Once Upon A Time: Using Photos to Tell a Story

With the internet keeping competition fierce photographers trying to sell their art often have to find creative ways to draw in  and engage potential customers. Sometimes just using a boring description of a piece doesn’t quite cut it. This is where telling a short story to go with the photo comes in. As an example, here is a set of mine that I call Once Upon a Time in the Old West.” The series is from an extensive set of photos I captured over a period of years of Randsburg, and old mining town in the Mojave Desert of California.

Grandpa brought grandma to the old place as his new bride, almost fresh off the train from Chicago. We never heard her say an unkind word about the less than perfect abode, but when grandpa died two summers ago she packed up and moved to the big town one week later, and never looked back. But once a year the kinfolk get together at the family homestead and share those comforting timeworn memories.

 

And we would sit on that porch when high summer was upon us in that arid Mojave Desert town, with hardly a breeze to cool the sweat from mama’s brow.

 

 

The old miner’s cabin has stood at the end of our road for over one-hundred years. With each new generation of children the ritual remains the same. Gathering together in a group, each one takes a turn at going up to that old broken door where the missing slat reveals the Stygian room on the other side. With baited breath a child approaches, kneels down, and forehead resting against the door, tries to see what lies in that murky darkness, shivering in fear of catching the sudden gleam of an eyeball looking back.