ONCE UPON A TIME
Human beings recorded personal history through dialogue long before there were any books. The oral tradition continues to this day. Till now, storytelling has played a momentous role in contemporary photography. In the beginning, photographers in Bangladesh used to present eye soothing, beautiful photographs. But the trend has changed,leadingto a groth in the popularity of documentary movement in photography.
Celebrated photographer Shahidul Alam conducted a session “Once Upon a time” at the Hay festival this year, presenting us with insights into the craft of storytelling through pictures in the digital age. Interestingly, as a narrator he told us the art of storytelling from his memory and showed how narration becomes the history of our life. According to Alam, “The art of telling stories can be wiped away if there is no more weaving and spinning to go on. Photography as a medium does it and retains the precious memories of a person or a city or anything which is important.”
Irrespective of age or culture, most people usually find stories more interesting when photographs accompany the narrative. A single shot can be more enlightening than thousands of unfolding words. A single photograph can somehow bring a story alive, enabling us to imagine the little details and intricacies.
“I think a big job for a storyteller is to listen,” says Alam. Listening can arouse our interest to look at other things happening around us. In a photo, we may not know about a character but the character allows us to think around that image and the impression that photographs gives us is very important for a storyteller. On the one hand it contextualises texts in a coherent narrative and on the other, it provides room for the reader to interpret the photographs with their own understanding.
Storytelling seems to be capturing the attention of people from every walk of life. And our photographers are coming up with ever-increasing number of exhibitions that feature strong narratives. Their works are not only factual representation, but rather have the ability to take the audience to a magical and fairytale-like world that the storyteller is preserving for the coming future.
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