Visual Storytelling
Visual Storytelling
An exploration of Instagram-focused visual poetry and storytelling.
My first attempt at creating a visual narrative around my videography was nearly unintentional. I had observed a pattern in the way I filmed, a kind of stillness that captured the thrumming movement of the world around me. The only thing left to say was a single word – ‘movement’. The little dance of everyday life.
I then hopped on a bit of an old trend, ‘humans’. The trend captured humans with our little quirks, habits, and rituals in fond observation. I once again noticed my own collection of the same over the years before I had even come across the trend. It felt apt to give it a shot from my eyes.
My work became more intentional here on. I began to actively seek out patterns and parallels in my immediate surroundings. On my daily walk to the bus stop, I noticed a hive of flies clinging to the weeds that grew out of the concrete. I immediately wondered, ‘what a strange acquaintance‘. The following week I came across a few more this way, some beautiful, and some ugly. I liked the way it brought the balance of the world in a simple statement, a friendship of the ugly and pretty.
My most recent piece was written before it was filmed. I had made note of this line in an essay for college on the topic of cultural linguistics. How I could see my grandmother’s hesitation with English in the way she phrased her sentences. How limiting that made her in expressing herself completely. I gratefully found this clip in my gallery recents soon after. A silent moment of love spoken between two people who didn’t particularly have language to share.
