Using Photographs for Your Creative Writing
Explore the magic of photographs for your imagination and the transformative potential of visual prompts.
This post was first published in 2021. I’ve given it some light editing for a better read in 2022.
A cat called Tabby enjoying the sun through a window. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2021
When I first thought about trying to write creative fiction, I wondered where people got their ideas.
How did they start? Did they have a plot? Characters? A plan? How could I begin when I had no idea in my head at all? Can I even write fiction? What is this all about anyway?
I love to take photographs. To me, the photograph helps to make sense of a visually busy world. I've tried in the past to find meaning in this activity. Yet, lately, I find it's becoming a compulsive behaviour. See something beautiful. Take a picture. Love the way the light is making shadows. Take a picture. The dog is looking cute. Take a picture. Her face looks lovely in the sunset. Take a picture.
The result of all these years of picture taking are a dense mass of photographs; thousands of them. I have hundreds of pages of old negatives filed away in a chaotic, disorganised system of folders. Then there are the hundreds of negatives scanned and written onto CDs piled up high in a cupboard. Even more recently, I’ve been sending my films away to be processed and scanned. I then download the resulting images and store them in digital folders in the cloud. And then there are the thousands of pictures I have taken on my phone. On and on it goes.
What is a Writing Prompt?
To me, a writing prompt serves as a way for you to access your imagination when your mind is blank or you keep ruminating over the same imagery, never finding a way forward.
Here on A Picture, A Story, I publish a weekly photograph to be used as a prompt for creative thought. I think photographs make ideal writing prompts. They can be interpreted in any number of different ways. This can be uniquely frustrating if you're a photographer trying to get to 'the truth' but for our purposes, the photograph can provide a leyline into your imagination. Take the picture above I took of our cat this afternoon. You might not like cats. Write about that. You may love cats. Write about that. You may be looking and seeing the sharp shadow lines on the floor and something about a cage looms up in your mind. Where did that come from? Doesn’t matter. Just try to get it down in words on paper.
Using prompts can help you build a daily habit of writing or they can be part of your warm-up routine before you get going on your novel or poem or song. If you want to get better at anything you have to practice. Writing is no different. But this needn't be punitive. There's no need to sit staring at a blank page/blinking cursor. Be kind to yourself. Prompts are helpful. Prompts are kind to your brain. Stop poking at it with a sharp stick trying to think of something. You'll only make big empty holes.
Here’s where I think photographs can be helpful. You don’t need to think up something. The image is already there, waiting. Where will it take you?
Rest & Reflect
Photographs can be a meditation for your writing. Think of them as something for your brain to rest and reflect on until some words begin to take shape. When you're ready, take a pen (it's good to write by hand), your notebook and start. Another image pops into your mind. Write from there. And then another. You write more. And then another, and another, and another. Before you know it you have a story. What is a story after all if not a series of pictures?
I know. It isn't easy. The idea of not knowing is alarming. When I first started learning to write fiction, one of the things I found so difficult was accessing images in my mind. I didn't feel I was actively trying to stop them from forming but I couldn't seem to let them freely come to me either. Writing from a photograph gave me a place to start. From there you allow yourself to see where it might take you. This can be immensely helpful.
Story-telling from a Photograph
The other day I came across the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns talking about storytelling. You may be familiar with the name and the Ken Burns Effect. If you've ever used iMovie to edit your family videos you will have come across it. It's the effect of panning and zooming in on a still photograph, an effect Burns uses extensively in his filmmaking. The still photograph is his cinematic Master Shot. From here, he might film a long shot, a medium shot, a close-up, a tilt, a pan, a reveal or a small set of details.
Donkey riding somewhere in the UK. Photo: My mum’s family archive. Date unknown.
This gets me thinking. Let's look back at the vintage family photograph above. I look at it from sitting back in my chair. I move in closer. I see one of the donkeys has blinders on. The donkey in front does not. I see the standing girl between the animals has closed her eyes while the young boy sitting on the front donkey is squinting into the sun. I see his barefoot resting against the donkey's round belly and the lock of hair that's fallen over his forehead.
I move up to the face of the girl sitting on the donkey behind. She's much taller, older. Is that a ribbon in her hair folded round over her shoulder? I pan down and see her foot is almost touching the ground. To the right of the picture stands a boy. Someone moved behind him just as the picture was taken. The disembodied head looks into the distance over his left shoulder.
I sit back. To the left of the picture, I see a figure in the distance. A child perhaps, bare-legged, in shorts, head turned towards the sea. The child is walking along the beach as the sea crashes in waves behind them. At least I think they’re waves.
Remember to Breathe
So if you're stuck and staring at a photograph, uninspired, wondering where to start, spend a few minutes looking right into it. Zoom into all the details, pull back and look at it from a distance. Pan across from one side to the other. Breathe. And if you decide to abandon the prompt completely, that's fine too! This isn't a test of strength. The prompts are a leg-up, if you will, a push to help you on your way.
It's okay to get a bit of help once in a while don't you think?
