Photography is meant to be emotive but it is also meant to tell a story when it is on its own. There is the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words”. And a good image can tell all those words without the photographer saying anything in support.
As a photographer who specializes in events, action, and photojournalistic style photography my goal is to make my images stand on their own and tell a story without words. Sometimes it is a simple story like the image above.
What’s it saying?
It is saying joy, awe, excitement over an experience with an aquatic creature.
While you may not know the people, place, or circumstance but you can read the emotion and image what is happening and clearly make the right inferences. It is worth a thousand words.
I took me dozens of shots to capture this one image, the right image, the image that speaks without me speaking for it.
Telling a story with a photograph is hard work. Some you will spend plenty of time planning for, others you will attend events or be contracted to do. But this is the photographers super power. Telling a story through images. Sure we get attached to multiple images and sometimes send more than the ideal shot and sometimes we just know that this, this is the image. But our images can speak and that is a gift.