Pictures that Speak: The Art of Telling Stories Through Photography

Put life into your memories and unleash the power of your captured moments

Jacob K Thomas
5 min readFeb 24

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Photo by Author

You just took your 100th photo in the last few days. This time it was of that great meal you want to remember until you take another great photo of the other amazing meal you made. OK, so it wasn’t food, it was something random. You saw something that sparked your interest completely. It was a cat, better yet, it was a really cute puppy. I think between a cute cat or a small little puppy, you had to stop and take that photo, right?

We take so many photos for whatever reason that we lose track really easily. If I ask you to look at your photos and post a photo from a certain date, what do you think? Will you have a photo, will that photo allow you to tell a really cool story, if not that. Maybe you just took it at first thinking it was memorable, but right now. It has no value at all.

In 2023 we are expected to take about 5 billion photos a day, according to a website called Photutorial, which will be about 1.81 trillion for 2023. Last year the number was 1.72 trillion. Of all those photos, how many of those could you put together to make an interesting photo collage? What about a quick photo slide show to tell friends or family about something special? The really interesting slide show that your iPhone creates for you doesn’t count. Yes, seriously, unless you put in the time, I’m saying it doesn’t count.

At a certain point, we need to start doing something with all these memories. It can be something as simple as stringing together a week's worth of photos that you took of your dinner. I mean, you know you made the best meal ever last Thursday. I can definitely say I did.

I know you might be thinking, don’t enough people do that on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook now? Yes, they might, but it’s not always about doing things to brag or get someone to look at you. These photos are for you and your family, they are your memories to start up a really cool conversation. At least that’s how I would view it. Here is something else to consider, we aren’t getting younger. Our memories are OK, but sometimes we miss key points. Creating that photo story is a great task, so you can relive adventures…

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Jacob K Thomas

Writer. Cook. Traveler. Photographer. Featured on the Food Network and newspapers around America. https://jacobkthomas.com/