Can Photos Be Too Dark? Part 1

I start by asking a question.

Can photos be too dark?

I don’t mean exposure wise.

I mean theme, content, material, imagery

The local camera club competition theme was Narrative.

I’m not gonna lie.

I struggled with this.

To me how can you portray a story in 1 image.

As usual I decided to google narrative to get a definite edition before i start falling down the rabbit hole on something that isn’t narrative at all.

Narrative

A narrative, story or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, still or moving images, or any combination of these

Personally, I can’t see how to make a story out of 1 image. To me a story has to be a sequence it needs: a start, a middle and an end.

While chatting to someone they sent me this. This is to me a humorous sequence of images. Mr. David Beckham getting in trouble for looking at some cheerleaders.

We have a start, him looking

A middle, him being caught

An end him apologizing and looking a bit glum

To me this is a narrative. How can you condense this into a single image?

Speaking with multiple people and trying to condense it down to 1 image I was really struggling.

My lovely girlfriend who is the brains behind a lot of the ideas I shoot and the person who comes up with most of my titles. She came through with some ideas. A sports shot kid with a medal, A cooking shot with dirty bowls and dishes. Great ideas but nothing I felt passionate about.

Then a dark idea came to her. A Kids toy on the road, broken plastic…….Then we went even darker…….a suicide scene. A blade, A note, a booze bottle. Suicide is a terrible part of life. It does happen, it shouldn't happen but it does. Does ignoring it make it go away? Is photographing it taboo?

The road idea was easy to photograph. My girlfriend's son recently outgrew his trainers so she was throwing out his older ones. I grabbed a pair just before they went into the bin.

My girlfriend lives on a quiet-ish street.

Cars parked either side but not a constant stream of cars.

Teddy bear and trainers in hand. I hoped for a bit of rain but unfortunately nothing insight. I stood in the middle of the road and threw 1 trainer into the air. The trainer bounced and landed in the street and I placed a teddy bear nearby.

Laying on my stomach I got some nice low perspective photos. Shooting wide open to get a nice blurry background, pulling the focus onto the trainer and bear.

Checking the Image it didn't seem enough.

2 Seconds

F1.7

Iso 100

I decided to do some more. Do we want a car in the image? Do we want broken plastic to push home the idea the child has been hit? Do we want rain? The ideas were partially there but not full formed.

Putting the trainer and teddy near a parked car i decided to take a few more snaps

2 Seconds

F1.7

Iso 100

A better image but not 100%. I need to step down my Aperture a bit, get more in focus. I wanted some plastic as well. I want the story really driven home the child had been hit. Is that too dark? Is that too much detail? Is that too much of an adult theme?

The girlfriend and I eventually found some plastic and a broken bumper on a nearby car. Placing the items delicately I took a few pics but the angle didn’t seem right.

Calling it a night shooting wise I decided to sit down and look at them on the laptop.

I eventually found an image I was happy with.

Final Image

20 Seconds

F8

ISO 200

My final Image is a little dark in story and theme.

People are hit by cars everyday, it's a horrible, horrible part of life. Does photographing it make people more aware of it? Does photographing it remind people that it happens and help people avoid it? Should it not be photographed? Should it be left out of sight out of mind?