Story Telling Inside a Photograph

I walked somewhat sleepy-eyed along the gravel road, a road whose path wound its way toward an old country home tucked inside a gaggle of trees. It was late fall and the once dormant chill excited by a stiff wind engulfed the air surrounding me. The first light of the day was held in muted bondage by low hanging overcast that dipped close to the ground floating along pushed by the invisible hand of an approaching winter. The morning looked and felt gray. In the field to my left the rustic looking remnant of corn stubble stood as a testament to a successful harvest. On either side of the road an old fence row stood lined up like historic monuments to a time from the past.

About half way down the road a beam of the first light of the morning broke beneath the clouds and cast a cheerful glow across the home, the trees, and the tops of the the corn stubble setting the grass alight within the realm of the prevailing grayness. I positioned my tripod and camera composing the scene through the view finder, and released the shutter. A moment later the beam of light retreated back into the clouds and I was again alone standing on a country gravel road.

Photography is as much about telling a visual story as it is about capturing a moment in time. To capture a story one must first not only see what is there, but be able to feel the emotion of what surrounds you. It is the emotion of the moment that tells the photographer when to release the shutter and when you finally do, you instinctively know something unique and even amazing happened.

The visual story of a photograph may possibly be the most difficult element for a photographer to capture for it does not always willingly reveal itself. It is something you must seek out and to allow what is there to speak to your senses. Sometimes, it just happens. Most times it takes work and a willingness to turn off your other senses and allow your heart to grab hold of the story. Everyone must discover within themselves the necessary elements of how the world reveals such stories to them. It is not something that can be taught, only reminded. It is a personal reward well received, well worth sharing.