Narrative Photography: Research and digital story board

Narrative Photography
Narrative photography is the idea that photographs can be used to tell a story.

PHOTOGRAPHER RESEARCH
I used the internet for my research sources. This is secondary research.

Duane Michals

Duane Michals is an American photographer who uses narrative photography. In his work of photo sequences he often adds texts to communicate emotion and philosophy. 
These are my favourite pieces of his work which I have seen:

 I think that this series of photographs makes a very beautiful picture as it seems to be telling the story of a young boys loved one going to heaven. I think by the story being told in only six photos is very effective and gives it a sense of peacefulness because it is so simple. The photograph is in black and white, making the young boy darker and the angel almost white. Whether this was done intentionally or not, white is a colour which usually represents purity and peace suggesting that in the story the person is much better off going to heaven, rather than staying on earth. 
























In my opinion I think that Duane has created a very deep narrative photograph here. When I look at this series of images in the photo I instantly think that the story is tells us that the man is killing the flowers. This could possibly be seen as a metaphor of humans killing nature. By the photograph being in black and white it makes the image straight forward as there is no colour to create anything in particular stand out or any distractions. I really like this as it is a photograph because it look like it has meaning rather than just an image which has been taken for fun/pleasure.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy is an American photographer and film maker who is best known for her conceptual portraits. 
Rather than using several photos to tell a story, Cindy captures a story in one photograph.
Heres some examples of photos she has taken of herself which I liked,

I quite like Cindy's photographs as they are all action shots. As well as this each photograph makes you wonder what is going on. For example, why is she looking distressed? Why is she looking serious? Or why is she looking worried? I also like how the photos are in black and white because I feel this adds the mysterious atmosphere.  

Sandy Skoglund

Sandy Skoglund is and American photographer and installation artist. She creates surrealist images by building exciting sets by adding and over whelming amount interesting objects which are sometimes bright and sometimes contrasting. 

These are my favorite images she has created: 

 I particularly like this one as it has a theme to it, winter. I think by almost everywhere being covered in white makes the red fire stand out and adds warmth to the photo. In addition to this I really like the yellow in the background as it makes the dark trees in the foreground almost look 3D.

I only really liked this photo because it had fish in it. I think it gives it a quirky feel to it because its hard to tell wether the fish are on land or are the humans in water? I think the colors really benefit each other and look well together. 

Contact sheets of my groups practice narrative photographs (digitally)

Here we took a series of photographs with six photos in each story. Taking these photos was enjoyable and it was fun thinking of different stories to photograph. It was also quite interesting making sure that each story was taken in only 6 photos. All of the stories which I captured myself are simple and this was influenced by Duane Michals as I thought that his work was effective even thought it was simple and I wanted to try and make my photos like this. My main inspiration was contemporary and photojournalism as my photos are both modern and tell a story. 

 The ideas which we had  and photographed where, 

• Climbing up a bench
• Throwing leaves in the air
• Walking up the stairs
• Walking across some poles
• Walking down different paths
• Sitting in different ares
• Moving a stick around 

Different types of photography

Abstract

This is abstract photograph. This is because you cannot actually tell what the subject matter is. It is just made up of lines, shapes and colours. 

Historical

This is a a historical photograph as it was taken in the past (1960's.) A historical photo captures a moment of time and shows how things looked and worked differently compared to how things are now. For example this magazine cover shows how women looked and dressed differently in the 60's. 

Contemporary

This a contemporary photograph as it captures and represents a modern day girl. A contemporary photograph shows how things are now in the modern day.

Photojournalism

This is an example of photojournalism as it is something that would probably be put into a news paper which visually shows what an article is about. 

Commercial 

This is commercial photography as it is a form of advertisement for a company or brand name.

Editorial

An editorial photograph is is a story, but not a news story. For example reality stories in magazines or celebrity interviews.