Narrative - Imagination - Stories
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Narrative. Narrative! NARRATIVE!
I went for a walk in nature recently and came across a man shouting Narrative! Narrative! Narrative!
I enquired as to what was distressing him so.
His dog had run away from him and wouldn't come back.
I enquired why he was shouting "Narrative!". It turned out that was the name of his dog.
I pointed out that he had lost control of his own narrative...
He seemed less than pleased.
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the airport is a place of passage, a liminal zone where lives intersect briefly, then scatter. here, under the sharp geometry of steel and glass, a lone traveler walks, dwarfed by the vast structure that frames her journey. the parallel lines of the moving walkway stretch into infinity, a quiet reminder of forward motion, of destinations yet to come. the muted sepia tones soften the harsh modernity, wrapping the scene in a blanket of nostalgia. it’s a moment caught between departures and arrivals, between now and soon—a fleeting whisper in the echoing halls of transit.
a fleeting symmetry between two strangers separated by glass, each absorbed in a private ritual — one reaching for the sky, the other lost in the glow of her screen. between them floats a promise: crafted by hand & heart.
Why? Why do we photograph what we photograph?
Why this shot? Not formally a street photo. Not necessarily compelling. No ethereal essence nor poetic stillness.
A seemingly innocuous everyday scene, but with a hyper-real sense of unease. An unwritten story, then asking the viewer to complete the narrative.
The premise and intent was to actively search out a banal unfolding narrative and stop it with my camera.
Not by accident, but rather an active conceptual process.
The previous post of Burnett Falls was taken with a longer lens, while this one is with an extremely wide angle lens. The change in perspective causes the image to appear wildly different. Now a large waterfalls looks more like water draining from my bath tub faucet. Much of what we intend to say, depends on the story we are trying to tell.
Yesterday, it was "about" the waterfalls, the torrent of water created, and how it dominates its domain. Today, the narrative is "of" a waterfalls, and how it is a segment or member of the forest. Same place, same time, and yet so very different because the narrative changed.
When the discussion of composition rises, I like to consider the narrative. This is also what the image is attempting to convey, also known as the story. For example, if one were to follow the guideline of thirds, this image would have very little to say. When I spoke to those responsible and asked about the netting, they told me of its purpose. To protect the crops against all manner of elements. The pesky crows and other intrusive birds. The tormenting weather and the menacing winds.
After my initial work that used the guidelines others prefer, I returned the next day with the narrative in mind. Although it was the netting that first drew my attention to this unusual sight, it was the weather that told the accompanying story. The clouds had a more menacing look to them, and contributed with a statement. Their portrayal of disaster now brought meaning to the netting, and where to put the horizon. The construction of a successful images is more often in the narrative, as opposed to the mechanics.
The assignment that I am working on is narrative. Please let me know what you think. I have looked at it for so long now that my brain is totally frazzled and I feel totally incapable of coherent thoughts.
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A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
Federico Fellini
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Ian Potter Gallery staircase
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NO GIFS AND ANIMATED ICONS, PLEASE!
Leading Narratives.
Мыслители имеет значение, естественные элементы изменения предполагают различение качеств вопреки холодности одновременное применение аргументов,
qualités intermédiaires affirmations rien éléments indifférents survie transformable perceptions essentielles disparition corps,
αμοιβαία ταχύτητα μεταξύ στοιχείων σαφείς αδυναμίες συνημμένες διαφθορές κινήσεις ύπαρξη μελετώντας διαδικασίες υποθέσεις περιόδους,
کھاتوں کی تعریفیں بیان کرنا جو طاقتور وجوہات کو تبدیل کرتے ہوئے دور دراز تناسب کو منتقل کرتی ہیں۔,
urmând ipoteze răspunsuri formale agresori termeni transpunerea explicațiilor regurgitației afirmațiile demonstrației care dovedesc naturi existențiale,
percontando superbos species fortunarum definitiones detectiones rationes constituendas disputationibus dialecticis implicantes metaphoras excerptas nexuum divisiones,
違法な物質を配置する要素連続シリーズ用語がない開始点カテゴリ回転するもの凝縮が隣接する心臓に接触する芸術を説明するアートを説明する.
Steve.D.Hammond.
I think I got the Ansco Color Clipper about ten years ago. I haven't "seriously" shot with it in a few years, but I brought it along with me this past weekend.
I'll probably shoot more with it this season. I'm not really sure of its purpose just yet, but I'll find one. Or I won't, and that's fine too.
This was taken in the early morning inside Yakima Canyon. I also shot a similar scene with the RB67, but it didn't work out so well.
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'Existing Narrative'
Camera: Ansco Color Clipper
Film: Vericolor III; x-04/1996
Process: DIY ECN-2
Washington
April 2024
I photographed this street vendor January 7th 2016. I was amused at the variety of pop culture now 'vintage'.. oddly Davie Bowie died 2 days later.. it is poignant and culturally interesting that he was 'vintage' while still alive.. I found this particularly fascinating given the random, component elements unwittingly arranged in the bins
Another from yesterday. I almost walked past it, but then I noticed this strange sort of narrative going on.
Nikon Z6, Tamron 90mm Macro Lens
The Castle of the Moors, a military fortification founded in the 10th century, is a hilltop medieval castle located in Sintra, Portudal. It is classified as a National Monument, part of the Sintra Cultural Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
♥ Thank you very much for your visits, faves, and kind comments ♥
It was common to see dogs and their owners on the street, but this scene was actually fairly unique: a muzzled dog, who seemed to be patiently enduring the contraption that had been stuck on his face.
I have no idea what kind of dog this is, or whether he was prone to bite anyone within reach; it might have been something as simple as preventing the mutt from barking too loudly. In any case, both dog and owner seemed to be strolling along without any great drama.
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As I’ve mentioned in a couple of recent Tumblr blog postings, I’m working on an exercise for a new class that I’ve started taking at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in the fall of 2015.( You can see the earlier Tumblr postings here and here.)
In addition to taking a bunch of photos (see the other Tumblr postings for details and descriptions of what the photos are supposed to illustrate), we also have the task of editing our images down to a maximum of 10 “presentation images” that we will share with the ICP class next week. When our instructor, Joanne Dugan, asked me last week if I anticipated having any problems with this aspect of the assignment, I shrugged and said, “No, I do this all the time …”
Well, yes and no: I do do a lot of editing/winnowing of my photos before deciding which ones should be shared with anyone else. But I had forgotten that I also do a lot of cropping, color-adjustment, tweaking, and general post-processing before I upload my photos to Flickr, Facebook, or even Instagram. For this particular ICP exercise, we were also told not to crop the photos, and not to do any post-processing. That makes things a lot more difficult …
On the other hand, part of the exercise is to assemble and share a maximum of ten photos that collectively tell a “story” of some kind – and to “tell” that story with anywhere from a word, to a sentence, to a paragraph for each of the photos. That makes things a lot easier … after all, if a photo has to be presented in isolation, then it truly stands alone. And it is intended to be viewed without any accompanying text, then it really stands alone. There’s nothing wrong with that; indeed, one might argue that that’s the whole point of photography: a picture should “tell” a story all by itself, without any extraneous verbiage to “explain” what might not be obvious to the viewer.
But not very many things exist in complete isolation of the rest of the universe, especially in today’s interconnected world. I suppose some people would debate that point quite vigorously; and some people might argue that a photograph of a person, place, or thing should be able to “stand alone” without anything else. I certainly have seen photos that fall into this category, and I suppose I’ve taken a few like that, too. Or, maybe if I never intended my photos to be considered in complete isolation from one another, perhaps that’s how some people prefer to look at them …
But for me, that’s a pretty rare phenomenon. Almost always, I find myself telling a story. The photographs obviously present one “dimension” of the story, in a visual form; and I’ve been trying to remind myself lately that videos can present can present one, and sometimes two, additional dimensions (motion and sound) that can add enormously to the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of the underlying story.
But even if one uses only traditional photos, I find that it’s almost impossible for me to crate (or make, or take) one photo by itself; invariably, I take dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands, which collectively tell a story. It may be a story about someplace I’ve been, or some event in which I’ve participated, or some individual (or group of individuals) that I want the viewer to know and appreciate in more detail than would be possible to communicate in a single photo.
And then there are the words … maybe it’s because I spend part of my time as a writer and teacher that I find it almost impossible not to augment my photos with words. Lots of words. Indeed, sometimes far too many words; and sometimes clumsy words, or the wrong words. And I do realize that there are times when the situation would be improved if I would just shut up, and let the photograph do all of the communication. But for better or worse, I guess I’m a photojournalist.
With that in mind, I began the process of editing the photos for my recent ICP assignment. Here’s what I found:
1. It’s not as easy as one might think, when you start with a large number. I began winnowing the original images when I had 2,700 (after 9 days of shooting), and I still had 5 days of shooting left).
2. It’s much more difficult than I had imagined, given the constraints of my ICP class: no cropping, no post-processing, and a maximum of only 10 images. I’ve worked within those constraints for the final images that I’m submitting to the ICP class; but for these Flickr uploads, I’ve ended up with 40-45 images – and they have been heavily cropped, tilted, color-corrected, noise-dusted, and tweaked in various other ways. C’est la vie…
3. Using the collection of photos to “tell a story” is both easier and harder than I thought it would be. I’m including these background notes in all of the photos that get uploaded to Flickr … because I’ve learned (form past experience) that some visitor will zoom in on just one particular photo, without necessarily looking at all of them, and/or without seeing the overall notes for the entire album. And I don’t think I’ll find it difficult to write a few sentences to provide the background details for each photo … but whether they “flow” and create one overall, coherent “story” remains to be seen.
4. Aside from a narrative “story,” there are some “themes” that I noticed throughout this entire two-week exercise. The most significant one was exactly what I had anticipated: patterns. If you are lucky enough to sit in the same spot at the same time, day after day, you see the same rhythms, the same people, the same repetitions of life’s little actions and emotions. Many people have the opportunity to see these patterns, because they do follow the same schedule, day after day, on their way to their job or their school. But some of us have irregular routines, and any, most of us don’t pay any attention. If you slow down, and pay attention, you’ll see the patterns.
But sometimes the pattern involves uniqueness – i.e. strange and unusual people or events that seem to happen only once. But I have to keep reminding myself that my visits have lasted only two weeks; if I was here for a month, or a full season, or perhaps an entire year – then perhaps I would see these strange incidents repeating themselves
5. Another theme – which I did not anticipate, but was delighted to see – was the pervasive sense of affection and caring between and among everyone on the street. Mostly it was apparent in the interactions between parents and children; but sometimes it was between dog-owners and the dogs they were walking; sometimes it was between friends who happened to be walking along together; and sometimes it was between complete strangers and me, as the strangers would smile and nod and say “hello” if they noticed I was watching them. It was a great experience.