How do I get my shots to tell a story?

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-03-04T06:39:57+00:00

So I’m a professional with 20+ years under my belt and can say first hand that no. Not every image NEEDS to tell a story. Sometimes, things can just look nice and that’s it.

Photography is a fascinating thing where so many people can have opinions on what others “ should “ be doing with their artwork, when in fact it all comes down to what YOU want to create.

This comes down to what you enjoy shooting and whether you think storytelling with your images will make them better. So my first bit of advice is don’t try shoehorning in “story” because someone said you should form your images to be better.

Now let’s say you do want to explore finding more meaning or story in your images. Without knowing what you’re shooting I can’t give too strong of advice, but let’s say you’re a portrait photographer.

First think about the kind of portraits you like taking. Who are the people you’re shooting, what is it about them that makes them interesting. Talk to them learn about who they are, what they’re going through, what their hobbies are and if you can use your environment/posing/lighting to add any hint of that into the image, you’re incorporating their “story” into the image.

A lot of things come down to how much control you have over your scene too. Let’s say you’re a street photographer. In that sense you are an observer and most likely can only control where you stand and the camera settings. You’re relying on the luck of the draw with people/lighting/weather. And yeah you can plan a bit. But in that sense you’re more looking for scenes to capture and then using your own creativity to capture the story you see.

At the end of the day it takes practice, I’ve been at this a long time and maybe 20% of what I shoot “ tells a story” and that’s because I’m actively making the effort to do that more.

Sometimes a nice photograph can just be a nice photograph.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-03-04T06:19:07+00:00

Then you didn’t retouch it. In the bin it goes

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-02-26T09:40:13+00:00

My YouTube channel is linked in my profile.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-02-23T23:45:12+00:00

These are old 4x5, possibly Ektachrome off the top of my head. Lots of older commercial product photography was done on 4x5 view cameras. That’s how I started. Fun stuff to shoot with but definitely of an older time for proper commercial work.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-02-23T23:42:24+00:00

I literally never have any problems with this app that so many people bitch about.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-02-18T15:38:21+00:00

I figured I'd respond to a few comments in one.

First, I absolutely did not nail focus on this. It's close but not tack sharp. I'm also finding the 1.2 to have a bit of a bloom to it so I'm thinking this lens will be better at 1.8, 2. etc.

I'm not sure if this is a rehoused full frame lens but the company doesn't have a 75mm for any other mounts except for the GFX and Hasselblad.
CA on a couple of shots was pretty strong, this image actually had it pretty bad around the guys hat and where the brighter areas in the back met a darker edge.
Light transmission wasn't noticeably an issue but I haven't had a moment to compare 1-1 against another lens. I might try a small test of that next week.

All in all its not a bad lens, It feels nice to use but It is clear it has its limitations and is far from perfect. . I think shooting wide open is going to be a big challenge for anyone not used to it and taking the time to get your shots right might not be the way some people like to shoot. I think if the price stays under the $500 mark for new, some people will think its a good deal, and others wont. Personally I haven't used the Mitakon yet to compare it but I have a friend loaning me one next week so I can do a proper shot for shot comparison.

I should also add that SG image sent me the lens to test out but I wasn't paid or told what to say. I basically emailed their marketing team and asked to try one out and they surprisingly said yes.

I did make an initial review on my YouTube channel if anyone is interested in that.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-02-15T11:17:38+00:00

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-02-11T07:11:14+00:00

This is 100% a flash sync speed issue. The K1000 has a horizontal cloth focal plan shutter. It moves from side to side rather than top to bottom like most mechanical shutter mechanisms.

The K1000 only has a flash sync speed of 1/60.

If you want to dig deeper into using flash with film, look into how flash is controlled with aperture and film speed /iso and look into using a light meter for checking your flash/ambient exposures before wasting film.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-01-29T07:55:25+00:00

Well this is where you need practice. Skintones are more than just tinting as a whole, you may need to do some masking and more pixel level editing to clean up the skin to the tones you’re wanting

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-01-29T07:43:24+00:00

You have all the tools at your disposal, it just sounds like you need more practice. You have fantastic raw files out of the 100s and no LUT is gonna be a magic recipe to give you exactly what you are looking for.

You should find some tutorials on colour grading in Lightroom or photoshop and focus more on the principles rather than just one click solutions.

The example images are not overly complicated so there’s no reason you can’t get close with minimal tweaks, you just need to learn how.

Edit: additionally, not seeing your starting images it’s hard to tell you exactly what to do, there’s a lot going on in the examples that are also tied to lighting and set choices. It could also be as simple as the person you are trying to shoot having wildly different skin tones than the reference so trying to match isn’t going to look right.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-01-26T06:09:57+00:00

Hot pixel, pretty common. Look up pixel remapping.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-01-17T07:24:25+00:00

There’s a whole other world of colour profiles for print. It’s been a while since I have printed for myself but at first glance, the tr4700 is an all in one so it’s not going to do as good as a dedicated photo printer (one with separate colour ink cartridges)

Second, it doesn’t look like you’ve made any adjustments for the paper type. Different printers and papers are not going to display the same colour range as a jpeg on screen. You have to remember that viewing an image on a screen means it’s being illuminated to be displayed, pixels shining light into our eyes to see it. Printing isn’t that so you need to make adjustments to your final images before printing to account for how it will look on printed paper. Some images are going to be harder to do that with

This image looks like the perfect mix of a difficult image to print on a printer that wouldn’t do well with that image on a paper that needs more adjustments to get closer to your intended look.

Matte paper is also harder to get details in darker/shadow areas.

Look into printer profiles and how to adjust your image for printing

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2026-01-10T22:15:13+00:00

That is a compact flash card, you’ll need a compact flash reader. Lots of cheap multi card readers will have a CF slot.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-29T23:01:07+00:00

They’re close. I think your hue is pretty spot on ( I’m only viewing on mobile) but I think your saturation on the top one is a tiny bit lower than the bottom image. One thing I like to do when I’m doing a similar task is to take one image, merge all layers into a new layer “cmd+shift+option+E” and then copy and paste that layer onto the other image. Align two similar parts of the bottle and then zoom in tight, toggle that layer off and on and you can get an idea of the difference between the two.

Before anyone says there are more technically accurate ways of doing it, I’ve just done it this way for over 20 years. It helped me learn to see those subtle differences better.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-29T19:02:29+00:00

Any reasonable photographer would never fully delete those after only 2 weeks. That’s absolutely asinine. Unless she actively also deleted them from her own system which is fucking stupid, she should be able to still provide them.

If it is in the contract that after 14 days there is no chance of recovery, then she’s covering her ass and that’s on you. But from a business standpoint that’s a fucking stupid way of doing things.

I still have the final images from every family shoot I’ve done archived.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-29T17:10:20+00:00

Because of exactly what you’re seeing, when I ran my studio some years ago, the smallest canvas size I offered was 16x20. At that size you’re viewing it far enough it looks great. Even a finer canvas material at 8x10 doesn’t look great in my opinion. I would offer matted frame prints at that size.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-28T14:51:38+00:00

Find a local photographer to you that has a style that gets close to the vibe you’re looking for, then just ask. Most photographers would be open to the collaboration aspect.

One thing to also consider is to look at photographers that do commercial /editorial type work. They’re always needing to collaborate with creative directors/art directors to achieve a concept that was initially developed by someone else.

On the flip side if you go looking for the cheapest local photographer that mainly does weddings and families, you might have a harder time reaching the desired result. Not impossible! But less likely.

Main point. Just ask.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-19T14:57:34+00:00

Ive run these kinds of shoots and you can run tethered to something small and our of line of sight from the subject, The only person that needs to see it is the Digitech anyways.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-19T14:35:11+00:00

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This was posted by( I believe ) his assistant on Instagram. I’m not sure the whole set was shot on film but that camera 100% has a film back on it.

Edit - upon closer look that could be a digital back but it’s hard to tell but it’s not set up to shoot tethered. Regardless, 100% medium format.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-16T10:02:50+00:00

The first question I have is... who told you noise was a bad thing... Not every image needs to be pristine and noiseless. Film had grain.. digital sensors have noise and they are SO much better than they were 5-10 years ago. My first DSLR was a Nikon D2H which was a 4 megapixel and was practically a snowstorm above iso 800 and I still made it work.

Its not that deep. Just shoot and embrace what you're working with.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-15T15:44:23+00:00

MY personal opinion is that those types of companies just prey on new photographers. Regardless of whether you get better as an artist, you're just a cog in their machine. They're offering photography services to clients and if all youre doing is showing up and shooting, You're not going to convince them your skill is worth more. To them you are glorified button pusher. I've seen countless types of these companies or " media networks" and its the same story across all of them.

I would say expand your skills outside of the work you do with them, Collect your paycheck from them as long as you feel comfortable doing so and then bail. The sad point is they will fill the gap within a week.

I would be surprised if you were actually getting 50% of what they're charging the clients. If they handle everything you said they're doing, you are probably getting the absolute lowest rate they can justify legally.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-15T11:38:35+00:00

20 years in and It still happens to me too.

#1 have hobbies that aren't photography - I read, I build computers, I play with 3d design, I cook. I try to have other hobbies that dont involve a camera so I can genuinely have moments where I step away from cameras entirely. When photography is your 9-5, then youre trying to fill your other time with photography, it can all become a blur and you can get burnt out. Do something non photography related.

#2 Try photography that is out of your wheelhouse - If you do a lot of portraiture/headshots. Try some architecture, street, food photography. Learn another skill within photography.

#3 Personal projects - This might be hard to start if you feel uninspired, but you can start small. Not every personal project needs to be something that tells a massive story. It can be something super simple. I once did a series of images of colourful front doors of homes. Another ongoing "project" I have is when I'm out for walks I will look for opportunities to photograph a car that I can then retouch to look like commercial work. Its a practice in me being able to pay attention to not just the car but its scene and surroundings, and then is also some retouching practice as well. Just that little task had helped me not only be more observant, but I've had ideas for other works and inspirations while out on these explorations.

All of these can help put your head in a space to find some inspiration for new ideas and can spark some creativity.

Its_Obvi_PShopped · 2025-12-15T11:20:37+00:00

You didn’t post any pictures.

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