Every Picture Tells a Story

By Julie Hartwig, Tin Can Bay Camera Club

“Every picture tells a story”. It’s one of the great quotations of the visual art world. Yet photography varies from other forms of visual art in that a mechanical (or these days, a digital) device is used to capture the image that tells the story. In fact, every photo ever taken has frozen in time specific moments in history. In its most basic interpretation, photography is a history-recording tool.

This historical story-telling is one of the reasons why photography is such an important visual art form. Another is that it’s just plain good fun. It documents our personal history – milestone events, special holidays, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Of equal importance, photography records the history of the world as it unfolds around us. It permits us to visually explore our world in a way no other art form allows.

Photography has few conventions. It is one of the most subjective forms of visual art, more so even than the traditional arts of painting and sculpture. In its basic form, photography requires no special skills other than to pick up a camera and press the shutter button. The explosion in photography since the advent of digital cameras (and now mobile phone photography) is a testimony to that.

As we approach another holiday period during these momentous times, create your own history and record it for future generations.

The Tin Can Bay Camera Club’s next meeting: To be advised. 

Visit the Club website at: tincanbaycameraclub.wix.com/tcb-camera-club