Doing documentary photography involves focusing on capturing real life and telling stories through images.
Based on expert insights, a key approach to documentary photography involves paying close attention to the fundamental elements of image-making and understanding how individual photos contribute to a larger narrative.
Here are the core aspects to focus on:
Key Elements in Documentary Photography
To effectively capture documentary stories, consider the following crucial components:
- Composition: How you arrange elements within the frame is vital for creating impactful images. A strong composition guides the viewer's eye and enhances the message.
- Light and Shadow: The interplay of light and shadow shapes the mood, highlights subjects, and adds depth and drama to your photographs. Mastering light is fundamental to storytelling in imagery.
- Individual Image Story: Each photograph you take should ideally tell a story on its own. A single great image can convey emotion, context, and narrative, standing alone as a powerful statement.
- Expanding the Narrative with Multiple Images: While single images are important, a series of photographs allows for a much richer and more complete story. As mentioned by Cohn, "It takes a while to get to the point where you have several good photos, but then you can figure out a way to string them together into a more complete story." Combining great images allows you to build a narrative arc, show different facets of a subject or event, and provide deeper insight.
Building the Narrative
The process often involves:
- Capturing many moments, focusing on the elements above.
- Identifying the most compelling individual images that tell a story.
- Selecting a few strong images that, when viewed together, expand upon the individual stories to create a coherent and comprehensive narrative.
This sequential approach helps transform a collection of images into a compelling documentary project.
