As in literature, one of the most important features of a strong photographic narrative is there must be something missing. There must be a central lack or mystery that keeps the viewer guessing. Literary theorist Worlfgang Iser describes this "place of indeterminacy" in narrative as the productive meeting point of text and reader, where readers are provoked to fill in the blank themselves. In a single still image, a gap is necessary to produce the movement that creates a story rather than just a scene. Sometimes we may formulate the gap as a question: What is going on? What is tin that briefcase? What is that woman feeling? In other images, it is more of a lack of resolution that brings an image to life, an ambiguity that keeps the image oscillating.
- Lucy Soutter
Showing and Telling: Narrative Picture to Parafictions
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