through the main plot. Each a layer that enraptures your viewer leads them through the image to become as enthralled with the view as you were. They find it difficult to tear themselves away.

In the photo above, I stood on the side of the road through an area of Eastern Washington on hills high above the Snake River. I could see the hills on the other side of the north end of Hell’s Canyon. This is farming country. This is lonely country. Every time I drive this stretch of road, this barn whispers to me. On this early summer day, it yelled with joy. The barn is clearly the subject of the image – the protagonist of the story. The sky, the sun beams, the hills, the wheat field, the lines of trees in the distance, the hues of light and dark in the clouds, the splashes of sunlight on the hillside. All of these are added elements to help tell the grand tale of this lonely barn on this stormy day. Cropping out these elements and only featuring the barn wouldn’t help tell the story that needed to be told.

The Short Story and The Intimate Landscape

A short story is a fully developed story similar to a novel but much shorter, as the name implies. You will likely only find one primary character and few other characters. The characters, since they don’t have the benefit of many pages for development, become well-known acquaintances – someone you’d meet for coffee a couple of times a year to catch up. Generally, you will read only one plot as the limit on exposition restricts what the author will be able to explore. They are examining the main character in a short timeframe in a limited setting. The subplots, if there are any, cannot distract from the main plot of the story and confuse the reader. In a short story we examine a character and setting that is far more intimate than the novel. At the end of a well-written short story, the reader will feel as satisfied with the outcome as they will feel after a well-cooked meal. We might like to continue reading, but again while the characters and their stories are known to us, they’re not great friends who we end up missing when they are gone.

As we look at the intimate landscape, we can easily see the similarities. We are examining the world through a more intimate view. Like the short story will have a character that we come to know with a developed plot or storyline. We might see an expansive oak in the forest and create our composition with the oak as the main character. All other trees in the forest would be the storyline, the other characters helping to tell the story of the oak. Or does that oak preside over a lonely landscape where the negative space of sky and meadow help tell of its isolation? We won’t be seeing the expanse of the grand view, but the details of a scene that becomes more personal – almost as if we were a part of the scene itself. It is a self-contained image that tells the story of our subject, without extraneous details.

The little cabin above (can we call it a cabin and not a shack?) is a perfect example of the short story as an intimate landscape. We see our main character in a struggle against the elements as rain pummels the decaying wood. We know that this little cabin has already seen hard times with planks missing and its leaning stature. We know all we really need to know of its environment and the toll it has taken on the cabin. We know it has a history, even if the details of that history are not examined. We grow to like this little cabin. We wish it well and hope to see it again one day . . . maybe.

Flash Fiction and The Vignette of Nature

If you have never read Flash Fiction (where have you been?) then know that it is an extremely short story of less than 2000 words. Because is it so short, the author must grab you quickly to immerse you into the world they’ve created in short order. And that’s a pretty good definition – authors of flash fiction are the gourmet short order cooks of writing. They sit you down at the table, serve you a tale that is often a snippet in the life of their character then whisk away the plates. As a reader you are often left with wanting more but realizing that you really don’t need more, you are sated. Just like any story there is a character or more involved in a plot line. But the amount of information we are given is all that we really need.

When we move to comparing this to landscape photography, we see it as the natural vignette – a small portion of the landscape that tells an interesting story. Maybe it’s a group of woodland wildflowers twisted together in a fight for sunlight. A grouping of seashells on a beach tells us all we need to know about those seashells at that point in time. I’m mixing metaphors here but think of it at a scene in shorthand. Just enough to tell the story without writing it out in cursive. Think details. As photographers, we find those details that tell a wonderful story of the landscape as a whole. Our viewer may want to see more but leaves sated.

When we look for story-telling details, we see images as the example here. As viewers, we understand that there is more beyond the frame of the image, but that doesn’t matter. The captivating story is within this section of old wood on the side of the building where someone added a decorative touch of rustic Americana in the form of hub caps and wheel rims to the wall. We get one glimpse of the world beyond in the reflective wheel cover on the right. You have time to appreciate the scene. You may wonder about the person who hung the hub caps yet understand that really this is all you will get and all you really need. The image and story within it are concise.

So, how do you use these ideas in composition?

When you arrive at a location, look for each type of storytelling. Look for the novel or grand landscape allowing your viewer to experience a world of characters, and plot points all culminating in one climatic ending. Find the short stories or intimate landscape to give your viewer a personal view of the area, one where they get to know one character well and follow them through to a conclusion. Then finally search out those compelling details for some flash fiction or natural vignette. Combine all three of these at a location and you will come away with a strong body of work that will sustain your story and the story of place.