I upload sets of photos to my photoblog and use images to liven up posts here all the time, but until this year I never thought much about the overarching stories my choices of images tell. I used images as decoration and illustration, not as real elements of my content.
That is, until I spent a morning last fall exploring a sunrise market in Hanoi with photographer Colm Pierce, learning to improve my photography and how I present it. Introducing: the three-picture story.
Can’t I just take pictures of pretty things?
I often wander around with camera (or smartphone) in hand. Here’s what I normally do: take pictures of things I think look interesting, or picturesque scenes I think I’ll want to remember.
Here’s what I don’t normally do: think about the totality of the pictures I’m taking and what they’ll communicate, or how they’ll actually help me remember the experience of the places/things/people I’m shooting.
Thinking in terms of a three-picture story helps fix that. It encourages you to think about the connection between your photos and subjects in a different way, and helps you create context that allows your photos to create a complete scene. Some of you probably do this instinctively already — I didn’t, and keeping the three-picture framework in mind has markedly improved my still-nascent ability to tell a story photographically.
What is a Three-Picture Story?
In simple and completely unhelpful terms, it’s a story told through three related images. (You’re welcome.)
Not just any three images, though — three related images designed to create a more complete sense of your subject than a single picture. Together, they capture both visuals and feel:
Picture One: The Establishing Shot
This is the big picture — where are we? For this shot, step back from the subject and put it in context. Think wide-angle.
Picture Two: The Relationship
This shot starts to get at what it’s like to be in the place you’re shooting by showing subjects interacting. Often, this means people connecting with one another — talking, involved in an activity together, or just looking at the same thing — but it doesn’t need to be. Inanimate items and scenery elements can interact, too (as we’ll see below).
Picture Three: The Details
The third image completes the scene by zeroing in on a detail, something you might not notice (or even be able to see) in the broader photos.
As we wandered through the market, I created this story (click any image to see it full-size):
I wanted to capture the experience of the marketplace — the mix of frenetic movement, one-on-one chatter, and quiet moments that create the overall atmosphere. I took a photo of the main thoroughfare from a bridge overlooking the market, found a vendor and shopper haggling over some meat, and was transfixed by an older woman sitting quietly in a side-stall, meditatively cutting corn off the cob.
Walking through the alleys around the market, I noticed the shops and breakfast stands beginning to hum and found another story:
First, I took a picture of the street waking up. For photo two, I snapped a photo of a woman sitting down at a noodle stall for breakfast — here, you only see the person preparing the bowl of soup, and the recipient isn’t actually in the frame. Finally, I peered over the shoulder of a vendor countering her earnings and grabbed a quick shot of the notes.
Adapting it
It’s easy to see how the three-picture story is great for street photography. What if you’re in a different situation, or street photography isn’t your thing? You can use this structure and idea — broad strokes, a relationship, details — and adapt it for your subject:
Here, I’ve grouped three shots from Angkor Wat that interpret the three-picture story in a slightly different way: first the panorama. Second, a person who has a relationship with the place. Third, a detail of the structure you wouldn’t see otherwise. (They’re small stupas, rock formations made by visitors to honor a lost loved one, found in one of the courtyards of Angkor Wat.)
And here’s my nephew graduating from college last spring (hi, James!):
We’ve got an establishing shot of the ceremony, a photo of him in relation to his classmates, and a detailed shot focused on his mortarboard.
Really, though, you don’t need people at all. Here’s a dinner I made last summer:
I used the three-picture ideas, but adapted them for my lack of people and the story I wanted to tell. I flipped the order, to take you from inside of a melon (the detail), to the melon with other items in a blender (the relationship), to a finished dish (the establishing shot).
This framework can be re-imagined for all kinds of photography. Think of a three-picture nature story (a forest panorama, a few entangled trees, a close-up of some lichen on bark), or a building (a shot of the whole structure, a few perfectly-spaced windows, a detail of some floor tile). Show off your images side-by-side, as I have here, by displaying them as a tiled gallery — use the “square tiles” setting for this look.
It might seem like more than you want to think about while you’re snapping images. That’s fine, too! Even if you don’t have the three-picture story in mind while shooting — I didn’t, while photographing the graduation or dinner — you can use it to decide what images you want to share on your blog, and the order in which you want to present them.
If you want to give the three-picture story a try, wait for this Friday’s photo challenge (hint, hint). In the meantime, we’d love to hear any other guidelines you use for taking and curating photos. What do you think about when telling a story with photos, or adding them to your posts?
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All photos by Michelle Weber, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
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This is a wonderful tip. Thanks so much.
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I love it. I just started using this technique as a way of illustrating a recipe in one view. Overall view, then details of the ingredients!
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Thanks Michelle….my blogging has taken a bit of a hit since ZTH ended…this is the first post in a long time that has me excited about some new possibilities …loved all your shots. And also your photoblog.
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Glad to hear it! A blogging 201 challenge is coming later this spring, so hopefully that will help as well 🙂
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Glad to hear that 😀
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Nice! This is sort of the short story, filmic version of photo journalism. I like your shots. By the way, how do I suscribe to writing and photo challenges?
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@writewireless, you can’t subscribe specifically to writing challenge, but if you follow The Daily Post on WordPress.com or on Twitter, you’ll get notifications of our new posts.
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This is invaluable information to a novice like myself. Thank you very much, this will no doubt help me tremendously as I am learning to explore with my camera new and unique scenery and topics. And I am a new blogger wanna be.
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This is really helpful and something that I hope I can remember to start doing. It’s usually easy to take the big picture photos, but the detailed photos really do help capture the scene!
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NOW I understand the concept of telling a story with pictures. I can’t wait to put this information into practice! Thank you.
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As a writer, I would put a twist on it. Construct a 3 or more paragraph story, using the photos, and zoom in and out of the details by shifting emphasis from surroundings, to characters, to objects. Good piece!
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Cool idea, and nice way to weave photos and words together.
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Thanks!
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Ah, clever connection! What a great structure for a short piece. (Funny coincidence, now I think about it, I think I just did that in my latest draft!)
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Great to hear. Thanks!
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Can hardly wait!
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Love this idea and your examples are great. I use my photos to tell stories most of the time, but with the aid of captions and usually in sequence. Thank you! 🙂
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Thank you for sharing this. I sent the link to my daughter, she’s dabbling with photography, had a technical question for me yesterday for her school assignment, I’m hoping this will be helpful.
For me, I enjoyed reading about your exploration of the technique, and I enjoyed the photos as well.
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This is such a useful post! I always have trouble trying to tell my story and deciding on which photos to use cause i become so attached to them all. But i’ll run out of space doing that! I’m gonna try thinking about the story from now on! Thanks!
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This is brilliant. Thanks for sharing, I can’t wait to try it out!
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Thank you for a sharing another great idea. I wrote a little about my approach to travel photography last year, but could only come up with a few words about capturing the essence of a location: “you have to observe, experience, think and eventually press the shutter”. Actively looking for three related images will help me achieve this. Cool.
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Glad y’all are finding this post helpful! Looking forward to seeing all your three-picture stories in the photo challenge this Friday 🙂
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Thank you for sharing. It is called a Triptych. Artist have been doing these through out history.
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It true, there’s nothing new about grouping three images together! A triptych doesn’t necessarily prescribe the content of the images, tho.
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I love this idea!
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very nice, thank you for this new perspective on things!
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This makes so much sense. This technique is kind of along the lines of some things I already do instinctively, but this definitely simplifies what I am going for in some of my stories where pictures are used. Thanks.
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Just so you know the big picture is a little blurry .
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Yup, I took it at a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of the traders. I didn’t have a tripod, so was hand-holding the camera.
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Excellent inspiration here for lots of posts. I`m reading it as three steps:overview, process, product. Can`t wait to try it!
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That’s a really useful way of stating it. Nice!
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agreed!
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This is awesome!!! Gosh it really gives a different impact- really live it 🙂
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brilliant! got to try this out myself! thanks again for another great idea 🙂
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That’s a very interesting perspective. While I don’t take pictures for blogging purposes, generally, but i do find myself capturing whatever I can. I’ll try and be conscious of this idea next time I find myself snapping away 🙂
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What a great device, whether used with camera in hand or after. I love story telling so this is a great way to draw out the journey through a place. Thanks so much for this post – can’t wait for the challenge now.
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Thanks for that…..will put those skills to use
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I love this! What a great challenge! Wheels spinning…. Oh what story to tell?
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There are people who takes photos; people who are photographers, and there are artis whose tool is a camera. These last ones are who normaly do what you have discovered last fall Michelle. The escense of photograpy is to tell a story; it can be just one picture or more than one. Depending on how objective (concrete) or subjective (abstract) the photographic subject matter is, it’ll be a single photo, a series, or a photogrtaphic essay. Any way, your post is a great contribution to those who whant get into photography with intent. I’m sure next challenge will be very exiting and we’ll have great stories told. I’ll see you all then!
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Thanks for the idea, it will go a long way in helping my blogging career.
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It’s a great suggestion. Don’t know how that works for those of us who might embed 6-8 photos in 1 blog post, but maybe having 2 approx. sets of triplets or similar. Hmm. Gotta think about that.
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Great suggestion. And I think I sorta used it in my last post – “Making of a VDay Gift” 🙂
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