Image Story – The Triptych RHE 330C – Digital Storytelling
Background: For your first assignment, you will create a three-image story, typically called a “triptych.” The triptych style of image—named so by its three-fold structure—has a long history in painting and sculpture. We will use the form as it allows for the minimal structure of a story’s narrative along with its abilities to provide interesting visual progression. We will examine and discuss several examples of triptychs.
As we discussed in class, the triptych lends itself to the Situation-Obstacle-Solution (S.O.S.) method of storytelling, a form that is great for presentations and short media based stories. The step one establishes a condition, introduces characters and themes, and gives the reader a boundary for the story; step two focuses on one aspect of that situation, showing itself as a problem in need of resolution; step three resolves the obstacle and, usually, by providing a twist for the story. It’s a simple framework for quick storytelling.
This narrative strategy can be easily seen in single and multiple images. For instance, take a look at A Softer Touch (as pictured above) or serial examples from Humans of New York. Each use compelling images to tell a story. Often, especially in the case of HONY, these stories are accompanied by a short narrative of printed words or spoken audio. However, despite being accompanied by words, the images used in these stories do the bulk of the work, functioning as an anchor for the story.
Assignment Requirements: In this assignment, use Photoshop CC to combine parts of at three images that tell a distinct story.
The triptych needs to have a solid background and the images need to be uniform or variously sized as a result of the narrative (more on this in class). Each triptych should include a title and the student’s name in some appropriate place in the image’s background.
Each image should be manipulated in some substantial way, showing some evidence of text manipulation, cropping, object removal/addition, color sharpening, filter use, effects added, etc. Much more on this in class.
The story can be a part of your larger project, but it can also be a stand alone narrative for practicing image manipulation.
DUE: Before class on Monday, Feb 22.
We will turn in Image Stories on Canvas’s Discussion Board & Assignment Upload