Between photography and storytelling

I am often enjoying finding inspiration by looking at photos, some impressions stay with me, others is almost forgotten almost instantly even if they are technically brilliant. It made me ponder on the dynamics of impression, and is decisive for how a photograph impacts on me. Is if it is just one of these wonderful photographs, or is it attempting to offer me more through a visual storytelling. A technical brilliant picture of an eagle in flight, impacts me much less, than a less than perfect capture of the same eagle capturing its prey. A photograph with storytelling elements is infecting my vision and mind, it captures the imagination, and makes me add more to the photograph than the picture depicts.

Urban Photography

There seems to be an overlap between urban photography, and visual storytelling. Where the old buildings, their decay, and the vandalism they have been exposed to, is making your mind take a journey, with the result of something which is more than the photograph itself.

Street Photography

Like Urban photography can street photography have a story telling element as well. Together with my photo friends, we did a shoot under the Pride, the whole series is telling a story of diversity, tolerance, love between people. It’s a series of photos that stays with me.

Leang-Leang

The following photo which was taken by Claus Møller in the Leang-Leang area, which is part of the Bantimurung National Park in southwestern Sulawesi (Indonesia). The picture shows some of the oldest cave paintings in the world and is a small part of a large, not yet fully explored, area. The handprints are made by chewing ocher and plants together in the mouth and blowing the mixture over your hand. Together with the hands there is a picture of a deer pig which is one of the artists’ prey. The meaning of it is not known but making the pictures was an almost spiritual experience for me. Clauses says that he sees them as a kind of “high five” through time and a kind of personal greeting from some people who lived under some conditions that were very different from the conditions we live under today.