Visual Storytelling With Photography

Visual storytelling is a craft both photographers and designers share. Often these two creative careers overlap, particularly in the world of advertising and marketing, since they are the most practical means of communicating a message in a way that is creative, clear, and has the appropriate context. As someone who has loved both design and photography for more than half my lifetime, I’m fascinated by the parallels between the two, and by how often my knowledge of one can elevate my execution of the other. For graphic designers, choosing the right photography—and being able to use and manipulate it appropriately—can pose quite a challenge, especially if you have little or no experience behind the lens. But don’t worry! You can use familiar visual communication principles to your advantage; you just need to understand the combined context of design and photography instead of thinking of them as one or the other. When making photo selections for my graphic design work, I tend to concentrate on five key elements: perspective, composition, sharpness, focal point, and color. In this article, we’ll talk about each of these aspects.

A Little Perspective Can Change Everything

Photography takes advantage of perspective in a unique way. When shooting human subjects, the angle of the photographer in relation to the subject can make all the difference in how the subject is perceived, and therefore in the tone and message the photograph projects. For athletic shots, there is sometimes what is called a “hero shot.” Typically, the camera is angled up at the subject, who fills the frame and thus appears “larger than life” (Figure 1). This technique is also sometimes used for corporate photography to create an imposing figure or communicate a look of authority.

Perspective is a subtle but important factor when making distinctions or trying to get the message across. When choosing photos to use in your design, consider what the perspective says to the audience about the subject. If you want to humanize a subject, or it is necessary for the sake of the story to diminish them in some way, opt for a higher angle shot that has more of the background visible in relation to the subject. The more important the subject is, the more they will—or at least should—fill the frame with their presence.

Composition and Cropping Make a Real Difference

If design and photography have anything in common, it is the importance of good composition. Composition (sometimes referred to in photography as “framing”) is one of the key aspects of what makes a good photo and tells a good story. In design, it is important to make use of the appropriate amount of white space. Photography has its version of white space, but it’s more dictated by intent than in design: photography shot for the intentions of printing and framing a photo will differ dramatically from photography shot with the intention of post-production for editorial or commercial work. For example, most professional photographers who shoot portraits prefer to shoot “cropped in,” framing the image exactly as they intend it to be produced and printed. While it could be cropped in post-production, most prefer to avoid this and “get it perfect in camera,” because cropping brings some minor distortion and image degradation (though not noticeable to the majority of people). However, many commercial photographers shoot “loose” (Figure 2), meaning they shoot wider than necessary, with the intention of cropping after the fact. This allows for more options and more room to work with when editing the images for commercial use, while also minimizing the number of shots they have to take. For example, one of the benefits of using a high-resolution professional camera is that you can sometimes crop a full body shot down to a usable head shot, if the client decides after the fact that’s what’s needed.

Even if the image were included on a full-page print, as long as it was shot well, on a high-resolution professional camera, the designer who’s editing it can still make the creative decision to fulfill the client’s wishes. If it was necessary to use a specific full-body image and place text to the side of the subject, shooting loose would allow for this with minor editing, and avoid necessitating the use of tools like content-aware fill to manipulate the image too drastically. For designers, having the most options available to satisfy the client is an essential part of working effectively. If you are working with a photographer, it is crucial that you communicate your ideas and needs as early in the process as possible. If you are shooting your own photography, you have to keep in mind how you intend to use the images and what your editing process involves, from start to finish. It doesn’t hurt to storyboard and sketch these ideas out, long before it’s time to set up a shoot. After you’ve clicked the shutter and moved on to the next shot, it’s a bit late to think about the bigger picture (pun not intended).

Sharpness and Clarity are Interpreted as Quality

Most photographers try to achieve tack-sharp images, because the sharpness of the primary subject and focal point (on human subjects, typically the eyes) is one of the ways that photographers judge the quality of the work (Figure 3). In design, we often interpret quality in similar ways: crisp readable text, proper kerning and leading, accurate color, and so on.

Image quality can make or break a design. And even a well-designed project could be undermined if you skimp on quality photography. Oftentimes, the images you can find for free online were not shot by a professional photographer using high-quality equipment, resulting in a lack of true sharpness. You can fix this by retouching the photo (if you have the Photoshop skills), but in most cases, the overall quality of the photograph will be degraded. Your resulting designs could feel cheap because the photography you chose wasn’t of a high quality. This is a good reason to avoid using random images from the internet in your design work (not to mention copyright considerations). Using high-quality stock images makes things considerably easier when it comes time to edit those images. Having RAW files from a photographer tends to work even better. RAW files give you more flexibility in your editing, since they are unprocessed files, captured directly by the camera sensor with all of the data intact. From a design perspective, it’s the equivalent of being able to work with a source file instead of flat files (imagine having a layered AI or PSD file to edit instead of a JPG or PNG). Working with a photographer or shooting your own images ensures the highest quality results and the most flexibility when it comes to editing.  However, when this is not a practical option, stock image sites typically have a variety of high-quality images to choose from. When choosing your images, strongly consider using high-end stock photography from sites like Fotolia, Adobe Stock, or GraphicStock, if you intend to convey quality. Another aspect of image quality that you have to consider is grain. Images shot with a lower ISO (ISO 100-800) tend to have less grain or noise, and present a higher overall quality. Images with a higher ISO (1600 or higher), typically have noise and grain that can distract from the image. Depending on the lighting, higher ISO images may also have poor color quality and contrast. You can determine the ISO of an image you are reviewing in the EXIF data of the image file.

Focusing the Message with Subject Isolation

As I’ve said before, graphic design and photography have many parallels. Visual balance and having a key focal point are important to both for helping you tell a clear story. In photography, subject isolation (in the form of depth of field) works similarly to white space in design. When your subject in the foreground is clearly in focus while the rest of the background softens, this is what is known as “shallow” depth of field (Figure 4). Images with shallow depth of field are ideal for your compositions as a graphic designer for several reasons.

If you choose to cut out or mask the subject to place it into other artwork or a solid color background, working with this type of image will be easier than one where everything is in focus. In fact, Photoshop CC specifically has “selective focus” masking to help with this task. Subject isolation also helps with creating more impact and focus. When the subject and background are equally focused, the inadvertent message may be that they are of equal importance. When you have a foreground subject with a background that is very busy, it can feel distracting, since the eye has nothing to focus on, or maybe too much. This is generally true in design as well, which is why designers employ the principles of white space, visual balance, and contrast.

Creating Impact with Color and Vibrancy

Designers know that color and tonality play important roles in conveying information. By using color theory, social cues, and psychology, designers can use color as a shortcut to framing the way images are perceived by an audience. It is no different when you think of the way color and temperature are used in photography and cinematography. Each light source has its own color or color temperature, varying from red to blue on the spectrum, with red being warm and blue being cool. Examples of warm light sources are sunlight, candles, and tungsten bulbs. Examples of cool light sources would be fluorescent bulbs, clear blue skies, and standard camera flashes. These tend to be measured in degrees Kelvin, with warm colors being lower on the numbers scale (1000K) and cool colors being higher on the scale (10,000K). In storytelling, warm colors tend to be more inviting, energetic, and can present optimism and positivity. By contrast, cool and muted colors can imply seriousness or even harshness. Removing color altogether and using flat or even high-contrast black and white images can completely change the tone of the image and what it conveys to an audience, even if you make no other changes to the photograph (Figure 5).

Having a sense of what emotional impact you want to create can help you make better editing choices and photo selections and precisely target the impact of your designs. When you are trying to create a sense of hope and high energy, increasing saturation and brightness can help you accomplish these things (and tends to appeal to a younger audience as well). If you are trying to present an editorial piece that captures a tragedy or disaster, muted colors and lower saturation values are going to help convey that starkness to the audience.

Developing an Eye for Visual Storytelling

When choosing the photography for your design projects, be sure that above all the images are helping you fulfill your client’s wishes. Ideally, you shouldn’t be justifying your image selections on their aesthetic quality or how interesting they are. Instead, each image should clearly help tell the story, drive the call to action, or accomplish the overall goal of the design. By its nature, design is intentional, so having clear intentions behind your choice of images matters. Photography by Roberto Blake.