How to Think Like a Photographer: Storytelling Lessons from Jason Edwards

There are plenty of photography conversations that revolve around settings.

What shutter speed should I use? What aperture is best? Is ISO 3200 too high? Should I shoot in manual? What lens do I need? And don’t get me wrong...I love those conversations. Settings, gear, and techniques definitely matter!

However, every once in a while, you have a conversation that cuts through all of that and drops some advice that transcends settings and speaks more to the vision of the photographer. It’s about how you see, think, and build meaning into a frame.

My recent conversation with National Geographic photographer Jason Edwards on The Wild Photographer was exactly that.

Jason has spent more than three decades photographing natural history, wildlife, cultures, climate stories, wild places, and human stories across every continent on Earth. His work has appeared throughout National Geographic and beyond, and if you’ve looked at natural history photography in the last few decades, chances are you’ve seen his images whether you realized it or not.

But what struck me most in our conversation wasn’t just his career. It was the way he thinks about photography.

This episode was less about camera settings and more about the deeper architecture of great images: storytelling, intent, composition, discipline, editing, and the emotional responsibility of showing the wider world to people who may never experience it firsthand.

And that’s where I want to begin.

Photography Is More Than Taking Pictures

Early in our conversation, Jason said something that stopped me in my tracks:

“The call for storytelling for me is connecting people with my experience, thinking that they may never actually have that experience. So I become the portal through which they appreciate the wider world. And I take that quite seriously.”

That’s a powerful way to think about photography.

So often, especially in travel and wildlife photography, we approach an image with the idea of inspiring someone to go there. To visit that place. To see that animal. To take that trip. To stand under that sky.

And yes, photography can absolutely do that.

But Jason’s framing adds another layer. What if the viewer never gets there? What if your image is the closest someone will ever come to standing on Antarctic sea ice, watching wildebeest thunder into a river, or looking into the face of a person on the other side of the world?

Suddenly, you’re not just documenting what happened. You’re translating an experience while connecting the viewer into a place they have never been and may never visit. You’re trying to carry the feeling of a place, as well as the mood and emotion of being there.

That’s storytelling in a brilliant way. And for me, that’s one of the biggest takeaways from Jason’s approach. Great photography is not merely descriptive. It is experiential.

What Is Storytelling in Photography?

“Storytelling” is one of those words that gets used constantly in photography, but it can be slippery to define and maybe even trickier to put into day-to-day practice.

Is storytelling a dramatic wildlife moment? A photo essay? A single image that makes you curious? A sequence of images that reveals deep details of a place? The answer, of course, is yes, yes, and yes.

But Jason’s definition is refreshingly grounded. Photography storytelling is about connecting someone else to an experience they may never have themselves.

That means we have to think beyond the subject.

A cheetah at sunrise is a wonderful subject. But what is the story?

Is it speed? Stillness? Survival? Motherhood? Patience? Heat? The anticipation before a hunt? The quiet after a chase? The vastness of the Serengeti?

The subject is only the beginning and the story is what you do with it.

The Five-Frame Storytelling Challenge

One of Jason’s most useful teaching tools is simple: tell a story in five frames or less. I love that.

Years ago, he built a National Geographic scholarship around this idea. The challenge was open to amateurs and advanced amateurs, not professionals, and the premise was straightforward:

“Tell me a story about a place you visited in five frames or less.”

It didn’t matter where that place was.

As Jason put it, it could be “the corner store,” “Istanbul,” “the Serengeti,” or “a park that you can walk to locally.” The point wasn’t access nor extraordinary beauty. It wasn’t expensive gear or rare wildlife sightings. The point was storytelling. And five frames, as it turns out, is a wonderfully brutal (and deliberate) constraint.

Jason explained:

“Every frame is crucial in those five frames. So every frame has to tell a story and then the five or four or three… has to work as a unit.”

This is where many photographers, myself included, can start to feel uneasy.

When you’re out photographing, it’s easy to collect good images. A solid landscape shot here, a cool wildlife moment there. A favorite frame that means something to you because you remember the experience.

But when you try to make those images work together as a story, the standards change.

A great photo is not automatically a useful photo.

A beautiful image may not move the story forward. A dramatic image may overpower the sequence. A personal favorite may make perfect sense to you and no sense at all to the viewer.

Jason described how people often fall apart around the fourth or fifth frame:

“They’ll have four fantastic frames and that fifth frame… you look at it in the judging going, why? Why did you give me that? It’s an amazing frame but it doesn’t help the story.”

That line is gold, isn't it!?

An amazing frame that doesn’t help the story may actually hurt the story.

That’s a tough pill to swallow, especially because we, as the photographer, are emotionally attached to our images. We remember the smell of the air, the difficulty of the hike, the excitement of the sighting, etc.

However, the viewer doesn’t. The viewer only has what you show them.

So here’s a practical exercise I think every photographer should try: take your next trip, hike, outing, neighborhood walk, or even your morning coffee ritual, and tell the whole story in five images.

Not your five best images. Your five most necessary images. There’s a difference, and there's a lot to experience and learn in this exercise!

Can One Photo Tell a Complete Story?

Naturally, I asked Jason whether a complete story can be told in a single frame.

His answer was immediate:

“100%.”

But he also gave a useful test for whether a single image is actually doing that work.

“The litmus test… of whether that frame tells a story is that if someone else can look at it and be inspired or moved or find it funny or learn something scientifically, do they get that without a caption?”

That “without a caption” part is key and was kindof a big moment for me to hear, and realize, this.

Captions matter, of course. In editorial photography, they can be crucial. But if the image needs a paragraph to explain why it matters, it may not be carrying the story on its own.

Jason continued:

“Does it inspire curiosity? Does it inspire any emotional response?”

Does the image make someone feel something, wonder something, understand something, or want to know more? If it does, you’re getting close.

One of the most helpful ideas Jason shared here was to think in adjectives instead of nouns or verbs. Gosh, this guy was loaded with amazing, eye-opening ideas!

If you’re photographing Antarctica, for instance, “glacier” may be obvious. But what about cold? How do you photograph cold?

Because a blue-sky Antarctic scene could look almost warm if you don’t find ways to communicate the temperature, the wind, the scale, the exposure, the isolation, or the severity of the place. That’s a different kind of photographic thinking.

Instead of asking, “What is the subject?” you ask, “What is the feeling?”

Is the image quiet? Chaotic? Fragile? Ancient? Harsh? Playful? Lonely? Sacred? Absurd?

Those adjectives can become creative assignments.

Photograph “cold.”

Photograph “tension.”

Photograph “scale.”

Photograph “anticipation.”

Photograph “stillness.”

That little shift can transform the way you approach a scene.

The “One Thing” Rule for Better Photography Composition

Of everything Jason shared in the episode, this might be my favorite (and I'm pretty sure it's his favorite, too.

He calls it his “Jace rule.”

“You’re only allowed one thing in any photo. One thing.”

Not five things. Not three things. Not “a lion and a sunset and dust and a tree and a beautiful cloud and also a little bird in the corner.” One thing.

Jason explained:

“That one thing is the thing that made you want to take that image.”

This is such a clean, powerful way to think about photography composition.

Before worrying about the rule of thirds, leading lines, triangles, foreground interest, background separation, color theory, lens choice, or depth of field, ask yourself:

What is the one thing? What actually made me raise the camera?

It might be the rim light on a cloud. The silhouette of a fishing boat. The catch light in an animal’s eye. The posture of a person. The red flag whipping in the wind on a whiteout day. The feeling of emptiness across a plate of ice.

And importantly, the one thing does not always have to be a literal object.

Jason described a photograph on sea ice during a whiteout. There was a red flag marking a crevasse, but the flag itself wasn’t really the “one thing.” The real subject was the void—the feeling of land and sky dissolving into each other.

“The one thing for me in that shot… was how do I show a plate of ice the size of France on a whiteout day with no data, no mountains in the background… how do I use these voids of both land and sky?”

Once you know the one thing, everything else in the frame has a job: support it or get out of the way.

If It Doesn’t Add to the Photo, It Subtracts

One of the classic ideas in composition is that if something doesn’t add to the photo, it subtracts from it.

Jason’s entire approach reinforces that idea.

He said that when he composes, his brain is constantly identifying what doesn’t belong:

“Every neuron in my brain is thinking in compositional sense that that shouldn’t be there, that shouldn’t be there, that shouldn’t be there…”

That is an incredibly important habit.

Beginners often build photos by looking for things to include. More advanced photographers often improve by looking for things to exclude.

That branch in the corner. That bright patch near the edge. That extra animal half-in, half-out of the frame. That distracting highlight. That awkward overlap. That line cutting through the subject’s head. That beautiful-but-unhelpful element that competes with the main idea.

J

ason doesn’t rely on removing things later. He comes from an old-school editorial background with film, transparencies, and National Geographic standards, and he made his stance clear:

“I don’t remove elements from pictures.”

That means the discipline happens in the field. Move your feet. Change your angle. Wait. Reframe. Simplify. Make a harder choice.

And if you can’t make all the supporting elements work? Be honest about it.

Jason said:

“If I don’t get that right… I’m pretty hard on myself. I think to myself, I wasn’t on my game.”

That might sound intense, but there’s a lesson in it. Great composition isn’t just about noticing beauty. It’s about taking responsibility for the whole frame.

The background matters. The edges matter. The supporting actors matter.

As Jason put it, even a great lead actor doesn’t make a great movie alone.

Context Shots: The Images Every Photographer Needs

One of my favorite practical takeaways from the conversation was Jason’s reminder to make context shots.

He defines a context shot as the image that establishes the scene. This could be the doorway to the cathedral or the wide view down the beach, or the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It may not be the most creative image. It may not win the contest. It may even feel boring in the moment. Take it anyway.

Jason said:

“You would be surprised… how many photographers, professional or amateur, forget to take a context shot.”

And he’s right. At least when I think of my own work over the years...

When we arrive somewhere exciting, we often rush straight toward the clever images. Like, the details or the unique angles. Maybe it's the long-lens compression or unusual juxtaposition.

Those are wonderful. But later, when we try to tell the story, we realize we never made the image that says, “Here is where we are.”

That establishing frame may never become your hero shot. But it gives structure to the story. It gives the viewer a place to stand.

Jason’s advice is wonderfully direct:

“Snap it. Get it in the can. And then once you’ve taken that first one thing… try and do it differently.”

Build a Photo Book, Even If Nobody Else Sees It

Jason’s book, Icebergs to Iguanas, came from decades of work, field journals, archives, and emotional reflection. But what I found especially useful was his broader advice about books as a storytelling exercise.

“Books are marvelous, tactile, emotional objects.”

But you don’t need a major publishing deal to benefit from making a book. You can make a one-off book from a trip, a family adventure, a local project, or a personal theme.

The act of laying out a book "teaches you what your photography is missing." Ah, beautifully put!

You quickly discover whether you have too many hero shots and not enough transitions. Too many closeups and no context. Too many wildlife portraits and no habitat. Too much spectacle and not enough quiet.

Jason said the process helps reveal “where am I short?”

What would help someone else understand this place, this species, this experience, or this feeling?

Sometimes the missing image is humble, simple, plain, or otherwise unexciting. It could be a sign, a road, maybe a doorway or a breakfast table. But they establish context. The not-so-obvious image that makes the story whole.

Books teach sequence, pacing, rhythm, restraint, and humility. They also teach you that your favorite image may not belong. This can be painful, but oh-so-useful to realize.

How Jason Edwards Culls His Photos

Jason has photographed an enormous volume of work over his career, so I had to ask how he culls is photos and his process is surprisingly simple.

In Lightroom, he goes through the shoot three times using color labels.

First pass: green.

These are anything from potential all-time bests to images that may be useful later.

Second pass: blue.

This narrows the greens.

Third pass: red.

These become the core selects—the images that tell the story of the assignment.

He said:

“The reds would be the core of what I would look at and say, okay, this is the core of what I shot on this assignment that tells the story of that assignment.”

I love this because it separates the process into stages. And let's be honest, it's farily challenging to sit down and process an entire trip all at once...breaking it into phases is wildly helpful.

You don’t have to make the final decision immediately. You move from broad potential to tighter relevance to story-level selects.

That’s much easier psychologically than trying to decide, on the first pass, whether an image is portfolio-worthy, publishable, emotionally meaningful, technically perfect, and narratively necessary.

The key is that by the end, Jason is not just selecting good images. He’s selecting the images that tell the story.

Keep Photo Editing Simple by Getting It Right in Camera

If you're like me, you've probably heard this before...

Jason’s editing process may surprise a lot of people. After all that fieldwork, all that experience, all those National Geographic assignments, what does he do in Lightroom?

He hits Auto.

Yes, really.

“I literally hit auto.”

Then he checks black and white points, avoids clipping, adds a tiny bit of clarity, checks highlights and shadows, checks color, and he’s done.

“I am done in 17 seconds.”

This was one of my favorite moments in the conversation because it strips away a lot of mystique (and validates my own use of "auto" quite a bit!).

Now, to be clear, this doesn’t mean editing is unimportant. Nor does it mean everyone should spend only 17 seconds on an image. Different genres have different expectations.

Fine art landscape photography, for instance, often involves much more extensive post-processing. But Jason is an editorial storyteller. His goal is to represent what he captured. And he is deeply committed to getting it right in-camera.

He said:

“If you are getting the capture right in the field… when you hit auto, you should be 90% of the way at least.”

In other words, editing should refine the image, not rescue it every time.

Yes, modern software is miraculous. Yes, we can recover shadows, reduce noise, remove distractions, mask skies, enhance detail, and do all sorts of wizardry that photographers of the film era would have found astonishing.

But the goal should still be to become better in the field. Finding and harnessing better light, better exposure, better timing, better composition, better intent, and the list goes on...

A good takeaway is that: The computer can help, but it should not be the whole plan.

Final Thoughts: Learn to See Before You Worry About Settings

With all this talk of discipline, storytelling, professionalism, culling, and field craft, it might sound like Jason’s approach is all intensity.

And yes, there is wonderful intensity.

But underneath it is something much simpler: joy.

He said:

“Do photography for the love of it.”

That’s the center. Not the likes. Not the gear race. Not the contests. Not even the career.

The love of seeing and the love of being in the field. The love of translating experience into story. The love of noticing the one thing. The love of trying again and doing it better or differently. That's the whole idea.

Jason also said:

“I think it’s such a beautiful and wonderful way to see the world.”

That, to me, is the whole episode in one sentence.

Photography is a way to see the world. Not just record it. Not just prove you were there. Not just collect trophies. But see it more deeply.

That’s the kind of thinking that makes us better photographers, regardless of what camera is in our hands.

And it’s why this conversation with Jason Edwards is one I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

Because yes, settings matter. But seeing matters more.

Cheers, until next time!

Court