Mm101.1 Photography: Narrative Sequence

Narrative Photography

1      Photo Sequence.

 

Narrative photography: What exactly is it?

Narrative photography is the idea that photographs can be used to tell a story. Allen Feldman stated that "the event is not what happens. The event is that which can be narrated". In this case, the medium is photography.

Objective.

My objective is to create 24 narrative images of a sequence of events, either a journey somewhere, or a story.

For now I have decided to follow the idea of creating a story, though for my inspiration; I shall research into different artists/photographers and look at their narrative images.
I have actually created a narrative sequence of images before, and I based mine loosely on ‘self-burial,’ by Keith Arnatt.

His work shows a man, stood upon a mound of soil, and he slowly in each image begins to get deeper and deeper until he is finally - fully sunken into the ground.

 

 

So, what shall I do a narrative sequence of?

Firstly, I began researching on google – just doing a typical google image search – and came across the Artist/Photographer Duane Michals.

Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania in 1932, on February 18, Michals from 1949 to 1953, received a Bachelor’s Degree in art at the University of Denver.
At about the age of 26, Michals trained as a graphic designer at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
In 1958, 2 years later, Michals then decided to travel to the Soviet Union and he would take portraits of people on the streets with a camera he borrowed.

Michals then started creating sequence photographs, the photos he’s best known for today.

His images are simple, his ‘chance meeting’ shows 2 men passing one another on the street but when one man turns to look back; he sees no one. It almost makes you think that the man who he passed actually wasn’t there at all. It may have just been a figment of his imagination.

1      Researching Ideas.

 

Many of Michals most interesting works are just singular photographs of things which – to me – appear to be telling us a story.

After researching about Duane, I found this image and noted that – in his time – men weren’t allowed to love or be attracted to other men; it was frowned upon and people all had to be straight.

So when Michals found out that he was gay, he caused quite the scandal with some of his work which included naked men appearing to be pushing themselves upon one another. He was very open about his sexual orientation and displayed this through his work/ photograph - the ‘violent men’.

Although the idea of creating a singular image which tells a story, my objective is to create the narrative sequence of events in 24 images.

1      Final Ideas

I knew that I didn’t want to do something too complex - as I haven’t been given a long enough period of time to do a complex series of narrative images – so I began looking into things which could speed up this process and to think up ideas on what I could actually do.

I thought to myself; “Do I really want to include a person into my photographs?” Actually, I decided I wanted to do something a bit different.

I found an artist whose work literally SANG to me. As soon as I saw it I knew that, that is what I am going to do, and I am going to love every second of it!

Belinda Carpentier is a, illustrator, photographer, and designer who – like me – did a narrative photography project at school/college and decided to do something a little bit different.

“Created in 2010 for my Intro to Photography course. The goal of the assignment was to create some kind of narrative. I chose to go with something simple and mundane, such as my daily routine, and give it a little twist to make it more interesting. I first made some doodles on post-it notes and then pasted the post-it notes to one of my brick walls at home. Photos were taken with my Canon Rebel XSi and edited/color corrected with Photoshop CS4.”

I have decided to do something along these lines and my final image will be of all 24 post it notes stuck down and presented like Belinda Carpentier’s work.



My Work:https://www.behance.net/gallery/20365007/Mm1011-Narrative-Sequence