12 Photo Stories

A “photo story” is a video including audio recordings synchronized to images. These media projects have several variations and names, including narrated slideshow.^[1] The “Digital Storytelling Examples” page on the Storychasers website (www.storychasers.org/examples) includes seven different types of media projects, starting with “Audio Stories.”^[2] These projects are ordered by complexity, with the most simple project type (Audio Stories) listed first, and the more complicated projects (Polished Documentaries and Multimedia-Enhanced Stories) listed last. Each of the links in the list below connect to a YouTube playlist including that specific type of digital story:

1. Audio Stories
2. Photo Stories
3. Quick-Edit Videos
4. Video Stories
5. Narrated Sketchnotes
6. Polished Documentaries
7. Multimedia-Enhanced Stories

While some content creators (the author has particularly noticed this with younger students at school) may want to start shooting and creating full-motion video on a smartphone or tablet, rather than starting with a more basic / simple media project, it is generally easier to create higher quality and thoughtful videos by creating photo stories. All of the photo stories created by Oklahoma teachers and students in the late 2000s as part of the “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” digital centennial project are photo stories.^[3] While most of these are not specific to faith or sharing Christian ideas,   Narrated slideshows can be created during Sunday School or Wednesday night classes, on mission trips, or at any other time using still images and audio recordings which give an explanation and more details about each picture.

Examples

As with other kinds of media projects in this book, watching EXAMPLES provides one of the best ways to understand what photo stories are. Unlike the links above, all of the following examples are Christian themed.

Love Behind Bars

“Love Behind Bars: Sending Messages from Incarcerated Parents to Their Children” is a 1.5 minute photo story my wife (Shelly Fryer) and I recorded in December 2022. The description of the video is:

In this heartfelt video, we (Wes and Shelly Fryer) share our experience volunteering with the Oklahoma Messages Project, a prison ministry dedicated to helping incarcerated parents send messages of love and support to their children. Through this program, we recorded parents reading books and sharing affirming messages for their kids during special times like Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentine’s Day. These video messages, recorded with digital camcorders and delivered on DVDs, provided much-needed reassurance and connection for children separated from their parents. Join us as we reflect on this impactful experience and encourage you to seek out similar organizations in your community to support families in need.

This photo story video includes just seven images, with Shelly and I alternating to record the narration. We wrote a short script for the video, and created it using the free mobile application “Adobe Spark Video,” which is now called, “Adobe Express.” ^[4] These video creation software applications and websites from Adobe permit users to either record an entire narrated script, or record the script slide-by-slide. As a middle school media literacy and STEM teacher, I love teaching my students how to create “5 Photo Stories” like this using Adobe Express. ^[5] While I now teach in a secular / non-religious K-12 school and our class 5 Photo Stories are therefore not Christian themed, the “5 Photo Story” media project model can be utilized for any theme. “5 Photo Story” is one of the media projects I also feature in my website, “Show With Media: What Do You Want to CREATE Today?” ^[6]

Remembering Bob Sprankle

The 3.5 minute photo story, “A Story of Friendship, Faith, and Tragedy: Remembering Bob Sprinkle,” is a video I created in January 2019, four years after my good friend, Bob, passed away.^[7] The video description is:

In this emotional video, I (Wes Fryer) share the touching and complex story of my friend Bob Sprinkle, an inspiring educator I met through the world of educational technology. Bob’s journey, marked by severe medical struggles and a newfound faith in Jesus, profoundly impacted both our lives. Despite his battles with pain and addiction, Bob experienced a powerful spiritual awakening that brought him closer to God. However, his life ended tragically, leaving behind many unanswered questions and a deep sense of loss. Join me as I reflect on our friendship, the prayers we shared, and the faith that sustained us during his final days. This tribute to Bob’s life and our shared experiences serves as a testament to the power of faith, friendship, and the hope of reuniting in the life to come.

The experience of watching this video five years later is still very emotional for me. As with the previous photo story example, to create this video I wrote a short script and carefully selected photographs which could accompany my narration. I recorded and created this photo story using “Adobe Spark Video,” now called, “Adobe Express.” Although many people think a “video” needs to include “full-motion video” to be powerful and effective, my experiences both as a watcher / consumer of videos as well as a creator say otherwise. While I did not pair my narration with some appropriate music, which could further amplify the emotions, sentiments, and overall impact of this photo story, I still find the combination of voice narration with archived photographs makes a very powerful media artifact for which I am both sad (remembering the life of my friend I still dearly miss) but also thankful, because this video helps me remember all the good times we shared and the amazing things he taught me. ^[8]

5th Grade Sunday School Reflections

The 7 minute photo story, “Understanding the True Meaning of Christmas: A Special Podcast,” was recorded by members of my fifth grade Sunday School class in December 2007, and was played for our congregation at First Presbyterian Church of Edmond, Oklahoma, during our family Christmas Eve service that year.^[9] The video description is:

Join us for a special Christmas Eve podcast by the fifth-grade Sunday school class at First Presbyterian Church in Edmond. In this heartfelt episode, we delve into the true meaning of Christmas and explore the life and significance of Jesus Christ. Through thoughtful discussions, Bible readings, and personal reflections, we learn why Jesus’ birth is celebrated worldwide and how his life, death, and resurrection bring hope and light to our lives. This episode reminds us that Christmas is not just about Jesus’ birth but also about his ultimate sacrifice and the everlasting relationship we can have with him. Listen in as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the light of the world, and reflect on the profound impact of his life on our faith.

Back in 2007, podcasting was starting to become popular. Using Apple’s GarageBand software, it was possible to create an “enhanced podcast” which synchronized images with an audio recording.^[10] This collaborative media project took several Sunday School lessons to create, and students co-wrote the script and recorded it. As one of the co-teachers of the class, I later found copyright friendly images and synchronized them to the recorded audio, using GarageBand. It was very meaningful as well as inspiring to hear the voices of our fifth grade students during our Christmas Eve service. This was the only time my Sunday School students ever created a media project which ended up being shared “live” during a worship service, and it was a very special experience for all of us who were involved.

This 4 minute video is a very basic narrated slideshow I helped a class of 4th grade students in Sunday School create in March 2014. This was shared on the “BLASTcast Podcast” website I started back around 2007 using WordPress.com. We used the free iOS app ShadowPuppet (also available as ShadowPuppetEDU) to create this narrated slideshow. ^[11]

“Symbols of Lent (Video)” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Back in 2011, after our middle daughter attended a Christian summer event called “SuperStart” designed for pre-teens, she created a 3 minute narrated slideshow with a friend on the car ride home. It was created using the app SonicPics on an iPhone. This was also posted to the BLASTcast website.

“SuperStart Weekend – Grapevine, Texas (V” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

The 2.5 minute video, “Kids Touched by God in Kenya by Kelly Ewing,” is an example of a narrated slideshow created after a church mission trip to Africa. This was created on an iPad using the app, “Explain Everything.”

“Kids Touched by God in Kenya” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

More resources about creating narrated slideshows are available on ShowWithMedia.com.

Ingredients

The three basic “digital ingredients” for a photo story or narrated slideshow are:

1. a story
2. a script
3. photos

Creators can start with any of these ingredients, but if documenting an event, often photos seem like the logical place to start. Our smartphone digital cameras today can take an almost unlimited number of pictures, and it can be overwhelming to face tens or even hundreds of photos following a trip or event. I often recommend that people start with a SPECIFIC STORY from a trip or event which they want to share with others, and then select ONLY five to ten photos which can be used to share that story.

To make the creation process easier from a technical standpoint, I recommend either:

1. Creating a new photo album on your smartphone with JUST the selected photos for the narrated slideshow
2. Copying selected photos into a new FOLDER on the computer which will be used to create the narrated slideshow

Think carefully about the STORY you want to tell with your photos when making selections. Sometimes, the order of photos will naturally follow a sequence of events from a story. At other times, however, the way in which you choose to tell (or ‘unwrap’) your story can dictate both the photos which are selected and their sequence.

One storytelling model, or framework, which I frequently use with students and participants in digital storytelling / media creation workshops, is the “five photo story.”

On the “5 Photo Story” page of ShowWithMedia.com I define these projects.

A five photo story is a collection of five images which tell a story of some kind without using supplementary text, audio or video. The five photos should “stand alone” as a story.^[12]

“5 Photo Story” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Consider starting with this “5 Photo Story model” when you begin working on a narrated slideshow project.