What Is a Photo Story and How Do I Make One?
A photo story is more than just photos in an album, digital or otherwise. It’s more than just a photo book, though a photo book can be used to tell a photo story. It’s the most personal kind of photo gift you can give, the one that doesn’t just remind you of a moment—it retells the moment. And if you’ve never made a photo story for a photo book, you’re missing out.
A photo story is the intentional use of pictures and words assembled into a story. One of the best ways you can tell a photo story is in a photo book.
To better understand what a photo story is, it can be helpful to understand what a photo story is not. A photo story is not a slideshow on your computer of all the photos of the past year. It’s not a photo book automatically created online by an algorithm using the metadata in your pictures (for example, Facebook’s “Happy Friendiversary” videos it makes using the photos of you and someone you interact with on the platform a lot). It’s not your collection of Instagram posts.
Slideshows, automatically- or quickly-generated photo books, and Instagram posts aren’t bad things to do. Hey, they’re easy ways to share photos and memories, which I love! But they are not photo stories.
A photo story should have intentionality, a story and images (photos, ticket stubs, etc.).
The stories don’t have to be vast, complicated, fact-filled. They can be small and simple.
As for how to create a photo story, I’ll use my own example. I’m just back from a trip to the desert southwest—a five-night escape with my husband to someplace we’d never been. It was a great trip, the break we needed, in a totally new landscape, doing the exploring we love.
How to create a photo story
Find the story
Figure out the moment you share, the memory you want to retell. Consider some basic questions to help you figure this out. For example, why did we go on our trip? We went because neither of us had ever been. We’ve seen a lot of this country, but not the desert, and because why not? What are we waiting for? Also, it’s been an intense 18 months. We wanted to disappear for a little bit.
There’s the simple story: Howard and me, together, exploring a new place, just the two of us, hiking and relaxing, far away from the familiar. We had a wonderful time.
Read a more detailed account of how to find a photo story by checking out this blog post.
Identify the audience
Who is the audience for my photo book? Just us. Maybe others will look at it, but it’s for us to remember the events and the escape. Because it’s just for us, I can incorporate some inside jokes and embarrassing photos with goofy faces that we might not want shared.
Decide the order
This will help you figure out how to to tell the story. You can tell stories in chronological order, by associating different events, or by something else.
In this case, Howard and I have a simple story; we’ll most appreciate knowing what we did when, so I’ll tell it chronologically.
Chronologically isn’t the only option. There are lots of creative ways to tell a story! If you’re feeling stuck and wondering how else you might do the order, consider these ideas. If you’re doing a photo story of the various vacations you’ve taken with your spouse, you could group the moments of exquisite meals together, the adventurous activities together, and the landscape shots together. A photo story of a home renovation could be told by going room to room. A photo story of visits to the 50 United States could be told alphabetically by state.
Choose the words
The question you should ask yourself is, What do I want to say in this book? Consider the details you need to tell the story. Captions identifying dates and places and names would probably be helpful. Also think about the personal things you want to include, like quotes you remember someone made or inside jokes. You can also add your own personal thoughts, if that feels right for the kind of photo story you’re telling.
Select the photos and images
With your story in mind, choose the photos and images that would best serve your photo story. Make hard choices! A photo may be pretty, but if it doesn’t serve your photo story then you might want to just print it to display in your house.
Put it all together
Shutterfly is a great option for creating a photo story and assembling it into a photo book. Alternatively, if you’re particularly crafty, you can print your images and make a scrapbook. If you’ve got items you want to include in your photo story but they aren’t digital files, scan them! Maps, ticket stubs, brochures, awards, even cocktail napkins can be scanned and incorporated into a photo story.
Pixorium specializes in making photo books and telling photo stories. If you want to be coached through a specific project, or just want us to handle the photo story and photo book creation for you, contact us. We’ll be happy to consult and help in any way we can.
Life is a story. Tell yours!
P.S. Got a pic of your photo book being loved by its audience? Share it on our Facebook page, email it to us, or tag us in a post on Instagram or Facebook. We’d love to see your creation!
