Besides being an advertising, corporate, and editorial photographer for the past fifty-three years that has been a lifelong dream come true, photography has not been my only love for dare I say…half a century!!
I also come from a background that started out with a BA degree in Journalism. Over the years I have done a lot of writing, some of which have been published, and two screenplays, and a novel I hope to be bought someday.
With that in mind, I have often sought to combine the two and create in a single photo a story that can be understood without actually putting anything down on paper.
I have shared this over the years with those that take my online classes with the BPSOP and those that join me in one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct throughout the world.
As I said, with a college education based in Journalism (with a minor in art), we were trained to answer these five questions when writing an article. Over the course of my career in photography, I have often applied these same five questions when thinking about ‘making’ a photograph.
Of course, it’s difficult if not impossible to produce one single image that includes all five. I can say that looking back at my calling, I have a pretty good job in including as many as possible.
So, my fellow photographers, you should give it a try. The next time you go out think about telling a story in a single photograph. A story that will keep the viewer around for as long as possible, and as I always say, the more we can make the viewer an active participant in our imagery the more he’ll stick around…isn’t that what we want him/her to do?
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
