The Stories Behind the Photographs

“An image is worth a thousand words,”

photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams once said.

A thousand words? That’s about the length of a short story, give or take.

As photographers, we use one or several images to tell short or longer (visual) stories. We can also tell ourselves stories about the images that we make.

For example:

This past weekend I noticed a bunch of thin climbing plants on a white wall. They looked as if trying to climb over the wall and escape. Right next to the plants stood thick bushes. The shadows of their branches, swaying in the wind, appeared as if they were trying to converse with the climbing plants. It felt as if I was witnessing a conversation between present and past lives.

Here’s the image:

I converted the image to black-and-white, to enhance the mood and the dramatic element, and called it “Ghosts of Our Lives.” That’s because, seen through the lens of the most recent events, the visual story, in this photograph, could be about a conversation between past and present, as if ghosts of our (past) lives and histories are coming back to warn the living about what’s about to come.

When photographing, we tell visual stories, and also capture the backstories of our images. The process, I believe, helps better connects us, the photographers, to our photographs, and it adds to the soul of our creative work.

So, I wonder:

Do you tell yourselves stories about the photographs that you make? And if yes, how do these stories inspire your creative process of painting with light?

Feel free to share.

As always, thanks for stopping by,

Alina Oswald