What is Narrative in Photography
With narrative in photography it's more of a visual narrative, it is the idea to a tell story within a series of photographs or just one depending on what narrative you are trying to get across Like Allen Feldman Said “the event is not what happens. The event is that which can be narrated”.
Since the beginning of photography the images we see are the first narratives we have of the past,Narrative photography has also been a very powerful tool to for transmitting information. In recent years social media popularized photography with instagram the narrative in photography has developed further as instagram becomes a visual narrative of people's lives to their friends and others.
Narrative photography can be structured in many ways but the classic structure that we have explored so far is a story consisting of an introduction to what the overall narrative is about the middle parts, how the story progresses and the ending that corrisopsd and finishes the narrative. Another narrative structure can follow these moments to show narrative:
Exposition
Conflict
Climax
Resolution
One example that i have looked at for narrative photography had to be the photography book ion by Gabriel Amza. The book is a narrative of Ion a man that Amza spent a week just documenting his life and family who lived out in Sureanu Mountains.
With this book it shows the narrative of ion and his life in the mountains, the narrative consists of his life and his interests such as his saxophone, animals and family. Other thing about this book is different narrative is you can never see the ions face throughout the entire book.
The book shows how narrative can consist of different images that dont always include peoples faces but shows a journey and a story of what the person or object is doing it is creating a narrative.
AS well as a series of narrative you can also have a single frame narrative and a good example of this the Famous V-J day photo of a sailor kissing a nurse by Alfred Eisenstaedt. The candid photo holds the narrative of what america was like after the war and how everyone felt when it ended
In conclusion to what a narrative form is in photography it is usually a series of photos that show narrative to the viewer. But the narrative form can also be a single image showing multiple narratives or a single narrative depending how you perceive the image. Narrative photography can be a very expressive method of visual storytelling and can be a great way to showcase different cultures and how different people live in the media or even in photography books.
