What is Narrative Imagery?

What is narrative imagery? 

Narrative imagery is visual story telling (not the actual story itself). Narrative relates to photography due to the fact that many photographic elements tell a story. However, narratives aren't limited to simply photography. We find narratives in all sorts of media such as:

• Photography
• Cinema
• Literature
• Poetry
• Theater
• Opera
• Music
• Painting

There are several genres in photography that use narrative imagery:

• Tableau/staged
• fashion
• photo essays
• photojournalism 
• documentary 
• commercial/advertising

Images tell stories using visual grammar that transmit messages to the viewer. 

Like, signs = signifiers & signified

Signifier is the physical form of sign. Signified is the meaning or idea expressed by a sign.

Signs can be categorized into:

• Iconic - looks like what it represents   eg. portrait 
• Symbolic - does not look like what it represents. It's meaning must be learnt. The meaning based on cultural associations/experience.     eg. stop sign,a flag,a traffic light,a company's logo
• Indexical - sign is a clue that links meanings. Refers to something other than what is actually depicted but is physically or casually connected.    eg. smoke is an indexical sign of fire

When looking at an image you can interpret things differently to others, some of this can be because you have had different life experiences than other people so what we have done, read, seen etc can make you think or feel something else.

Photographs as signs

They are usually iconic - resemble an object or thing
They are symbolic - can show wealth, poverty, peace, justice, etc.
They are indexical - indicate the presence of a camera and photographer

Elements that we might consider when telling a story:

• STORY/plot
• theme/genre - romance,comedy,fantasy,sci-fi,real world,action,thriller, etc
• audience
• characters/objects - appearance/clothes 
• location/settings
• gestures/expressions/body language
• weather
• composition/camera angles
• lighting/mood
• symbols/signs/text
• colors/tones
• music

So, for example narratives can be used to explore social and cultural issues and it would be easy for us to assume that a photograph is a true record of what was there, but it is always the photographer who chooses what they want us to see. As before they create the images, they have to perform certain tasks and make certain decisions even if the final result won't match the plans exactly. They have to consider the style of narrative they will create and think about the layout of their images. So I will also have to go through a similar decision making such as:

What style of narrative will I create:

• narrative within a single image
• narrative told through a short sequence of images

(Storyboard)

• What shots do you need?
• What should be in each shot - subject, people, props, etc?
• Who are your characters? What are they doing?
• What angle/viewpoint will you shoot from?
• What other compositional elements do you need to consider? - format, light, tone, colour, etc?