They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Sometimes, that’s all you need. The photo conveys exactly what you need it to, and words would be superfluous, even distracting. Other times, there’s more to say. Maybe the memory behind the photo is fading, or maybe you want to transfer a setting from a picture to a scene. Maybe something about what you see is tugging at your creative heart and you need to express it.
Over the last year, I’ve taken a lot of photos. I have some series of photos that tell a story: the growth of a kitten, the budding of a tree. Others have memories behind them: a first trip to the ocean, a first visit with a new friend. There, too, are dozens of photos of the little things in life that make me happy: newly-emerged monarch butterflies sunning their wings, melting snow reflecting the sunlight, or the surprising texture of mossy tree bark. I took each one for a reason, and each has something special to say.
To write from photos, you’ll first want to identify what it is that the photos have to offer. Do the pictures stand as a record of something? Do they convey a story or preserve a memory? Are they art, preserving a poetic moment or detailed setting?
When you know what the pictures say, you’ll have a better starting point for recognizing what you want to say and how to say it. Today, we’ll walk through five types of photos and how to translate them into words.
Photos that Record
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Some photos record things—journeys, events, time periods, or even lessons learned. I found a special record in my first year of Instagram photos. I just joined Instagram last spring, around the time I was going through a lot of life changes. One of my goals was to record the beautiful moments. Whether those moments were happy or sad on the surface, I wanted to keep for myself a record of photos in which I found joy or significance. It was sweet to revisit my year’s picture journey last month. For all the ups and downs life brought me, I have a permanent visual record of the beauty I discovered along the way.
Write it
Look at a photo or set of photos that has meant a lot to you. What feelings or ideas are associated with it? What does it bear witness to?
- Nonfiction: Write about those ideas or feelings using the photo as a descriptive reference. Compare what it meant to you at the time to what it means to you now, and let yourself discover how you’ve grown and/or how you’ve stayed grounded.
- Fiction: Write a short story about someone that experiences the same things you recorded in the photo(s), using the freedom of fiction to focus on the heart of the photo and to call more attention to key themes and elements. Reality is just the starting point!
Photos That Tell a Story
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Some photos tell a story—it could be a single image with a lot happening, or it could be a series of photos chronicling change over time. Some family friends brought home a new kitten last fall, and I’ve taken my weekly babysitting visit as an opportunity to take and post pictures of the “Weekly Kitten.” She started as a tiny, sleepy ball of fur, and now she’s a screen-climbing adolescent. Without the photos, we could have blinked and missed making memories of how she grew along the way.
Write it
Look at your own series of photos and the story they tell. What kind of change do they portray? Is it good or bad? Invigorating or bittersweet? What do you learn or remember when you look at them?
- Nonfiction: Write a short personal essay to express the feelings felt and lessons learned throughout the transitions chronicled in the photos. Has a story ended? Is it just beginning? Use the subject of your photos as a starting point, and then focus on explaining that story in a forum such as a short personal essay.
- Fiction: In short story form, use what you discovered in your photos to write about what comes from a key moment of change—or perhaps in the wake of it. In novel form, incorporate what you’ve observed about the pacing of change in your life into the lives of your characters.
Photos that Preserve a Memory
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Some photos preserve a memory—a moment in time that meant something to you, whether positive or negative. Last summer, I saw the ocean for the first time when I took my first trip to California. When I look at my top three pictures, I remember the bubbles floating across the beach as I worked to snag the perfect sunset picture, and the way the sun was just a little too hot as I snuck up on crabs in the tide pools, hoping they would lead me to a starfish or anemone. The photos may show a single frozen moment, but they hold the key to so much more.
Write it
Look at a photo that has held a special memory for you. It’s likely there was much more going on at the time than the picture shows, and you might not always remember the back story as clearly as you do now. Don’t let it go to waste!
- Nonfiction: Use the picture(s) as a starting point to branch out and write about the things that aren’t pictured. Write mini memoirs, or collect individual stories that can be tied together later into a longer piece on your life.
- Fiction: Sometimes, the memory behind a picture sparks a whole world of what-ifs. Explore those, putting them into words before you forget. These can work well as novel scenes or the heart of short stories. This kind of writing can be useful when you want to keep up your writing practice but don’t have a specific project to invest in at the moment.
Photos that Speak Poetry
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Some photos are like a poem in and of themselves—rather than preserving an unstated story or memory, they are meant as art. This spring, I took a photo of the first dandelion I saw. Goodness knows they’ll be rearing all too many of their persistent heads by the end of the season, but in that one little dandelion poking out of the sidewalk, I saw a proclamation that summer had officially arrived.
Write it
Look at the image that speaks poetry to you. What was it that caught your eye at the time and prompted you to take that photo? A good photo helps your audience see what you saw—and so can a good description of the same thing.
- Nonfiction: Try a short poem (maybe a haiku, maybe something more freeform) to convey what that subject showed you, or expand it in prose for a longer practice in using strong imagery in your writing.
- Fiction: Take notes of how you’re seeing and thinking about the subject of your artistic photo, and let your fictional characters do the same. Give them your filter—or a new, unique filter of their own—to see the world in a special way, with descriptive language to convey that perspective with readers.
Photos that Capture a Setting
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Some photos preserve a setting—rather than focusing on a specific moment or object, they show the viewer the world as the photographer saw it in that moment. This past winter, I got to visit Glacial National Park while traveling for my cousin’s wedding. By themselves, it’s hard to tell just how big the mountains are. I fought to capture them in their full context through photographs, and it’s just enough to make me want to go back someday.
Write it
Look at the image of a setting that you found breathtaking. What if you had to translate it into words? The best place to start is to choose an order for the descriptive details: top to bottom, near to far, left to right, etc. This will help to ground your reader.
- Nonfiction: When you use words instead of just pictures to preserve the memories of the places you’ve been, you’ll be able to add more than just what your audience’s eye can see—you can draw them into what your eye saw. Use this in your blog posts, short essays, letters—or as the setup for scenes in personal essay or memoir.
- Fiction: Practicing describing real-life settings now can help you with your story writing later, when you’re describing scenes that don’t actually exist. If you borrow from real places or real setting elements for your scene descriptions, the readers will have a more believable experience in your novel or short story.
Picture Perfect Words
Practice is the key to stronger descriptive writing, and photos make the perfect writing prompts. More likely than not, you already have a large collection of picture prompts that are unique to you and your memories. Not only that, photo prompts are unique in giving you a visual reminder of what you’re writing about and what details you might want to include. Give it a try!
In my weekly email newsletter, I’ll be inviting readers to share a photo that has stuck out to them and a piece they’ve written to go with it. If you’re not already subscribed, I invite you to join via the link on the bottom of the page. Otherwise, you can connect with me any time at contact@elizabethbuege.com.
For anyone who shares, I’ll send back some feedback on the resulting written piece. If I get permission from you, I’ll even share a special blog post featuring photos with written passages (all credit given to photographer/writer) on my blog—or a link to your blog if you post it there.
No need to be perfect—rough paragraphs are welcome. This isn’t a competition, but rather a place for you to compare perspectives and see how unique each writer’s viewpoint and voice are. Let’s celebrate the place where picture and words meet, where beauty spills out across multiple forums.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but thankfully, you don’t have to choose just one.
Love your post.
Looking forward to your newsletter.