Telling the Story: When the Point Isn't Clear

Dale and camera at Tulum

In 1992, my husband and I were in Mexico for the first time, and were on a visit to the Mayan ruins at Tulum.  We had been touring the site with a guide and now were wandering a bit on our own.  We found our way to the overgrown hillside overlooking the Caribbean and I was attempting to document the experience.  In these two shots, I learned the importance of being clear about why I was there and what I was trying to show in the photograph.

Mayan ruins at Tulum by the sea

The shot above shows what happens when the subject of the photo isn’t well defined.  I was trying to show both my husband using his video camera and the ruins overgrown with the encroaching jungle.  I made a typical mistake of including too much in the photograph.  I would have done much better by taking two shots:  one photo showing the story of my husband photographing the scene surrounded by ruins and a few plants, and the second  showing  the ruins among the overgrowth.

In the shot on the right, I did a better job of telling the story of the location of the ruins and the encroaching jungle at the edge of the Caribbean Sea.  The ruins in the background are well-defined, the plant in the foreground hints at the jungle,  and the angled line of the coast, which also has rocky ruins not yet excavated, brings the eye through the scene to the primary background of the excavated Mayan temple.

The Primary Rule:  When you come upon a scene, decide what attracts you, focus on it, and exclude anything that doesn’t help define the message.

A Better Way to Tell the Story

Mayan palace, Yaxchitlan

By the time we visited Chiapas in 2004, the lesson of identifying the story and defining the subject properly had melded into my photographer’s eye.  The shot of the fully excavated Mayan palace at Yaxchilan, buried in the jungle, with the jungle growth advancing overhead, tells the location story much better.