Narrative Photography, Research & Ideas.

                                  
Whilst researching photographers that would help inspire me to create my own series of narrative photography, I found it difficult to define and distinguish A 'Narrative Photographer' as all photography has a narrative and can be perceived differently by  individuals.

 Finding a starting point was difficult for me therefore I went out and took photographs on my phone in order to develop from this point. I took photographs of a place that was personal to me and hopefully portray to others this narrative. 

 After taking these photographs I looked into photographers who have also spent time taking photographs of a specific place in the hopes of developing my own idea by gaining inspiration from others.

 After looking at different photographers I decided to look at one of my favourite documentary photographers Martin Parr and his series of photographs 'Think Of England'

which documents and in my perception narrates England, I believe that this series of photographs has a narrative as you can see the way Parr has portrayed his English Heritage by documenting people and places in his imagery.

Martin Parr - 'Think Of England'

This series of photographs created by Martin Parr were produced from 1995- 1999 and were all took in England, to me the photographs portray England before the modern generation and technology and show true English Heritage and Parr has produced this by documenting people at places such as seaside resorts and in their natural environment, he also includes photographs of items such as cups of tea and cakes and English newspapers and on a whole the series does its intention and makes us think of England.

The majority of Parr's photographs in the series 'Think Of England' are really bright colours and high contrast, this makes the imagery have an over all bright feel about it and therefore to me that gives the photos a more positive feel, which makes me believe that Parr intended on portraying his country proudly.

The bright colours also make the images more dated and therefore it gives more of a historic feel to the photograph which makes it feel like it has more of history and narrative.

Narrative Photography Research - First Ideas

Today I spent my afternoon taking images (using just my mobile phone) as development towards my narrative photography project, whilst at a place I spend a lot of my free time at. I thought this would be a good starting point to gain ideas towards creating my series of narrative images.
When taking the photographs I wanted to narrate the locations meaning to me and  to portray a narrative to others that makes them ask questions about my photograph.
After looking at my photographs that I took on my phone this afternoon I think that the images work well in black and white and I think that greyscale would be effective if I were to persue this idea of reflection (for example meaningful locations). I believe these images are better in black and white cause I think that automatically makes it look more like a documentary image which makes us question what is being documented and that gives the photograph a narrative.
I believe that if I was to persue this idea I would use black and white film as I personally prefer prints over digital photographs due to the quality and tones of greyscale that can be produced when creating prints.
I am not certain I would like to develop this idea further and I am going to continue taking images to gain direction to producing my final series of narrative photographs.

Introduction into narrative photography

Narrative photography

Narrative photography is often percieved as a photograph that tells a story but after considering this generalisation, I looked at my own photographs and the photography of others; such as those who inspire me, my concept of narrative photography is a wider.

 To me, narrative photography is everywhere and can be used to provide a visual message or statement and it can also be used to visually express something such as feeling or to narrate something such as the news and happenings in the world. 

When looking at photographers for inspiration I found a wide range of different narratives in photographs from the likes of jeff wall whom creates a lot of constructed photographs to the likes of Eddie Adams a war documentary photographer. 

After researching different photographers and questioning their work, I have realised every photograph can have a narrative but everyone can have their own personal perception of what it is therefore it can be difficult for a photographer to portray their own narrative in their photographs.