blackest Loc: Ireland

First of all I have to say this is kinda awkward, as I don't feel qualified to talk about this, as I am just not that good. This all kind of started out with me getting interested in some filters and stumbling into some youtube video's made for videographers, film makers.

Video and photography are fairly closely related. I am not sure which is harder making a good photograph or making a good video. There is one major difference between videographers and photographers and that is videographers are trying to tell a story where photographers often are not. Other than music video's (where some things are there because they look kind of cool) video is all about telling a story if its not helping tell the story it gets left on the cutting room floor. As a photographer i think a lot of my shots deserve to be on the cutting room floor, even if they look kind of pretty.

I think we probably see far more video than we see photographs but we tend to be following the story rather than looking at why they choose to shoot something one way rather than another.

Composition is as critical in video as it is in photography maybe more so because in video there is always a reason to include a sequence, they use a lot of the same techniques we use (or should be using) Rule of thirds or perhaps the golden ratio which is perhaps the more complicated version 1.618 should be a number that photographers should know.

Balance, repetition, head room , negative space, leading lines ... There's more. Another thing we often fail at is lighting maybe we are just choosing the wrong time of day to shoot or the wrong direction.

The other noticeable aspect of good videography is that it has purpose, its unusual for a scene to be included which doesn't add to the narrative in some way. Video's tend to be story boarded breaking the narrative down into chunks. Story is at the heart of video making and I may get stick for this i think needs a place in photo's too. I know I often feel I have missed something in my photo's there is no punch line, no story, whats it all about? erm nice there isn't it ... failed again :)

I said I wasn't the right person to talk about this, and by now you should be convinced. However now there is a first post in this thread the following posts can have more interesting content. I'm hopeful that there will be a few links and resources to look at later that will help develop our feel for composition and story.

feel free to post links and photo's that you think will be helpful. i'm not trying to teach a class but bring together resources which will help improve the choices we make when choosing what to photograph and how to do so.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Ok after that terrible introduction here is the first video link in this thread, what I like about it is it hits on so many of the basics for what we should be doing in our photography

Mastering Composition + Cinematography with Will Smith

Any ways, watch the video and see if it gives you ideas.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

Observations:
D4Darious is both intelligent and articulate.
His staccato speech, densely packed with ideas for this lecture, can become tiresome.
His volume is excessive. Apparently, D4Darious and "Emporer Donald", attended the same school:
====> Increased volume MUST mean ideas become more true in proportion.
I had to reduce the volume setting by 80% on my iPad in order to listen.
The lecture was interesting, I guess.

Lance Pearson Loc: Viriginia

Rubbish! Your basic assumption is incorrect when you say: "....videographers are trying to tell a story where photographers often are not..." Every still that is well taken communicates some message. You can take photos as "inventories" but good photoraphy is art and it communicates some point of view in the process. You should stick to video which is obviously your preference because you don't know jack about stills. I suspect you are just as bad about video as you are about stills. What nonsense.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Thats some arrogant assumptions matey, personally I do believe in telling a story with a photograph, there are others who don't feel it's possible.
If that's your take on things there is no reason for you to participate.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

I've noticed that videographers are generally more open to study and learn from the broad field of visual arts, including still photography, than most photographers. In contrast, many photographers tend to live in a bubble and really only pay attention to the output of other photographers. Personally, I often look at the works of master painters for ideas in composition, use of tones, and themes, which I then apply to my photography.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

I enjoyed the video. The whole idea of the rule of thirds can now be accomplished in editing, both video and stills. The next time I crop a still or edit a video I will be looking to see how it would look if the focal point is on the top third intersections. I generally crop stills and zoom into video in the editor anyway, so I'm looking forward to giving this a try.
Regarding a still picture should be telling a story, I don't know if that's always true or even possible. For example, a pic of a mother and child tells a story, family snaps tell a story, sports pics tell a story. Pics of children often tell a story because they are so expressive. But a portrait of an adult may or may not tell any story. Closeup pictures of flowers or a piece of fruit or a butterfly don't tell a story as far as I can tell, and landscapes without people don't tell a story either for the most part.
There was a long and disputed thread on whether pics tell a story a while back on UHH, with the main objection being that pics don't have a past and future narrative, and so the story is implied rather than spelled out, and the story may be solely in the mind of the viewer, sort of like a rorschach inkblot test. The thread is up to 22 pages at present.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-435085-1.html
Thanks for posting blackest.
P.S. Looking at other art forms there is art that tells a story and art that doesn't. Paintings by the old masters and the impressionists usually told a story. Paintings by modern abstract artists portrayed shapes, form and color, but no story. A friend and I were talking about music today. Popular songs in the past usually told a story. But today much music is just a single catch phrase repeated over and over to a catchy rhythm, no story.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You must be new to UHH. Knowing what you're talking about is not a requirement.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You have a good point. Making a film requires thousands of decisions about composition, DoF, color, duration. The list goes on. I once saw a show about movie-making which showed the effects of subtle changes in color. American movies of the 1950s tend to have strong, bright colors, but modern filmmakers often use muted colors to give a gloomier look.

Somewhat related are animated cartoons. When an animation begins, there is literally nothing - no characters and no scenery. The director not only has to invent the scene to be filmed, he must also decide on the composition and everything else.

Yes, still photography is easier than filmmaking. It's a lot quicker, too.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

I think some photos do tell a story. Some don't. It depends on the photo and what you want to say with it. We mustn't forget that photography is a form of communication, after all. When I shoot the aboriginal people who live along the Cayapas, I definitely want to tell their story. But when shooting a banana flower, probably not.

MichaelL

Another consideration is that video is just a series of photographs. 60 per second.........

Billy Bob

Your future is go to be video, learn how to get still off of video. I been doing it for years. But it what your people will want.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

There are still problems with that. Video is shot at slower shutter speeds, so motion blur will often show up on the still frames. Also the resolution is less on video stills than camera stills, about 2MP at 1080HD, or 8MP on 4K video stills. Most modern dslr camera stills are at least 14MP and may go all the way up to 50MP.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Three Tips for Using a Wide Angle Lens: Exploring Photography with Mark Wallace

This Adorama TV Video kind of follows on from the first which covered a lot quite intensively, this one concentrates on just 3 things
A Dominant subject, Getting Closer, and Leading Lines. Pretty often when going wide you get everything but often there doesn't seem to be a subject as such, we have the chaos that was the result of a lack of composition that was talked about in the first video.

In this video mark wallace demonstrates some nice techniques. When he says get close he really means it, I tend to keep the world at arms length or even further away so this isn't something I am comfortable with. Some of these photo's start from a foot away and lead you in to the photograph with leading lines. I think most of us will have a wide angle lens even if its the 'kit' lens. You can probably use a smart phone for this kind of shot too having massive amounts of depth of field is a good thing.

One thing I noticed was that your eye takes a journey in these sort of photographs there is a starting point and a finishing point and your eye travels from near to far. There is kind of a rush or wave that you travel when you view it. Often you don't get this from a lot of photographs there is no start and finish point and you don't feel guided. It feels a bit meah...

Anyway have a look at the video and see if you can get a feel for it and see if you can use the techniques. Feel free to add photo's and video's to this thread. Hopefully if we can get a 'journey' in our photo's we will start to get story too and people will pause and look a little longer.