Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling is using digital tools and media to make engaging short stories. It’s importance as a skill is growing as people’s attention becomes more valuable.
What is Digital Storytelling?
Digital storytelling is a powerful tech tool for the 21st century that can connect to people’s humanity and teach life lessons. It’s important to choose a point of view to tell a story from, posing a dramatic question to capture viewer attention, and using emotional content to stick in the audience’s memory. It’s also important to use music and your voice to convey your story’s tone, and telling a story efficiently.
Why is Digital Storytelling Powerful?
Digital storytelling can bring people together and help them understand themselves better.
Digital Storytelling – changing people, perceptions, and lives
Despite have technology, people have become more socially disconnected. But, everyone has stories to share and social media can be used to tell them.
The Digital Storytelling process
- Generate ideas for a story step
- Research and plan the story
- Create the story
- Edit and refine the story, add music and effects
- Publish the story
Conclusion
These principles made me more aware of the importance of digital storytelling, and gave me a framework I can use to tell engaging stories. I hope to use it to better communicate and connect with people.
Worth a Thousand Words: Photography in Digital Storytelling
Photography is very important for visual storytelling because of how much quicker it can convey information than words. Here are some tips for improving photography from the Chemin key points:
- Spend more time planning a good quality photo rather than taking a high quantity
- Contrast in color, lighting, objects, and distance can convey more
- Finding different vantage points can give more distinct perspectives
- Using lines, foreground, and dark backgrounds can add depth to photos
- Use the rule of thirds (dividing view into thirds) to balance photos
- Observe surroundings to anticipate interesting moments
- Pay attention to lighting in a photo, it can make or break it
- A telephoto lens makes for more dramatic photos, while wide angle can capture wider
- Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO can affect depth of field and motion blur
- Foreground can give a landscape scene scale
I’ve noticed that I’ve been using these elements in my own photography, some of it I learned from photography class in high school, some from my dad who’s a photographer. I was already subconsciously doing some of those practices as well. Some elements I haven’t experimented with though, like shutter speed as I take photos on my phone.
Visual Literacy:
Visual literacy is the ability to read images and make something of them. Enhancing your visual literacy allows you to imbue your photos with more meaning, improving your digital storytelling.
The Story Behind Migrant Mother:
The mother’s strained expression and her and her children’s dirty clothes, the lighting, and the close up framing made the photo an iconic symbol of the Great Depression.
Personal Practice: Some recent photos I liked
Conclusion
Taking photos with thought and intention helps them convey more information to others, as well as making them more memorable for you.