Great Depression Photo Essay Assignment
Shay Silvertooth
A photo essay is a series of photographs that tell a story. Unlike a written essay, a photo essay focuses on visuals instead of words. With a photo essay, you can stretch your creative limits and explore new ways to connect with your audience. Whatever your photography skill level, you can recreate your own fun [&hellip
A photo essay is a series of photographs that tell a story. Unlike a written essay, a photo essay focuses on visuals instead of words. With a photo essay, you can stretch your creative limits and explore new ways to connect with your audience. Whatever your photography skill level, you can recreate your own fun and creative photo essay.
Stories are important to all of us. While some people gravitate to written stories, others are much more attuned to visual imagery. With a photo essay, you can tell a story without writing a word. Your use of composition, contrast, color, and perspective in photography will convey ideas and evoke emotions.
One popular photo essay example is a photowalk. Simply put, a photowalk is time you set aside to walk around a city, town, or a natural site and take photos. Some cities even have photowalk tours led by professional photographers. On these tours, you can learn the basics about how to operate your camera, practice photography composition techniques, and understand how to look for unique shots that help tell your story.
Events are happening in your local area all the time, and they can make great photo essays. With a little research, you can quickly find many events that you could photograph. There may be bake sales, fundraisers, concerts, art shows, farm markets, block parties, and other non profit event ideas. You could also focus on a personal event, such as a birthday or graduation.
For a local or community event, you can share your photos with the event organizer. Or, you may be able to post them on social media and tag the event sponsor. This is a great way to gain recognition and build your reputation as a talented photographer.
Many buildings can be a compelling subject for a photographic essay. Always make sure that you have permission to enter and photograph the building. Once you do, look for interesting shots and angles that convey the personality, purpose, and history of the building. You may also be able to photograph the comings and goings of people that visit or work in the building during the day.
Taking a series of photos of a historic site or landmark can be a great experience. You can learn to capture the same site from different angles to help portray its character and tell its story. And you can also photograph how people visit and engage with the site or landmark. Take photos at different times of day and in varied lighting to capture all its nuances and moods.
You can also use your photographic essay to help your audience understand the history of your chosen location. For example, if you want to provide perspective on the Civil War, a visit to a battleground can be meaningful. You can also visit a site when reenactors are present to share insight on how life used to be in days gone by.
You can raise awareness with a photo essay on racism or a photo essay on poverty. A photo essay on bullying can help change the social climate for students at a school. Or, you can document a fun day at the beach or an amusement park. You have control of the themes, photographic elements, and the story you want to tell.
You may need to take a hundred images or more to get ten perfect ones for your photographic essay. Or, you may find that you want to add more photos to your story and expand your picture essay concept.
Choose the medium that feels like the best space to share your photo essay ideas and vision with your audiences. You should think of your photo essay as your own personal form of art and expression when deciding where and how to publish it.
Ideas and inspiration for photo essay topics are everywhere. You can visit a park or go out into your own backyard to pursue a photo essay on nature. Or, you can focus on the day in the life of someone you admire with a photo essay of a teacher, fireman, or community leader. Buildings, events, families, and landmarks are all great subjects for concept essay topics. If you are feeling stuck coming up with ideas for essays, just set aside a few hours to walk around your city or town and take photos. This type of photowalk can be a great source of material.
Introducing photo essays as a means of changing lives and changing society can hook student interest in the medium. Begin by simply showing pictures and letting students discuss their reactions. Consider this famous photo of the field at Antietam during the Civil War. Share some of the photos from this collection from CNN of 25 of the Most Iconic Photographs or this list of 50 Influential Photographs That Changed Our World.
Are students telling their own stories of their neighborhoods or their families? Are they addressing a social issue or making an argument through their images and text? A photo essay could be a great assignment in science to document a process or focus on nature.
Between 1934 and 1965, Evans contributed more than 400 photographs to 45 articles published in Fortune magazine. He worked at the luxe magazine as Special Photographic Editor from 1945 to 1965 and not only conceived of the portfolios, executed the photographs, and designed the page layouts, but also wrote the accompanying texts. His topics were executed with both black-and-white and color materials and included railroad company insignias, common tools, old summer resort hotels, and views of America from the train window. Using the standard journalistic picture-story format, Evans combined his interest in words and pictures and created a multidisciplinary narrative of unusually high quality. Classics of a neglected genre, these self-assigned essays were Evans métier for twenty years.
Every photographer's dream assignment is the road-trip photoessay. They're lying if they say otherwise. Hop in a car, hit the road with a camera (and "your" writer), a beat up copy of Kerouac's "On the Road" (confession: I've never read) and search out the small town America of your imagination. I've only done a few such shoots, mostly in Asia, but in 2008 I hit the road with New York Times writer, and a neighbor here in Seattle, Bill Yardley. Bill had researched some 1930s Works Progress Administration (WPA) travel guides and the first in the series on American roadtrips the NYT did was on Washington State's Highway 20, the North Cascades Highway, following the route of the Depression-era guide.
The hardest part of a road-trip assignment? Not simply regurgitating all the thousands of other road-trip stereotypes we've seen over the years. Look, old motel! Look, old gas station! Look, Cadillacs buried in the dirt! One thing I made sure I did was engage with people on our trip over the mountains; listen to their stories, get in their faces and take photos. What most road-trip photoessays lack is that kind of engagement with the people along the way.
The easiest part of a road-trip assignment? You've been given carte blanche to photograph how you like, what you like. The editor has no expectations. You are literally given a blank canvas and told to fill it as you wish. So hit the road Jack. Get out of your bubble and meet some interesting folks. Photograph them. You'll learn more about yourself more than anything else.
Some of the most powerful news reports come from war correspondents and documentary photographers who tell stories not in words but in pictures, through the photo essay. This definition of photos essay will answer the question, what is a photo essay? A photo essay tells a story with pictures; a good documentary photographer will not only tell a good story but will also persuade viewers in a certain point of view. Thus, an effective photo essay is a picture essay or a photo montage, the visual counterpart of a newspaper article.
There are two types of photo essays: narrative and thematic. Narrative photo essays relate a story and have a beginning, climax, and conclusion. Thematic photo essays focus on a single subject by examining its different facets.
Toothpick. Eyelid. Bus stop. Don't you love it when things end up being exactly what they claim to be? For example, if we were to talk about a photo essay, we'd be talking about an essay made of photos. No tricks here! Photo essays are a popular and powerful way to tell a story without relying too heavily on text. That's the goal: to communicate something simply and powerfully. It's a very popular form of journalism in our image-obsessed modern world, and something every good journalist should understand.
The photo essay is a persuasive narrative, the visual details of which show a subject, theme, and sense of purpose. For example, one of the most famous photo essays is Eugene Smith's revelation about Minamata. Through a series of photographs, Smith shows how the release of mercury in a fishing village caused deformities in children born to the villagers who ate contaminated fish. The photos show the subject of the photo essay, the deformed children. The combined effect of the Minamata photos expresses the theme of environmental contamination. Overall, the purpose of Smith's photos is to urge viewers to take responsibility for the environment. The photographs are still on display in Japan and Smith's montage remains a powerful message about how important it is to protect the environment.
Eugene Smith's photo essay tells a story of environmental exploitation. One of the most famous photos of the Minamata series is of a Japanese woman bathing her deformed son. This photo is a moving portrait that creates empathy and human connection. Smith was able to tell the Minamata story with a series of photographs. On average, a photo essay contains between five and ten images to express the photo essay ideas. The photos begin with an overview of the town of Minamata, a coastal city in Japan. The individual photos show children with their deformities. The impact of the photos moves viewers to consider how the mercury poisoning not only damaged the environment but also impacted the well-being of humans.
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