I took the opportunity last Sunday to change how I did things. It was partly out of necessity, and partly curiosity. [caption id="attachment_1008" align="alignleft" width="324" caption="Jo and Jeremy"][/caption] My clients had indicated that they would like me to preplan their album. Normally we would shoot the wedding, put some images on our blog, then put about 100 in a web gallery. Then, when they arrived to collect their images, we would give them a box of previews. But we were running a little behind schedule and the prints were not going to be ready for their arrival. I decided not to put up the gallery and make the first thing they saw my pre-plan for their album. I laid it out in PJ and output it as a slide show. They arrived, we talked, I turned off the lights, and I hit them with their album. Three pages in, tears were streaming down the bride's face. This was a powerful opening to their wedding photography. That power came from storytelling without preconceptions. It brought home the fact that when somebody asks you to be a storyteller you don't normally hand them a dictionary and ask them which words they would like you to use. The wonderful thing was that if I did my job right I would be influencing their expectation before they restricted it on budget. The other beautiful thing was that since it was still a virtual album anything could change. To increase its acceptability I asked many questions about their expectations, and then designed an album to exceed them. I love my job .... as a story teller. Johannes