ESFotoClix Blog

Figuring out what story we are telling with our images is one of the biggest challenges photographers face. Often we take photographs without giving their story-telling aspect much thought and achieve images that don’t quite come together. Other times, we may give story-telling some thought, but end up choosing our composition through technical criteria and fail to create a compelling image. This past week, while participating in our church’s photography team, out on the town to capture Serve Weekend 2010, I struggled with my approach to story-telling.

Our team’s job essentially boiled down to a photojournalism (a.k.a. PJ) job. Capture people at work, serving and impacting their community, and that was the story, I told other photographers. As I prepared for my portion of the assignment, however, I had a nagging feeling that this approach was missing something, that it was a tad cold and detached. Not that it wouldn’t produce some interesting and perhaps compelling shots, as these next three examples show. But something was still missing.

Part of the problem here is that these could have been any two guys and gal prepping and painting up a storm. The story wouldn’t come across without other images that capture more than what was happening or being accomplished. We needed photos that captured the spirit behind the action. Here are three additional examples, which, in combination with the more standard PJ shots, captured the story behind the story.

The moral of the story for me: the next time I ask and answer “what is the story?” for a photo, I also need to say to myself, “yeah, but what is the story behind the story?”