JeremiahTolbert.com: SF Writer Web Designer Photographer

5 Ways Photography Has Improved My Writing

Filed Under: My Writing, Photography, Top Post

That seems like an unusual idea, doesn’t it?  That wielding a camera to capture single moments in time really has anything valuable to add to the process of writing stories?   But it has, I think.  Each time I pick up the camera, I think about writing, and each time I write, I think about the camera.  The two passions have odd synergies between them.  There are commonalities among all creative endeavors, perhaps.  Here are a few principles that I feel have worked their way into my work , or become stronger, because of my pursuit of photography.

• Economy
  Powerful photographs can be created with very simple elements.  Isolating your subject, focusing on it, and eliminating areas of distraction.  The principle comes easily in photography after practicing for a while.  Then, when I return to the page, I start seeing things with the same eye for economy.  This sentence isn’t really necessary.  What’s really important in this scene?  What can I simply hint at to provide depth, without distracting from my primary purpose?
• Balance
  Visual images carry weight, and a well-composed image balances this weight to be pleasing to the eye.  Plots require careful balance too, between the prelude, rising action, and denouement.  Too much of one and the balance of the story can be thrown off entirely.
• Focusing
  You would think that focusing these days is a matter of half-pressing the focus button and letting the camera automatically capture the subject.  For a lot of photos, this is all you have to do.  But sometimes, you need to change your focal points.  Sometimes, you deliberately want things out of focus for effect, to convey a mood.    It’s easy to rely on the camera, but mastery comes when you push past the automatic settings and into the deeper features of the camera.

  Pushing past the automatic settings in writing means discarding early ideas, and digging deeper for more essential truths.  Writing not on autopilot, but with careful consideration, tweaking until the mental image is just right, with the subject in focus, and distracting elements not.

• Capturing Action
  Capturing action in photography requires a quick trigger finger and being in the right place at just the right moment.   You have to plan ahead, choosing your angle and hope for the best.   I find that I plan my scenes now like I plan my shots, ahead of time, thinking about the best angle to approach from, and how I can get that important moment down on the page
• Hinting at a Story
  In some of my photography, I actually want the image itself to convey a story.  The little details of an image, background elements, tiny details, the way light hits just right to lighten or darken a mood–everything in your image can add up to tell a story, to hint at events that happen before and after the frame has snapped.  In writing, I think it’s important to know what came before a story, and to be able to work in those details that create a piece that feels like a small glimpse of something larger, something connected to a greater continuity.  I often say that your story should be about the second most important thing to happen to your character.   If their life starts when you start writing, then they aren’t as interesting and rounded as they perhaps could be with back story.  Too much back story, however, and your story can become bogged down in what was and not what will be.  Just like how photographs can hint at a story, you take a light touch with this aspect, developing your back story and world building just enough to give the impression of something larger, without trying to force the whole thing onto the reader

Do you find that your interests teaches you unexpected things about one another?  What intersections between different arts and activities have you discovered, and what have these discoveries illuminated for you?

Some day, I’ll write about how writing and fishing have many things in common.   For one, both require tremendous amounts of patience to get what you what.

TAGS: My Writing, Photography, synergy

POSTED: 9:00 am Wed May 06 2009 |