How do you tell a story in 5 pictures? That is the question that my photography class asked me to solve. For this case study, I will explain the process I went through to tell a story with only five pictures.
Goals:
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Capture, edit, and print 5 pictures that together tell a story.
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Use and better understand the basic principles of photography.
Audience:
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The story that I tell is supposed to be understandable to my professor and classmates.
What's in a Story?
To start this assignment I had to understand what makes a story good. In a story you need a few things: a character, problem, climax, and a surprise ending. Our professor showed us some examples and they were really good! I found that the first picture was for setting the stage and the last picture was the surprise ending. Everything in the middle would move the story along.
I really enjoyed the sunrise ending in some of the examples in class and I wanted to find a good story that would have a surprise ending. Then I remembered bad hair days at school. I figured that was a great idea! I could use my little brothers as models for my story and could tell the story of a young kid running late to school, trying to do his hair, and running to school just to find out that it was crazy hair day all along!
The Process
When it comes to photoshoots a lot of the time you plan it out just like designing a website. It all starts with sketches. I made some sketches of what the pictures needed to be and my classmates and professor enjoyed the idea! I then picked my model and collected the props. All that was left was to take the pictures and edit them. I took my little brothers out and made sure to take the pictures the best I could. I tried to remember everything I could about lighting, posing, aperture, and shutter speed. I then took the pictures and edited them! It took awhile to get everything just right, but I ended up turning them in and was very proud of the work that I accomplished.
My Story
Reflection
Looking back I learned a lot about project planning on this project. I had to sketch out each picture and work to figure out if the story made sense. Sometimes with UX design it is tempting to rush past the planning and start with color and design. Wireframing and sketching things out seem unimportant, but this project would not have worked without planning it out. I couldn’t have just taken pictures blindly, I needed to work through the plan and make sketches before I could do the final project.