Story Is King

Last week, I sent my trusty and lovable long zoom lens to Canon. I had noticed it was coming loose around the barrel while shooting a soccer game, which was leading to focusing issues and the potential to get particles inside. Being a location photographer, I can’t really baby my equipment too much … I just have to act quickly when it needs repair!

The next day, my high school buddy Mike — a real estate agent and one of the most versatile musicians I know — visited from Utah for a two-day musical writing workshop at Disney’s Burbank studios.  He could bring a lucky guest, so I sat in on some of the best readings of unfinished musical productions I’ve ever seen. After each performance, critics gave their notes to the writers and composers American-Idol-style. Each show had the potential for plenty of tweaks and improvements, but I noted one over-arching theme: Story Is King.

A musical can have the nuts and bolts in place to make the catchiest, most dramatic music imaginable, but if the story and character doesn’t develop with every breath or note, it’s all for naught as your audience floats away. It’s a variation on the same theme that rears its head with every creative turn I take. I learned it as a news photographer and again in cinematography courses at film school. It’s the key to that certain I-don’t-know-what that you feel when a narrative creative work hits you in all the right places.

It’s also my not-so-secret theme when photographing a wedding. Assuming a photographer has quality equipment and technical know-how, simply taking pictures at a wedding is pretty easy … but beware of stale results. Approaching it as an evolving day with romance, hope, fun, and a cast of loved ones turns snapshots into memorable storytelling photography. Even headshot or engagement session results are better when you can feel the personality or the relationship — call it character-building, if you will, or just subtle storytelling.  It’s a personal challenge that I’ve even written in the manifesto-of-sorts on my studio’s homepage: We take a fun, narrative approach to photography.

Anyway, two short days after I sent my trusty quality equipment to Canon, they had the lens back in my hands. I don’t know if they put their best eleven guys on it in a whirlwind of screwdrivers, vice grips, and blinker fluid, but that’s impressive turnaround time. So I asked Mike if he would model for me so I could give my lens some informal testing. And since blog posts are better with photos, here are the results. The lens is performing like a champ, by the way:

You should check out Mike’s musical, A Life Devine. It had a very successful run in Southern Utah last October, and Mike plans to improve the show even more using what he learned at the seminar.  Here’s the production’s website, where you can hear the music and watch the show: http://www.lifedevinemusical.com/