Photo essays are now becoming an increasingly popular medium for journalists, bloggers and advertisers. Whether you're trying to show the emotional side of breaking news coverage or sharing a hobby with friends and family, images can capture your topic in a personal, emotional, and engaging way. Creating a photo essay is as easy as choosing a topic, taking pictures, and composing the essay yourself.
Step
Part 1 of 4: Searching for Topics
Step 1. Review current events
This is a great photo essay topic. People are generally familiar with this topic, and you will likely find an enthusiastic audience. You can choose topics as simple as holiday shopping or as complex as rising unemployment in your area. If you're interested in digging deeper into the topic, it's possible that other people will too.
Step 2. Check the local agenda
School activities, fundraising for charities, and the annual street festival are all interesting topics. If you discuss your plans with the organizers prior to attending the event, you may find a space already reserved to publish your essay on their website or in the local newspaper.
Step 3. Consider taking pictures of your work or hobbies
This is a topic you already know, making it easy for you to plan a meaningful essay. Take pictures of where you work and the people you work with. Not only will this help you get to know your coworkers and your business better, you can also use this essay as a company promotion tool. Hobbies are interesting topics. Those who share the same hobby or who are interested in pursuing it will be interested, and you can share your hard work and fun with others.
- Offer a photo essay of your place of business as a training tool.
- Use a photo essay about your business as a sales or social media tool by publishing it on a website or social media page.
- Write a guide photo essay to help others learn about your hobby, so they can pursue it too.
Step 4. Choose a topic of interest
Once you have some ideas, think about how you can photograph and present these ideas to others. Consider which topics are easiest to capture and present in an interesting way. Most importantly, choose a topic that inspires you. It's possible, if you see something interesting, someone else too.
Step 5. Understand your audience
Ask yourself, “Who wants to see this photo essay?” The audience is important when it comes to deciding what to shoot. If you're wondering who will see the essay, you can choose a topic and an image that will interest them. If you're not thinking about an audience or place of publication, it's still important to think about what topics are of interest to viewers. Many photographers think this means choosing big topics like poverty and inequality, but often, the more personal a topic is, the more interesting it will be to others.
Step 6. Choose a thematic or narrative approach
Both types of essays can be very powerful, but it's important to think about how best to approach your topic before you start shooting. This allows you to search for specific images to meet your needs. Thematic essays look at big picture ideas and point to specific examples, and narrative essays tell a story with an introduction, middle, and conclusion. Thematic essays are often used to emphasize news coverage. Avoid random collection of photos. Each image should add something new. Narratives are usually easier to structure, but you may have to work hard to find the right photos.
- Thematic topics are big ideas that include things like gun ownership rules, troubled youth, or welcoming soldiers.
- Narrative essays can include daily life, how-to guides, or progression sequences that show changes over time such as tracking the progress of a building project.
- If you have been assigned a specific assignment or publication for your work, you may need to choose a topic that fits the thematic or narrative approach outlined by the publisher. Make sure you are familiar with the publishing guide in advance.
Part 2 of 4: Setting Up a Shoot
Step 1. Ask for permission
If you want to publish a photo, you will need the written permission of all the subjects in your photo. Even if you don't plan to publish to a commercial institution but intend to use the image for a personal blog or website, it would be polite to ask permission first. If you are taking pictures of young children, always ask their parents for permission. Make it easy and comfortable for your subject to refuse to be photographed.
- Think about the difficulty of asking permission to photograph your subject. If you are already in a relationship, it will be easier. If not, take the time to get permission.
- Schools, daycares, and other places with children generally have more rules about who can be photographed and for what purposes. Usually you must get parental consent, in addition to permission from the authorities.
Step 2. Research your subject
Before arriving at the shooting location, do some online research, read the website of your chosen topic, and contact by phone or email to find out more. The more you understand your subject before shooting day, the better prepared you will be to take pictures that really capture the essence of the subject.
- Consider conducting interviews with the people involved before the shoot. Ask things like, “What was the most interesting thing you did during this event?” or “How long have you been involved with this organization?”
- This interview is also a great opportunity to ask for permission.
- If you will be attending a work site, charity event, or other activity that involves a large number of people, ask the appropriate people to explain what you are doing to everyone before you arrive on site.
Step 3. Create an outline
Once you've got your subject and permission to shoot, take some time to come up with an idea of what kind of photo you need. Most essays require multiple images to represent various aspects of a topic. You must include at least one front (signature shot), a wide-angle (establishing shot), some detail photos, and a clincher at the end.
Step 4. Select the main image
Sometimes referred to as a signature shot, this image should capture the essence of your subject. Think about famous photos like Dorothea Lange's “Migrant Mother,” which captured a woman and her child during the Great Depression. This photo has become synonymous with the Great Depression in the US.
Step 5. Take a wide-angle or establishing shot
This photo should be a wide-angle shot of the whole story. If you're photographing daily work in the office, an image of a line of workers entering the building in the morning can be used as an establishing shot.
Step 6. Plan the detailed drawing
These photos should include various portraits, close-ups of certain actions, and interactions. For example, you could include a portrait of your “main character” for an essay about everyday life at work, typing at the computer. You can also include an interaction image of a character leading a meeting or chatting over coffee in the break room. Close-up shots can include things like a picture of the subject's hand as he's typing or a detailed photo of his computer screen.
Step 7. Include a clincher photo
This image may not appear at first glance, but most photographers say they'll know when they see it. This is the image that summarizes the essay for the viewer. This image should say “the end”, convey a call to action, or indicate the end of a day in life or its continuation.
Part 3 of 4: Taking Pictures
Step 1. Check the lighting
Take a test shot to determine what ISO is required. ISO determines how much light enters the lens when taking a picture, and how fast the picture will be taken. You should use a low ISO for bright, slow moving, or still subjects. Raise the ISO to capture images in dim lighting or fast-moving subjects.
- Many novice photographers avoid high ISO images because they produce “busy” images. However, these images are usually easier to edit later because there is more information to work with.
- If your location is too bright or you have artificial lighting installed, a low ISO may suffice. For darker areas, you will probably need a higher ISO.
- Most cameras have a base ISO of around 200. ISO increases with multiplication, so the following ISO is 400, then 800, and so on. It basically doubles the sensitivity of the lens allowing more light to enter and capturing images faster.
- If it takes you a second to capture an image with a base ISO of 100, it will take you an eighth of a second to capture an image with an ISO of 800.
Step 2. Consider composition
If you're an experienced photographer, you probably have a variety of photo composition methods that you're used to. For beginners in photography, learning basic techniques like the three-part rule can be a great first step. The three-part rule is the idea that each photo can be divided into nine specific areas by creating three vertical sections and cropping them with three horizontal sections. Then, try placing your main subject in one of the areas that is the focal point.
- Even if you're taking candid photos, which may have to be taken quickly, take a few moments to think about object placement for the best results.
- Always think about how the environment of the main subject plays into the overall picture, and try to create different levels and centers of attention.
- Sometimes, you can change the composition as part of the editing process, so if you can't adjust your image properly, don't let this stop you from getting the image you want.
Step 3. Take more pictures than you want
If you want to get 10-15 great pictures for your essay, you may need to take several hundred photos to get exactly what you want. Take each picture from different angles. Get up high or take pictures from ground level to give your viewers multiple points of view. Highlight close for details and highlight far for the whole photo. Take each picture a few times to make sure you get what you need and provide plenty of options.
Step 4. Let the project develop itself
Even if you start your shoot with an outline, don't make a plan so rigid that you feel like you can't deviate from it. If you started a photoshoot with the thought of taking a series of pictures showing daily work in the office, and you finally see an employee who seems to be doing something interesting, don't hesitate to follow along. Chances are, if you think this is the really interesting part of the shoot, your viewers will think the same.
Part 4 of 4: Compiling an Essay
Step 1. Get rid of the photos you don't need
The first step in composing an essay is to get rid of images that are not important. Delete photos that are blurry, out of focus or overexposure. Remove images that don't seem to capture the part of the story you want to convey through your essay. You may not need to delete these photos, as they may come in handy later, or you may change your mind. The goal is to limit the number of images you work with to the ones that best convey your story.
Step 2. Select the main image
Find an image that sums up your story well. Think of this image as a book cover image. These images don't tell the whole story, but they should give a good overview of the book's content. The main image or front image should convey your main purpose in writing the essay. This image should grab the attention of potential viewers and create an immediate appeal to the story.
- If you're working on a daily life photo essay about a frustrated person working in an office, an image of that person struggling to open the front door against the wind might make an appropriate focus image.
- If your essay is about the process of building a house, your focus image might be something like a contractor or architect looking at a blueprint with a framed picture of the house in the background.
- If your essay is about a family reunion, the focus image could be a funny picture of the whole family frowning, pretending to be fighting, or a serious photo of the family posing together. Take whatever looks natural to the family.
Step 3. Group the rest of your photos
Once you've gotten rid of the unused or unnecessary photos and selected the focus image, group the rest of the photos for easy access. Many photographers group photos by type of image (close-ups, interactions, portraits, etc.), and others by composition of essays. The purpose of this step is to make it easier for you to find a specific photo, so use whatever category makes sense to you.
Step 4. Set the appropriate design
Once the photos have been sorted, choose an image that fits all parts of your essay. You can design an essay in any way. Some of the most common narrative options include daily life, guidance, and development (showing how your subject changes over time). For thematic essays, you have more options. However, most thematic essays start with one big picture, then taper off to show a specific example of the theme, and pan back further to provide a defining picture that sums up the big idea.
- Regardless of the type of essay, you need a focus image to grab attention.
- Use the overall picture to give context to your essay. Where, when did it occur, who was involved, what happened, and why should one be interested? The 5W rule in journalism is a great way to determine what your overall image should capture.
- Find your final image. This image should be provocative that prompts the viewer to think about the topic.
- Between the focus image, overall image, and closing image, include a series of images that move the viewer from the introductory image to the final image. Use images that build intensity or draw the viewer further into the essay.
Step 5. Ask for feedback
Once you've arranged the pictures in the order you think are appropriate, ask a friend or fellow photographer to look at them. Do not tell them the purpose of the essay or give them any captions. Just let them see the photos in their order and let them say what they saw.
- If the pictures don't tell a story, ask your friend to look at other photos and ask, “I want this picture to convey this point. You have different thoughts. Do any of these images convey this point more clearly?”
- Even if other people like the pictures you choose, still ask them to look at your other photos and tell you if they think the pictures you didn't include should be added. They may see something that you missed.
Step 6. Add text
Your final step is to add text. Taking this last step helps prevent the tendency to explain your essay in words instead of relying on your photos. There are three main ways to use text in a photo essay. You can add pictures to support the written essay, you can add caption text to the pictures, or you can limit the text to just the title and a few introductory or closing words. Whatever you choose, the important thing is that the photo itself can tell the same story as a written essay.
- If you're tasked with adding photos to an essay, make sure they reflect the writing, but also add emotion and context that the writing can't capture. For example, an essay on poverty might include a picture of a parent and child living on the street to capture more emotional context.
- Captions should only include information that viewers cannot get from the photo itself. For example, you may include dates, subject names, or statistics relevant to your subject in the caption.
- If you choose not to include any text, or simply include an introductory and/or closing title and sentence, make sure you convey all important information in a concise manner.
Tips
- Be creative in finding topics. Something as simple as "things I like" will suffice as long as you stay creative.
- Make sure you are familiar with the camera. This will make it easier for you to adjust the composition of the photo.
- No need to squirm. It may take several trials to get the desired photo results.
