Challenge
Your challenge is to compose a photo story, using a single image, textual story that serves as a script, and audio that serves as vocal interpretation of the material. It is the combination of all three elements working together that tells the story. It is one of the simplest forms of digital storytelling and can be a great platform and preparation for longer more multimedia forms.
Objectives
- Compose a digital photo story, including visuals, text, and audio
- Capture a moment about an event or a person
- Experiment with visual storytelling tools
Rationale
A photo story is designed to highlight your voice, both speaking and writing, and enhance the story's power for the audience. The image should be compelling, drawing attention and hinting at the story in some way. The text serves as the script and is the heart of the story. The audio includes your voice-over narration, as well as sound effects and possibly music.
Instructions
The power of the piece will derive from three factors: image, words, and sound. The best way to approach this is to try capturing a single moment that is compelling or dramatic. You want to keep the story tight and focused, especially considering that you are using a single image. The more personal the story, generally the more specific and easier it is to capture.
Find an Image
Choose an image that helps focus or illuminate your story in some way. Select an image the represents an event, person, place, or possibly combination. If it is already a digital, everything is easier. If not you will need to convert the analog image into digital format, either by scanning it or using a digital camera. You can be creative if you need to photograph a photograph.
Compose a Text
Compose a sort piece 150-500 words is a good range. It is narrative and should have an arc of beginning, middle, and end. However, keep it about a single moment, involving an event or person, and focus on a clear point that you want to share. Be descriptive and detailed. Consider using an anecdote to make it real. If it is more about a person, provide enough background to give the story some context, but stay focused. Think of it almost as a sketch with words.
Create the Audio
Narrate the piece either by recording your reading. Add appropriate sound, background music or sound effects, if you like, as long as they do not overpower the narration. It will likely require more than one recording take. It is advantageous to record your audio in a separate application like Audacity or GarageBand, which will allow you to edit and layer multiple audio tracks.
Select a Main Tool
Choose a tool that will allow you to combine all three elements in a unified whole. There are a number of possibilities, including presentation software, iMovie, Cowbird, a single blogpost with the separate elements arranged together, a tool you discover on your own. Be creative and try working with something less familiar, challenging yourself.
Legal
- Use your own images, new or old.
Exemplars
While it is not a requirement to use site, Cowbird is an online community and tool that works really well for this kind of storytelling.
The Best of Cowbird offers a lot of fine examples that are worth a look, including the piece "Lily" featured above. The selections with the microphone icon in the lower left corner are the pieces that feature audio narration.
This example used YouTube for presentation, which captures the image and audio, but needed to include the text of the story in the actual blogpost.
This example uses CowBird for presentation, which does a nice job of including all three parts, image, audio, and text.
The Best of Cowbird offers a lot of fine examples that are worth a look, including the piece "Lily" featured above. The selections with the microphone icon in the lower left corner are the pieces that feature audio narration.
Student Examples
Here are a handful of strong student samples that each make use of different tools and methods of presentation. All are successful but require a slightly different approach to assembly and inclusion of all the required parts.
This example uses CowBird for presentation, which does a nice job of including all three parts, image, audio, and text.
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| The Never Ending Road @ CowBird |
This example uses SoundCloud for the presentation, which does well with the image and audio, but needed to include the text of the story in the actual blogpost.
