Use Photos to Tell Stories in Your Book
Nan Barnes
Selecting photos to use in a memoir or family history book can be a tricky business. One way to choose is to decide which photos can stand alone, which express both the ideas and the emotions that tell a story.
Noupe Blog writer Aquil Akhter explores how the images created by photo journalists do exactly that. “It is their objective to produce direct, truthful and bold images that tell the stories for those who have no voice,” says Akhter.
Photo journalist Mark Hancock explains the responsibility he and his colleagues face. “At all times, we have many thousands of people seeing through our eyes and expecting to see the truth. Most people immediately understand an image.”
Akhter’s post examines 35 Powerful Photos That Tell a Story. Some are horrendous, like the 1994 World Press Photo of the Year, which shows a man in Rwanda mutilated by a Hutu militia. Others are spectacular, like a shot of Igauzu Falls in Brazil. Still others are inspiring, like Cameron Herweynen’s photo of a joyful young boy running along a road in Malawi.
Click here to view all these exceptional photos. You may or may not understand the full story that each image contains,(we need text for that) but undoubtedly you will be struck by powerful emotions.
When you have choices to make about which photos should illustrate your own book, think about the stories they will convey to your reader. What is the emotion you hope to evoke? Powerful images will increase the impact of the written stories in your book.