The Art Of Visual Storytelling

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To find your voice tell your story.

 

Plan Your Story

 

Every Picture Tells A Story
There are countless kinds of stories to tell and ways to tell them.

Make Plans    Free to Members
Increase your productivity and fulfillment by making a plan.

Define a Project    Free to Members
Focus your creative efforts and create an action list to achieve your goals.

Developing Personal Projects
Defining a project is one of the single best ways to develop your body of work.

Keep Your Current Projects Visible
What kinds of visual reminders would be helpful to you?

Perform An Annual Creative Review
At the beginning of every year I review the accomplishments of the past year.

The Benefits Of Performing An Annual Image Review
You’ll learn a great deal about your vision when you perform an annual image review.

The Benefits Of Selecting Your Top Images
Find your current best works and compare them to your past.

7 Benefits Of Returning To Locations
With so many wonderful places, why return to the same location more than once?

 

Discover & Develop Your Story

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Identify the superstars in your work.
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10 Benefits Of Building Bodies of Work
Add depth to your images and find more uses for them.
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Images That Sizzle & Fizzle Versus Sleepers & Keepers
While some images have an immediate impact, others have staying power.
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Outliers – What They Are And How To Make Them Fit
They’re the images that don’t fit neatly into a body of work.
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Finding Your Best Work  Free to Members
Find your best work efficiently.
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A Dominant Impression    Free to Members
How to find the “Dominant Impression” in your work.
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A Train of Thought    Free to Members
Look for the ways you approach making photographs and think visually.
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Structure Your Story

 

3 Great Books On Photographic Contact Sheets

Develop your thoughts faster and more clearly with collections.
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Create a guiding structure to help focus and strengthen your work.
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Use Storyboards To Improve Your Lightroom Collections | Coming
Create sequences to find what’s missing and new opportunities.
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Create sequences to find what’s missing and new opportunities.
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How you present your images can be as important as which ones you select.
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6 Tools You Can Use To Improve Continuity Between Still Images
How you present your images can be as important as which ones you select.

6 Image Cuts To Avoid At All Costs | Coming
… unless you want to focus on them.
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Transitions | Coming Soon
How you get there is just as important as where you arrive.
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Expand Your Story

 

How To Strike Up A Lively Conversation With Your Images
Not sure where to go or what to do? Ask your images!

Association
Discover and develop underlying qualities and themes.

Metaphor
Work on more than one level simultaneously.

Variation    Free to Members
Find many ideas or turn one idea into many variations.

Combination    Free to Members
Create synergy between existing elements in your images.

Reversal
Use reversal to open new doors in your creative process.

Break The Rules
Unlock new creative possibilities.

 

Find Your Next Story

 

Your Next Story  | Coming

 

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Free PDF – The Art Of Arranging Images

ArrangingPDF
How you present your work may be almost as important as what work you present. It’s the art of sequencing or arranging. And it is an art, which involves specific techniques that can be learned. What are some of the guiding principles involved? Here are a few.
Sequence matters. Start strong. Finish strong. Make getting there interesting. Whether it’s a symphony, a novel, or an exhibit. It’s good advice for arranging any creative product. To sequence a project, you can use the metaphor of building a fence. The strongest pieces can be thought of as posts. The less strong pieces can be thought of as rails. You want to start and end with very strongest pieces to create a strong structure. You want to periodically reinforce runs of less strong units with one or more stronger units. You don’t want long runs of rails without posts or the structure may fail. A fence made only of posts becomes something else entirely, a wall with no variation or grace. The number of strong pieces you include determines how long a fence will be, though the number of other images you include may modify length somewhat.
Remember the golden rules of marketing; primacy (the first thing you see), recency (the last thing you see ), and frequency (the number of times you see the same or similar things). Frequency is rated first. Primacy is rated second. Recency is rated third. They’re all important. It’s all about effective memorable communication. So, the most important thing is to have a consistent body of work (frequency). The next most important thing is to start with your strongest work (primacy). The next most important thing is to finish strong (recency).
You can use classic story telling devices (like structure, proximity, pace, length, etc) to strengthen any image presentation and bring to light subtext in and connections between images that give work added depth and dimension.
In short, arranging matters.
Learn more about the art of Arranging in this free PDF.
Subscribe to Insights enews and download it free.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Free PDF – The 8 Classic Shots That Make Photo Essays Work

 
PhotoEssayPDF
Every picture tells a story. Combine pictures to form an essay and your storytelling options expand. This is one way to tell a more complete story, add depth, complexity, counterpoint, nuance, show change over time, and so much more. A photo essay transcends a single lucky shot. It demonstrates committment, focus, versatility, and skills of another order. Photo essays have more definite structures, with a clear beginning, middle, and end – often with standard components that flesh out and advance a story in critical ways.
Identifying the necessary components of an essay is the first step. Once you know the types of images you need to tell your story, you’ll know what to shoot while you’re on location and maybe even when you need to be there. If you don’t identify these elements beforehand and make sure you come back with each of them, you may find you lack critical pieces. There will be holes in your story. And you may have to return to finish it – if you can.
Here’s are the classic shots used to structure a photo essay.
1            Introduction
2            Set the Stage
3            Identify the Main Character
4            Significant Detail
5            Human Interest
6            Decisive Moment
7            Outcome
8            Conclusion
You could say all other images included in an essay are just variations of these few types of images. I’d be surprised if exceptions couldn’t be found, but they would be exceptions.
Learn more about each shot in this free PDF.
Subscribe to Insights enews and download it free.

The Common Structure Of The Greatest Communicators – Nancy Duarte


“In this fascinating talk Nancy Duarte explains the model that she developed for designing transformative presentations. She explains the essential qualities of an excellent presentation by analyzing the speeches of Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs. She reminds us that the only way to spread important ideas is to make sure that one is communicating his or her ideas effectively using strong presentation skills.”
I highly recommend Nancy Duarte’s books Slideology and Resonate.
Find more creativity videos here.

The Art of Travel – Free Webinar Online Now



John Paul Caponigro Webinar: The Art of Traveling from Lowepro on Vimeo.
You can view my recent webinar for LowePro The Art of Travel now.
I share many ways to make the most of your travels including Research, Packing, Storytelling, and Journalling.
Plus, you’ll find the presentation peppered with many free follow up resources on my website.
Learn more in my digital photography workshops.
View my webinar The Art Of Travel here.

View my Equipment Packing List here.

View my Clothes Packing List here.

Find out about the tools I use here.
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The Web's Secret Stories – Jonathan Harris


Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the emotional world of the Web. With deep compassion for the human condition, his projects troll the Internet to find out what we’re all feeling and looking for.

At the EG conference in December 2007, artist Jonathan Harris discusses his latest projects, which involve collecting stories: his own, strangers’, and stories collected from the Internet, including his amazing “We Feel Fine.”
View more of my favorite TED talks here.