As a nature and travel photographer Dale R Morris earns his living telling stories with his camera. He talks about the approach he uses to weave a visual narrative, and explains why shooting to tell a story is such a challenging and rewarding pursuit.
As a travel journalist it’s my business to make a tangible story out of the locations I visit and the experiences I have, and one of the best tools at my disposal is, of course, my beloved camera.
But a camera, no matter how flashy it is, or how many lenses it comes with, can’t tell a story. That’s the responsibility of the person peering through the viewfinder.
Choosing a theme and then shooting a series of photos in order to build up a photo story is a very rewarding way of approaching photography for numerous reasons.
First, you end up with wonderful images that go a long way towards representing the experiences you had when you were on that particular trip. As such, they make great albums, photo books and image libraries which will bring the memories flooding back every time you look through them.
Perhaps more importantly though – at least in my opinion – by training yourself to look for the essence of what gives a particular place its unique and special character, your experiences become richer and more memorable. Telling stories with your camera helps you really see, and appreciate, all the little details.
To create a travel storyboard of sorts you first need to settle on a theme and that could be almost anything. It could be as broad and general as ‘your next holiday’ or you could be more specific, setting yourself the task of documenting ‘the tribes of the Sahara Desert’.
The pulse and the people of a busy carnival, the rural quietness of a French country village, a day in the life of an elephant. The themes and approaches are literally as endless as your own imagination.
Once you’ve decided what your theme will be you need to ask yourself, “What are the details about this place or topic that make it special?” In many cases, the key ingredients may not be things you’d normally photograph (or perhaps even consciously notice). But these elements together form a picture in the mind in the same way your eye takes in details as you stroll through a place. In many cases, photos of individual elements may be utterly meaningless when viewed alone, but display them with other pictures along the same theme and suddenly you have a story that’s both striking and meaningful.
The images that accompany this article were taken on a recent 4x4 driving trip through Namibia’s desert region. I wanted to capture the essence of what it’s like crossing such a vast and unique landscape in a convoy of off-road vehicles and I also wanted to convey a definite sense of what the desert is all about.
To this effect, I not only took the standard photographs of towering dunes and desert sunsets, I also looked at the textures in the sand, the little details, an insect’s tracks, the cars tackling difficult terrain, people I met and animals I saw.
The techniques required to build a story out of your images does not require any special equipment. Sure, it’s great to have a selection of lenses and zoom settings to lend your gallery variation but really the most important apparatus at your disposal is an attentive mind and an eye for detail.
The Himba people are very much a part of the Northern Namibian landscape. Images of local people add context and interest to travel stories. Nikon D700, 10-20mm lens @ 20mm, f/3.5 @ 1/800s, ISO 100.
This image conveys a sense of the vast open spaces in the desert. Look for images that set a scene for your stories. Nikon D300, 17-50mm f2.8 lens @ 17mm, f/4 @ 1/2000s, ISO 200.
The ominous gates of the Skeleton Coast National Park. This was the staging point for my off-road car trip through Namibia’s desert. Nikon D700, 10-20mm lens @ 19mm lens, f/20 @ 1/100s, ISO 100, ND grad filter. Added soft filter in Photoshop CS5. 
Every night we camped in the desert and cooked over an open fire. Hot dry winds always made for an interesting light show. Nikon D700, 10-20mm lens @ 20mm, f/3.5 @ 2s, ISO 100.
This shot of two Oryx on the run not only tells a story about the local wildlife, but also the vast emptiness of the landscape. Nikon D300, 200-400mm lens @ 240mm, f/4 @ 1/1600s, ISO 160.
Be on the lookout for details and patterns that help the viewer to build a mental picture of the story you are trying to convey. Nikon D300, 17-50mm lens @ 48mm, f/2.8 @ 1/640s, ISO 100.
Excerpt from the article, "The Art of Story Telling,"
first published in Australian Photography + digital (November 2012). To
see the full article, the magazine is available in newsagencies, via subscription and on iPad.