Examples of narratives

As I am photography a narrative, I thought I should also start researching photographs that tell a story to the viewers. I have found a lot of different examples where some of them are just one image that tells a whole story and others are a series of images that tell a story when looked at them all at once.

Following is an example of a single image that tells a story. The stories that comes up in your mind can always be different than what someone else thinks about the image. It does not have to be the same thing for everyone. It usually can depend on different things happening in the life of any individual. It can be things such as life circumstance or relationships that someone has had in the past. Below is an image of a girl crying because she lost some contest in school because her parents could not afford as much tickets as other children's parents could. This is one of the stories that I think would be better understood by people who might have been through stuff like that related to money or not being able to afford something that you really want. Or maybe even not winning things just because you can not afford something even though you have put a lot of effort into it. Looking at the picture a lot of people can think about different things that they think would have happened to the girl. I think the black & white colors really compliment the story behind the image as it is something sad and black & white usually gets used when something sad or depressing is happening.

The next picture that I have found is of this girl seen below with a cigarette in her hand. The photograph is called candy cigarette. I thin the name of the image really fits with the image itself because it is a beautiful photograph in a way and the girl is beautiful but then it has an ugly truth behind it as the girl is quite young. I don't really know about the actual story behind this image but if I look at it I think something bad has happened to her which is why she has become like that. It is a very strong photograph and it is also possible that it has been staged.

Next is an image of a sewing machine that has been destroyed after the cyclone hit in Bangladesh. The sewing machine itself tells a lot of what might have happened to it because it is a very strong device and it could only get damaged in that extend if something quite bad happens to it. It is quite a powerful image according to me because even though its not showing any humans bodies it still tells what has happened in the country that time. Obviously it is hard to tell the location where it has happened by just looking at the image but if the location is known and for the people who have seen this, it does give a kind of resume of what happened that time.

Following is a photograph is again a picture of the same location (Bangladesh) as the previous one but it does show some people in it. It is a photograph of a mother and a son that have taken shelter somewhere during that same cyclone hit. The fear on the child's' face shows clearly that something bad is happening wherever they are. Again, the photograph is not specifying any particular location but it is saying a lot about what is happening there. By looking at the walls behind them and seeing more people at the background, I can conclude that it is somewhere where many people are living together. Even the way the child is hugging his/her mother it shows that there is something to be scared about. Maybe some sounds or something that they can see but is not included in the frame.

The next photograph was quite shocking to look at for me because it is not something that we see often around here. It is of a young guy smoking. He is only 5 years old. The photograph has been taking on New Years Eve in St. Jacques of a gypsy family. Apparently it is very common for them having such a young children smoke. It is also visible from the hand on top of the little boys' head because for me it shows that whoever it is, the father or uncle, he does not have any problem with the guy smoking. Again here as well one photograph tells a whole story about what is happening and if people are aware of that society not having any issues with kids smoking than those people would exactly know what is happening. Others might need more explanation about what is actually happening in the image.