Digital storytelling: practice and place

This morning I made another digital story about winter.  It’s called “No More Mrs. Nice Winter”, and although I can’t embed it here, you can just follow that link.  Here’s a sample image from it, also linked:

I’ve been using Cowbird to tell these stories for a while now (examples), and I wanted to reflect on the experience.

Practically, these little multimedia narratives occur to me as I do things on our homestead.  While I’m chopping wood, building a stone wall, weeding, hauling tree limbs, etc., I’m sometimes moved by images.  Alan Levine has patiently taught me to pay attention to what I see, looking for interesting sights (check out his astonishing photos).  Most of the time I do this without a camera, since, unlike most humans, I don’t have cell phone reception at home and hence don’t carry the phone with me at all times.  When I see something that clicks for me I run inside, grab the Samsung, and race back to capture.  Once that happens, I end up taking other photos.

At the same time words bubble up in my brain.  Phrases try to capture what I felt and saw.  Then I push them together, looking for a narrative arc.  I don’t want to create an impression of something static, but something changing, something under pressure or evolving.  I look for the process, not the point.

Then over to Cowbird, which I commend to everyone.  It’s a dead-easy storytelling tool.  Just upload some images, type, and you’ve got a draft.  Editing is easier still.  It’s a bit like PowerPoint in its simplicity for production.  But I also admire the output.  Cowbird presents images in a lush, immersive way.  They make my photos look better, which they need!  And it’s a Vermont project.

Above all I want to practice what I preach.  I’ve been writing, teaching, and talking about digital storytelling for more than a decade (gulp), and it’s foolish not to actually do the stuff.

Occasionally I move my story-mind away from the homestead.  The impetus for doing so is similar: images that strike me, language surfacing to describe it, a narrative glimmering at the bottom.  For example, this bit about two St. Louis sites came about from being gobsmacked by vistas, then hammered by historical brooding.  I should do more of this, but folks do like hearing about our Vermont homestead.

What do you think of this practice?  Anything else I should be doing with digital stories?