Complete Guide To Writing A Good Photo Essay

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A photo essay is a series or collection of photographs that consciously tells a story or creates a shared narrative throughout the work. The number of photographs does not matter, it could be 2 or 3, an exhibition or even an entire book’s worth! It’s an extremely powerful way to share experiences and stories with other people and because it transcends cultural differences it’s an amazing art form.

What makes a good photo essay?

A good photo essay tells a story and brings the viewer on an emotional journey, with the characters that are portrayed, the situation it narrates or even just the changes in a place over time.

As a result a great photo essay has a narrative structure that is very similar to a good story. We can break up a good story and, of course, a photo essay, into several sections. You don’t need to include every aspect and detail of the following structure, but it may be helpful to keep in mind as you create your photo essay.

A Strong Narrative Structure can make your Photo Essay Meaningful and Help it to Speak to Your Audience.

• Introduction and Contextualization. To build a strong narrative you will need to introduce the story, the scenery and the elements that will make up your photo essay. This welcomes the audience to your piece and gives it a strong context or framework.

• Opening. This is the beginning of the narrative and where the story begins.

• Develop the story. This may include conflict, difficulties and challenges that are faced by the characters in the story.

• Climax. The narrative peaks and the fate of the characters hangs in the balance.

• Resolution. The situation is resolved for the characters involved.

• The Ending. This is the summation of the entire narrative and where we find elements such as ‘the moral of the story’ and ‘what we have learned‘.

It’s not necessary for your photo essay to have a complicated structure, or even to use every element of a story, but as you are developing your project it is worth seeing where you can draw out the various elements of a strong narrative from what you are recording with your photography.

Amazing Ideas for Photo Essays for Students, Photo Blogs, Portfolios and Exhibitions.

All of these ideas are free for you to do, and will only cost you the time to complete your project; and while you’re doing it, you’re bound to make some interesting new friends and learn a lot along the way!

Our Top 7 Photo Essay Inspirations.

1. Political movements and protests provide a powerful backdrop for your photo essay and can immediately strike a chord with your audience. Just take a moment to reflect on how moving the photography of the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s is and how it are still so poignant, even today, decades later! With strong imagery and raw emotions on display, communities coming together to fight for a better world and oftentimes colorful interesting scenes, a protest or ongoing political movement makes a great subject for a photo essay. Your job while creating a photo essay is to give the images you capture a narrative that encapsulates the events you are immortalizing with your camera. In Philadelphia, Rittenhouse Square and City Hall are areas where you will see a lot of protests throughout the year.

• Tell the story of a local charity. Following the work of local charity workers can show the difficulties that they overcome each day and how many lives they touch through their volunteering work. Local charities are likely to be very pleased for you to document their work and bring publicity to their efforts and you’ll also have the chance to help them spread their reach!

• Explore a community project with a photo essay. When communities come together to create something of lasting value it can give you the opportunity to document something very important that will resonate with your audience and inspire others to step up to the plate and do something fantastic for their community. A local community garden for example, could make an excellent photo essay project if you captured the garden in its various stages, from its very beginnings on through time as it grows into an urban oasis. You can also capture the characters of the people who are involved, which combined with the changing backdrop of the expanding garden, could create a wonderfully multifaceted narrative.

• Tell the story of a neighborhood or an area of Philadelphia. The storefronts, parks and people of a neighborhood come together to create a moving tapestry that just bursts with character, color and fascinating scenes. A photo essay of a local neighborhood is not only interesting for your own community and city’s audiences, but also has real world wide appeal because people always love to see how others live their lives in different parts of our shared planet.

• Local landmarks and monuments can instantly set the mood of a photo essay giving you the chance to either work with that feeling or to give it a strange or unique new twist! Philadelphia is full of incredible history and striking landmarks including the Liberty Bell, a universal symbol of American freedom; the old Eastern State Penitentiary, Washington Square Park, the Independence National Historical Park, the Spruce Street Harbor Park, Rittenhouse Square Park and many others! The city is built out of incredible sights just waiting for you to create an outstanding photo essay using them as an inspiration. So take a walk around and let your mind wander while you absorb the sights and imagine what kind of stories you could tell about them.

• Your local city parks are a buzzing center of activity where people jog, walk their dogs, relax, share days out and experience the bonds of family and friendship. The scenery is often beautiful and the people there represent a good mix of your city’s life. There are so many ways you could choose to represent this in a photo essay, so think outside the box. Remember you not only want to take great photos, you also want to try to tell a story!

• Outdoor Sculptures, graffiti or other public artworks all make a great backdrop for a photo essay. If you can include the artists who created the work as well and maybe even follow them around during their day (with their permission of course!) this could be the basis for a lovely photo essay.

Here’s a Quick List of another 10 Ideas for your photo essay, each of which gives you the possibility of telling an amazing story through your photography.

• The New Horizons of Motherhood. When a new baby comes into the world it is a powerful and universal topic to base a photo essay on.

• The wisdom that comes with age. Older people have very characteristic faces and you can just see the wisdom glittering in their eyes. Base a project around trying to capture this.

• Street Performers such as jugglers, musicians and artists can form the basis of a fascinating photo essay.

• Stop motion sky photography captures the movements of the stars around the sky at night. You may need some quite good equipment for this project but the results can be astounding.

• Skylines and cityscapes, either at night if you want to focus on the kaleidoscope of lights or by day if you would prefer to document the seasons or changes in mood that come with different weather.

• Water can make some interesting abstract shapes and forms, whether it’s in the ocean or a river; in a city fountain or waterfall, or even in the puddles in the street that throw up strange reflections of the passing world. Let your imagination run wild with this abstract concept and see where it takes you!

• Drone photography can give you a magical perspective on a world that we only usually see from the ground! There’s a million projects you could undertake with this method throughout Philly.

• Bars and restaurants are places that people really let themselves be known and their true personalities shine through. Documenting the nightlife of the Philadelphia city center could create a thrilling and unique photo essay.

• Use a theme such as grief, joy, fulfillment or whatever you would like to portray, and then use abstract or seemingly unconnected items, places and people to project your message to your audience.

• Architecture is something that surrounds us everyday but we don’t always look at it very closely, so try seeing it from new angles and perspectives that will surprise your audience and inspire them to see things around them in a new light!

The Photo Essay is a Great Way to Share the Story of People, Places and Things.

There are amazing stories all around us, in our neighborhoods and public spaces, in charity organizations and in our own lives. The photo essay is one of the most impactful ways of capturing the essence of these narratives and sharing them with a wider audience so that we can all reflect on the wonderful, and sometimes tragic, world that we find ourselves in.

Have fun while you create a photo essay, engage with the people and places, be creative and use your imagination and you will always come away with more than you ever thought you would.

Have you ever done a photo essay? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!!

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