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How to Create an Engaging Photo Essay (with Examples)

Photo essays tell a story in pictures. They're a great way to improve at photography and story-telling skills at once. Learn how to do create a great one.

Learn | Photography Guides | By Ana Mireles

Photography is a medium used to tell stories – sometimes they are told in one picture, sometimes you need a whole series. Those series can be photo essays.

If you’ve never done a photo essay before, or you’re simply struggling to find your next project, this article will be of help. I’ll be showing you what a photo essay is and how to go about doing one.

You’ll also find plenty of photo essay ideas and some famous photo essay examples from recent times that will serve you as inspiration.

If you’re ready to get started, let’s jump right in!

Table of Contents

What is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a series of images that share an overarching theme as well as a visual and technical coherence to tell a story. Some people refer to a photo essay as a photo series or a photo story – this often happens in photography competitions.

Photographic history is full of famous photo essays. Think about The Great Depression by Dorothea Lange, Like Brother Like Sister by Wolfgang Tillmans, Gandhi’s funeral by Henri Cartier Bresson, amongst others.

What are the types of photo essay?

Despite popular belief, the type of photo essay doesn’t depend on the type of photography that you do – in other words, journalism, documentary, fine art, or any other photographic genre is not a type of photo essay.

Instead, there are two main types of photo essays: narrative and thematic .

As you have probably already guessed, the thematic one presents images pulled together by a topic – for example, global warming. The images can be about animals and nature as well as natural disasters devastating cities. They can happen all over the world or in the same location, and they can be captured in different moments in time – there’s a lot of flexibility.

A narrative photo essa y, on the other hand, tells the story of a character (human or not), portraying a place or an event. For example, a narrative photo essay on coffee would document the process from the planting and harvesting – to the roasting and grinding until it reaches your morning cup.

What are some of the key elements of a photo essay?

• Tell a unique story – A unique story doesn’t mean that you have to photograph something that nobody has done before – that would be almost impossible! It means that you should consider what you’re bringing to the table on a particular topic.
• Put yourself into the work – One of the best ways to make a compelling photo essay is by adding your point of view, which can only be done with your life experiences and the way you see the world.
• Add depth to the concept – The best photo essays are the ones that go past the obvious and dig deeper in the story, going behind the scenes, or examining a day in the life of the subject matter – that’s what pulls in the spectator.
• Nail the technique – Even if the concept and the story are the most important part of a photo essay, it won’t have the same success if it’s poorly executed.
• Build a structure – A photo essay is about telling a thought-provoking story – so, think about it in a narrative way. Which images are going to introduce the topic? Which ones represent a climax? How is it going to end – how do you want the viewer to feel after seeing your photo series?
• Make strong choices – If you really want to convey an emotion and a unique point of view, you’re going to need to make some hard decisions. Which light are you using? Which lens? How many images will there be in the series? etc., and most importantly for a great photo essay is the why behind those choices.

9 Tips for Creating a Photo Essay

Credit: Laura James

1. Choose something you know

To make a good photo essay, you don’t need to travel to an exotic location or document a civil war – I mean, it’s great if you can, but you can start close to home.

Depending on the type of photography you do and the topic you’re looking for in your photographic essay, you can photograph a local event or visit an abandoned building outside your town.

It will be much easier for you to find a unique perspective and tell a better story if you’re already familiar with the subject. Also, consider that you might have to return a few times to the same location to get all the photos you need.

2. Follow your passion

Most photo essays take dedication and passion. If you choose a subject that might be easy, but you’re not really into it – the results won’t be as exciting. Taking photos will always be easier and more fun if you’re covering something you’re passionate about.

3. Take your time

A great photo essay is not done in a few hours. You need to put in the time to research it, conceptualizing it, editing, etc. That’s why I previously recommended following your passion because it takes a lot of dedication, and if you’re not passionate about it – it’s difficult to push through.

4. Write a summary or statement

Photo essays are always accompanied by some text. You can do this in the form of an introduction, write captions for each photo or write it as a conclusion. That’s up to you and how you want to present the work.

5. Learn from the masters

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Making a photographic essay takes a lot of practice and knowledge. A great way to become a better photographer and improve your storytelling skills is by studying the work of others. You can go to art shows, review books and magazines and look at the winners in photo contests – most of the time, there’s a category for photo series.

6. Get a wide variety of photos

Think about a story – a literary one. It usually tells you where the story is happening, who is the main character, and it gives you a few details to make you engage with it, right?

The same thing happens with a visual story in a photo essay – you can do some wide-angle shots to establish the scenes and some close-ups to show the details. Make a shot list to ensure you cover all the different angles.

Some of your pictures should guide the viewer in, while others are more climatic and regard the experience they are taking out of your photos.

7. Follow a consistent look

Both in style and aesthetics, all the images in your series need to be coherent. You can achieve this in different ways, from the choice of lighting, the mood, the post-processing, etc.

8. Be self-critical

Once you have all the photos, make sure you edit them with a good dose of self-criticism. Not all the pictures that you took belong in the photo essay. Choose only the best ones and make sure they tell the full story.

9. Ask for constructive feedback

Often, when we’re working on a photo essay project for a long time, everything makes perfect sense in our heads. However, someone outside the project might not be getting the idea. It’s important that you get honest and constructive criticism to improve your photography.

How to Create a Photo Essay in 5 Steps

Credit: Quang Nguyen Vinh

1. Choose your topic

This is the first step that you need to take to decide if your photo essay is going to be narrative or thematic. Then, choose what is it going to be about?

Ideally, it should be something that you’re interested in, that you have something to say about it, and it can connect with other people.

2. Research your topic

To tell a good story about something, you need to be familiar with that something. This is especially true when you want to go deeper and make a compelling photo essay. Day in the life photo essays are a popular choice, since often, these can be performed with friends and family, whom you already should know well.

3. Plan your photoshoot

Depending on what you’re photographing, this step can be very different from one project to the next. For a fine art project, you might need to find a location, props, models, a shot list, etc., while a documentary photo essay is about planning the best time to do the photos, what gear to bring with you, finding a local guide, etc.

Every photo essay will need different planning, so before taking pictures, put in the required time to get things right.

4. Experiment

It’s one thing to plan your photo shoot and having a shot list that you have to get, or else the photo essay won’t be complete. It’s another thing to miss out on some amazing photo opportunities that you couldn’t foresee.

So, be prepared but also stay open-minded and experiment with different settings, different perspectives, etc.

5. Make a final selection

Editing your work can be one of the hardest parts of doing a photo essay. Sometimes we can be overly critical, and others, we get attached to bad photos because we put a lot of effort into them or we had a great time doing them.

Try to be as objective as possible, don’t be afraid to ask for opinions and make various revisions before settling down on a final cut.

7 Photo Essay Topics, Ideas & Examples

Credit: Michelle Leman

• Architectural photo essay

Using architecture as your main subject, there are tons of photo essay ideas that you can do. For some inspiration, you can check out the work of Francisco Marin – who was trained as an architect and then turned to photography to “explore a different way to perceive things”.

You can also lookup Luisa Lambri. Amongst her series, you’ll find many photo essay examples in which architecture is the subject she uses to explore the relationship between photography and space.

• Process and transformation photo essay

This is one of the best photo essay topics for beginners because the story tells itself. Pick something that has a beginning and an end, for example, pregnancy, the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the life-cycle of a plant, etc.

Keep in mind that these topics are linear and give you an easy way into the narrative flow – however, it might be difficult to find an interesting perspective and a unique point of view.

• A day in the life of ‘X’ photo essay

There are tons of interesting photo essay ideas in this category – you can follow around a celebrity, a worker, your child, etc. You don’t even have to do it about a human subject – think about doing a photo essay about a day in the life of a racing horse, for example – find something that’s interesting for you.

• Time passing by photo essay

It can be a natural site or a landmark photo essay – whatever is close to you will work best as you’ll need to come back multiple times to capture time passing by. For example, how this place changes throughout the seasons or maybe even over the years.

A fun option if you live with family is to document a birthday party each year, seeing how the subject changes over time. This can be combined with a transformation essay or sorts, documenting the changes in interpersonal relationships over time.

• Travel photo essay

Do you want to make the jump from tourist snapshots into a travel photo essay? Research the place you’re going to be travelling to. Then, choose a topic.

If you’re having trouble with how to do this, check out any travel magazine – National Geographic, for example. They won’t do a generic article about Texas – they do an article about the beach life on the Texas Gulf Coast and another one about the diverse flavors of Texas.

The more specific you get, the deeper you can go with the story.

• Socio-political issues photo essay

This is one of the most popular photo essay examples – it falls under the category of photojournalism or documental photography. They are usually thematic, although it’s also possible to do a narrative one.

Depending on your topic of interest, you can choose topics that involve nature – for example, document the effects of global warming. Another idea is to photograph protests or make an education photo essay.

It doesn’t have to be a big global issue; you can choose something specific to your community – are there too many stray dogs? Make a photo essay about a local animal shelter. The topics are endless.

• Behind the scenes photo essay

A behind-the-scenes always make for a good photo story – people are curious to know what happens and how everything comes together before a show.

Depending on your own interests, this can be a photo essay about a fashion show, a theatre play, a concert, and so on. You’ll probably need to get some permissions, though, not only to shoot but also to showcase or publish those images.

4 Best Photo Essays in Recent times

Now that you know all the techniques about it, it might be helpful to look at some photo essay examples to see how you can put the concept into practice. Here are some famous photo essays from recent times to give you some inspiration.

Habibi by Antonio Faccilongo

This photo essay wan the World Press Photo Story of the Year in 2021. Faccilongo explores a very big conflict from a very specific and intimate point of view – how the Israeli-Palestinian war affects the families.

He chose to use a square format because it allows him to give order to things and eliminate unnecessary elements in his pictures.

With this long-term photo essay, he wanted to highlight the sense of absence and melancholy women and families feel towards their husbands away at war.

The project then became a book edited by Sarah Leen and the graphics of Ramon Pez.

Picture This: New Orleans by Mary Ellen Mark

The last assignment before her passing, Mary Ellen Mark travelled to New Orleans to register the city after a decade after Hurricane Katrina.

The images of the project “bring to life the rebirth and resilience of the people at the heart of this tale”, – says CNNMoney, commissioner of the work.

Each survivor of the hurricane has a story, and Mary Ellen Mark was there to record it. Some of them have heartbreaking stories about everything they had to leave behind.

Others have a story of hope – like Sam and Ben, two eight-year-olds born from frozen embryos kept in a hospital that lost power supply during the hurricane, yet they managed to survive.

Selfie by Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer whose work is mainly done through self-portraits. With them, she explores the concept of identity, gender stereotypes, as well as visual and cultural codes.

One of her latest photo essays was a collaboration with W Magazine entitled Selfie. In it, the author explores the concept of planned candid photos (‘plandid’).

The work was made for Instagram, as the platform is well known for the conflict between the ‘real self’ and the one people present online. Sherman started using Facetune, Perfect365 and YouCam to alter her appearance on selfies – in Photoshop, you can modify everything, but these apps were designed specifically to “make things prettier”- she says, and that’s what she wants to explore in this photo essay.

Tokyo Compression by Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf has an interest in the broad-gauge topic Life in Cities. From there, many photo essays have been derived – amongst them – Tokyo Compression .

He was horrified by the way people in Tokyo are forced to move to the suburbs because of the high prices of the city. Therefore, they are required to make long commutes facing 1,5 hours of train to start their 8+ hour workday followed by another 1,5 hours to get back home.

To portray this way of life, he photographed the people inside the train pressed against the windows looking exhausted, angry or simply absent due to this way of life.

You can visit his website to see other photo essays that revolve around the topic of life in megacities.

Final Words

It’s not easy to make photo essays, so don’t expect to be great at it right from your first project.

Start off small by choosing a specific subject that’s interesting to you –  that will come from an honest place, and it will be a great practice for some bigger projects along the line.

Whether you like to shoot still life or you’re a travel photographer, I hope these photo essay tips and photo essay examples can help you get started and grow in your photography.

Let us know which topics you are working on right now – we’ll love to hear from you!

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Ana Mireles is a Mexican researcher that specializes in photography and communications for the arts and culture sector.

Penelope G. To Ana Mireles Such a well written and helpful article for an writer who wants to inclue photo essay in her memoir. Thank you. I will get to work on this new skill. Penelope G.

Herman Krieger Photo essays in black and white

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How to Create a Photo Essay in 9 Steps (with Examples)

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What is a photo essay?

• Photo essays vs photo stories
• How photo essays help you
• 9 Steps to create photo essays

How to share your photo essays

Read Time: 11 minutes

Gather up a handful of images that seem to go together, and voila! It’s a photo essay, right? Well… no. Though, this is a common misconception.

In reality, a photo essay is much more thoughtful and structured than that. When you take the time to craft one, you’re using skills from all facets of our craft – from composition to curation.

In this guide, you’ll learn what makes a photo essay an amazing project that stretches your skills. You'll also learn exactly how to make one step by step.

• Photo essay vs photo story

A photo essay is a collection of images based around a theme, a topic, a creative approach, or an exploration of an idea. Photo essays balance visual variety with a cohesive style and concept.

What's the difference between a photo essay and a photo story?

The terms photo essay and photo story are often used interchangeably. Even the dictionary definition of “photo essay” includes using images to convey either a theme or a story.

But in my experience, a photo essay and a photo story are two different things. As you delve into the field of visual storytelling, distinguishing between the two helps you to take a purposeful approach to what you’re making .

The differences ultimately lie in the distinctions between theme, topic and story.

Themes are big-picture concepts. Example: Wildness

Topics are more specific than themes, but still overarching. Example : Wild bears of Yellowstone National Park

Stories are specific instances or experiences that happen within, or provide an example for, a topic or theme. Example: A certain wild bear became habituated to tourists and was relocated to maintain its wildness

Unlike a theme or topic, a story has particular elements that make it a story. They include leading characters, a setting, a narrative arc, conflict, and (usually) resolution.

With that in mind, we can distingush between a photo essay and a photo story.

Themes and Topics vs Stories

A photo essay revolves around a topic, theme, idea, or concept. It visually explores a big-picture something .

This allows a good deal of artistic leeway where a photographer can express their vision, philosophies, opinions, or artistic expression as they create their images.

A photo story  is a portfolio of images that illustrate – you guessed it – a story.

Because of this, there are distinct types of images that a photo story uses that add to the understanding, insight, clarity and meaning to the story for viewers. While they can certainly be artistically crafted and visually stunning, photo stories document something happening, and rely on visual variety for capturing the full experience.

A photo essay doesn’t need to have the same level of structured variety that a photo story requires. It can have images that overlap or are similar, as they each explore various aspects of a theme.

Photo essays can be about any topic. If you live in a city, consider using your nature photography to make an essay about the wildlife that lives in your neighborhood . 

The role of text with photos

A photo story typically runs alongside text that narrates the story. We're a visual species, and the images help us feel like we are there, experiencing what's happening. So, the images add significant power to the text, but they're often a partner to it.

This isn’t always the case, of course. Sometimes photo stories don’t need or use text. It’s like reading a graphic novel that doesn’t use text. Moving through the different images that build on each other ultimately unveils the narrative.

Photo essays don’t need to rely on text to illuminate the images' theme or topic. The photographer may use captions (or even a text essay), or they may let the images speak for themselves.

Definitions are helpful guidelines (not strict rules)

Some people categorize photo essays as either narrative or thematic. That's essentially just calling photo stories “narrative photo essays” and photo essays “thematic photo essays.”

But, a story is a defined thing, and any writer/editor will tell you themes and topics are not the same as stories. And we use the word “story” in our daily lives as it’s defined. So, it makes far more sense to name the difference between a photo essay and a photo story, and bask in the same clarity writers enjoy .

Photo stories illustrate a particular experience, event, narrative, something that happened or is happening.

Photo essays explore an idea, concept, topic, theme, creative approach, big-picture something .

Both photo essays and photo stories are immensely powerful visual tools. And yes, the differences between them can certainly be blurred, as is always the case with art.

Simply use this distinction as a general guideline, providing extra clarity around what you’re making and why you're making it.

To dig into specific types of images used to create powerful photo stories, check out this training: 6 Must-Have Shots for a Photo Story. 

Meanwhile, let’s dig deeper into photo essays.

Photo essays are a chance to try new styles or techniques that stretch your skills and creativity. This image was part of an essay exploring simplicity and shape, and helped me learn new skills in black and white post-processing.

How photo essays improve your photography

Creating photo essays is an amazing antidote if you’ve ever felt a lack of direction or purpose in your photography. Photo essays help build your photographic skills in at least 3 important ways.

1. You become more strategic in creating a body of work

It's easy to get stuck in a rut of photographing whatever pops up in front of you. And when you do, you end up with a collection of stand-alone shots.

These singles may work fine as a print, a quick Instagram post, or an addition to your gallery of shots on your website. But amassing a bunch of one-off shots limits your opportunities as a photographer for everything from exhibits to getting your work published.

Building photo essays pushes you to think strategically about what you photograph, why, and how. You're working toward a particular deliverable – a cohesive visual essay – with the images you create.

This elevates your skills in crafting your photo essay, and in how you curate the rest of your work, from galleries on your website to selecting images to sell as prints .

2. You become more purposeful in your composition skills

Composition is so much more than just following the rule of thirds, golden spirals, or thinking about the angle of light in a shot.

Composition is also about thinking ahead in what you’re trying to accomplish with a photograph – from what you’re saying through it to its emotional impact on a viewer – and where it fits within a larger body of work.

Photo essays push you to think critically about each shot – from coming up with fresh compositions for familiar subjects, to devising surprising compositions to fit within a collection, to creating compositions that expand on what’s already in a photo essay.

You’re pushed beyond creating a single pleasing frame, which leads you to shoot more thoughtfully and proactively than ever.

(Here’s a podcast episode on switching from reactive shooting to proactive shooting.)

3. You develop strong editing and curation skills

Selecting which images stay, and which get left behind is one of the hardest jobs on a photographer’s to-do list. Mostly, it’s because of emotional attachment.

You might think it’s an amazing shot because you know the effort that went into capturing it. Or perhaps when you look at it, you get a twinge of the joy or exhilaration you felt the moment you captured it. There’s also the second-guessing that goes into which of two similar images is the best – which will people like more? So you’re tempted to just show both.

Ultimately, great photographers appear all the more skilled because they only show their best work. That in and of itself is a skill they’ve developed through years of ruthlessly editing their own work.

Because the most powerful photo essays only show a handful of extraordinary images, you’re bound to develop the very same critical skill (and look all the more talented because of it).

Photo essays are also a great stepping stone to creating photo stories. If you’re interested in moving beyond stand-alone shots and building stories, shooting photo essays will get your creative brain limbered up and ready for the adventure of photo stories.

A photo essay exploring the natural history of a favorite species is an exciting opportunity for an in-depth study. For me, that was a photo essay on emotive images of the American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus) as it hunts in streams. 

9 Simple steps to create your photo essays

1. clarify your theme.

Choose a theme, topic, or concept you want to explore. Spend some time getting crystal clear on what you want to focus on. It helps to write out a few sentences, or even a few paragraphs noting:

• What you want the essay to be about
• What kinds of images you want to create as part of it
• How you’ll photograph the images
• The style, techniques, or gear you might use to create your images
• What “success” looks like when you’re done with your photo essay

You don’t have to stick to what you write down, of course. It can change during the image creation process. But fleshing your idea out on paper goes a long way in clarifying your photo essay theme and how you’ll go about creating it.

2. Create your images

Grab your camera and head outside!

As you’re photographing your essay, allow yourself some freedom to experiment. Try unusual compositions or techniques that are new to you.

Stretch your style a little, or “try on” the style of other photographers you admire who have photographed similar subjects.

Photo essays are wonderful opportunities to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and grow as a photographer.

Remember that a photo essay is a visually cohesive collection of images that make sense together. So, while you might stretch yourself into new terrain as you shoot, try to keep that approach, style, or strategy consistent.

Don’t be afraid to create lots of images. It’s great to have lots to choose from in the editing process, which comes up next.

3. Pull together your wide edit

Once you’ve created your images, pull together all the images that might make the cut. This could be as many as 40-60 images. Include anything you want to consider for the final essay in the wide edit.

From here, start weeding out images that:

• are weaker in composition or subject matter
• stand out like a sore thumb from the rest of the collection
• Are similar to other stronger images in the collection

It's helpful to review the images at thumbnail size. You make more instinctive decisions and can more easily see the body of work as a whole. If an image is strong even at thumbnail size to stand out from similar frames while also partnering well with other images in the collection, that's a good sign it's strong enough for the essay.

4. Post-process your images for a cohesive look

Now it’s time to post-process the images. Use whatever editing software you’re comfortable with to polish your images.

Again, a photo essay has a cohesive visual look. If you use presets, filters, or other tools, use them across all the images.

5. Finalize your selection

It’s time to make the tough decisions. Select only the strongest for your photo essay from your group of images.

Each image should be strong enough to stand on its own and make sense as part of the whole group.

Many photo essays range from 8-12 images. But of course, it varies based on the essay. The number of images you have in your final photo essay is up to you.

Remember, less is more. A photo essay is most powerful when each image deserves to be included.

6. Put your images in a purposeful order

Create a visual flow with your images. Decide which image is first, and build from there. Use compositions, colors, and subject matter to decide which image goes next, then next, then next in the order.

Think of it like music: notes are arranged in a way that builds energy, or slows it down, surprise listeners with a new refrain, or drop into a familiar chorus. How the notes are ordered creates emotional arcs for listeners.

How you order your images is similar.

Think of the experience a viewer will have as they look at one image, then the next, and the next. Order your images so they create the experience you want your audience to have.

7. Get feedback

The best photographers make space for feedback, even when it’s tough to hear. Your work benefits from not just hearing feedback, but listening to it and applying what you learn from it.

Show your photo essay to people who have different sensibilities or tastes. Friends, family members, fellow photographers – anyone you trust to give you honest feedback.

Watch their reactions and hear what they say about what they’re seeing. Use their feedback to guide you in the next step.

8. Refine, revise, and finalize

Let your photo essay marinate for a little while. Take a day or two away from it. Then use your freshened eyes and the feedback you received from the previous step to refine your essay.

Swap out any selects you might want to change and reorder the images if needed.

9. Add captions

Even if you don’t plan on displaying captions with your images, captioning your images is a great practice to get into. It gives context, story, and important information to each image. And, more than likely, you will want to use these captions at some point when you share your photo essay, which we dive into later in this article.

Add captions to the image files using Lightroom, Bridge, or other software programs.

Create a document, such as a Google or Word doc, with captions for each image.

In your captions, share a bit about the story behind the image, or the creation process. Add whatever makes sense to share that provides a greater understanding of the image and its purpose.

Photo essays allow you to explore deliberate style choices, such as a focus on shapes, patterns, textures, and lines. Since each photo is part of a larger essay, it encourages you to be bold with choices you might not otherwise make. 

5 Examples of amazing nature photo essays

1. “how the water shapes us” from the nature conservancy.

This gorgeous essay, crafted with the work of multiple photographers, explores the people and places within the Mississippi River basin. Through the images, we gain a sense of how the water influences life from the headwater all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Notice how each photographer is tasked with the same theme, yet approaches it with their own distinct style and vision. It is a wonderful example of the sheer level of visual variety you can have while maintaining a consistent style or theme.

View it here

2. “A Cyclist on the English Landscape” from New York Times’ The World Through A Lens series

This photo essay is a series of self-portraits by travel photographer Roff Smith while “stuck” at home during the pandemic. As he peddled the roads making portraits, the project evolved into a “celebration of traveling at home”. It’s a great example of how visually consistent you can be inside a theme while making each image completely unique.

3. “Vermont, Dressed In Snow” from New York Times’ The World Through A Lens series

This essay by aerial photographer Caleb Kenna uses a very common photo essay theme: snow. Because all images are aerial photographs, there’s a consistency to them. Yet, the compositions are utterly unique from one another. It’s a great example of keeping viewers surprised as they move from one image to the next while still maintaining a clear focus on the theme.

4. “Starling-Studded Skies” from bioGraphic Magazine

This beautiful essay is by Kathryn Cooper, a physicist trained in bioinformatics, and a talented photographer. She used a 19th century photographic technique, chronophotography, to create images that give us a look at the art and science of starling murmurations. She states: “I’m interested in the transient moments when chaos briefly changes to order, and thousands of individual bodies appear to move as one.” This essay is a great example of deep exploration of a concept using a specific photographic technique.

View it here   (Note: must be viewed on desktop)

5. “These Scrappy Photos Capture the Action-Packed World Beneath a Bird Feeder” from Audubon Magazine

This photo essay from conservation photographer Carla Rhodes explores the wildlife that takes advantage of the bounty of food waiting under bird feeders . Using remote camera photography , Rhodes gives viewers a unique ground-level perspective and captures moments that make us feel like we’re in conversation with friends in the Hundred Acre Woods. This essay is a great example of how perspective, personality, and chance can all come into play as you explore both an idea and a technique.

25 Ideas for creative photo essays you can make

The possibilities for photo essays are truly endless – from the concepts you explore to the techniques you use and styles you apply.

Choose an idea, hone your unique perspective on it, then start applying the 9 simple steps from above. 

• The life of a plant or animal (your favorite species, a species living in your yard, etc)
• The many shapes of a single species (a tree species, a bird species, etc)
• How a place changes over time
• The various moods of a place
• A conservation issue you care about
• Math in nature
• Urban nature
• Seasonal changes
• Your yard as a space for nature
• Shifting climate and its impacts
• Human impacts on environments
• Elements: Water, wind, fire, earth
• Day in the life (of a person, a place, a stream, a tree…)
• Outdoor recreation (birding, kayaking, hiking, naturalist journaling…)
• Wildlife rehabilitation
• Lunar cycles
• Sunlight and shadows
• Your local watershed
• Coexistence

As you zero in on a photo essay theme, consider two things: what most excites you about an idea, and what about it pushes you out of your comfort zone. The heady mix of joy and challenge will ensure you stick with it. 

Your photo essay is ready for the world! Decide how you’d like to make an impact with your work. You might use one or several of the options below.

1. Share it on your website

Create a gallery or a scrollytelling page on your website. This is a great way to drive traffic to your website where people can peruse your photo essay and the rest of the photography you have.

Putting it on your website and optimizing your images for SEO helps you build organic traffic and potentially be discovered by a broader audience, including photo editors.

2. Create a scrollytelling web page

If you enjoy the experience of immersive visual experiences, consider making one using your essay. And no, you don’t have to be a whiz at code to make it happen.

Shorthand helps you build web pages with scrollytelling techniques that make a big impression on viewers. Their free plan allows you to publish 3 essays or stories.

3. Create a Medium post

If you don’t have a website and want to keep things simple, a post on Medium is a great option.

Though it’s known for being a platform for bloggers, it’s also possible to add images to a post for a simple scroll.

And, because readers can discover and share posts, it’s a good place for your photos to get the attention of people who might not otherwise come across it.

4. Share it on Instagram

Instagram has changed a lot over the last couple of years, but it’s still a place for photographers to share their work thoughtfully.

There are at least 3 great ways to share your photo essay on the platform.

– Create a single post for each image. Add a caption. Publish one post per day until the full essay is on your feed. Share each post via Instagram Stories to bring more attention and interaction to your photo essay.

– Create a carousel post. You can add up 10 photos to a carousel post, so you may need to create two of them for your full photo essay. Or you might create a series of carousel posts using 3-4 images in each.

– Create a Reel featuring your images as a video.  The algorithm heavily favors reels, so turning your photo essay into a video experience can get it out to a larger audience.

I ran a “create a reel” challenge in my membership community. One member created a reel with her still images around a serious conservation issue. It gathered a ton of attention and landed her opportunities to share her message through YouTube and podcast interviews and publishing opportunities. Watch it here.

5. Exhibit it locally

Reach out to local galleries, cafes, pubs, or even the public library to see if they’re interested in hanging your photo essay for display. Many local businesses and organizations happily support the work of local artists.

6. Pitch your photo essay to publications

One of the best ways to reach an audience with your work is to get it published. Find publications that are a great fit for the theme and style of your photo essay, then pitch your essay for consideration. You gain a fantastic opportunity to share your work widely and can earn a paycheck at the same time.

Remember that if you want to get your photo essay published, you may want to hold back from sharing it publicly before you pitch it to publications.

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23 Photo Essay Ideas and Examples (to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing!)

A Post By: Kevin Landwer-Johan

Looking for inspiration? Our 23 photo essay ideas will take your photography skills to new heights!

A single, strong photograph can convey a lot of information about its subject – but sometimes we have topics that require more than one image to do the job. That’s when it’s time to make a photo essay: a collection of pictures that together tell the bigger story around a chosen theme.

In the following sections, we’ll explore various photo essay ideas and examples that cover a wide range of subjects and purposes. From capturing the growth of your children to documenting local festivals, each idea offers an exciting opportunity to tell a story through your lens, whether you’re a hobbyist or a veteran professional.

So grab your camera, unleash your creativity, and let’s delve into the wonderful world of photo essay examples!

What is a photo essay?

Simply put, a photo essay is a series of carefully selected images woven together to tell a story or convey a message. Think of it as a visual narrative that designed to capture attention and spark emotions.

Now, these images can revolve around a broad theme or focus on a specific storyline. For instance, you might create a photo essay celebrating the joy of companionship by capturing 10 heartwarming pictures of people sharing genuine laughter. On the other hand, you could have a photo essay delving into the everyday lives of fishermen in Wales by following a single fisherman’s journey for a day or even a week.

It’s important to note that photo essays don’t necessarily have to stick to absolute truth. While some documentary photographers prefer to keep it authentic, others may employ techniques like manipulation or staging to create a more artistic impact. So there is room for creativity and interpretation.

Why you should create a photo essay

Photo essays have a way of expressing ideas and stories that words sometimes struggle to capture. They offer a visual narrative that can be incredibly powerful and impactful.

Firstly, photo essays are perfect when you have an idea or a point you want to convey, but you find yourself at a loss for words. Sometimes, emotions and concepts are better conveyed through images rather than paragraphs. So if you’re struggling to articulate a message, you can let your photos do the talking for you.

Second, if you’re interested in subjects that are highly visual, like the mesmerizing forms of architecture within a single city, photo essays are the way to go. Trying to describe the intricate details of a building or the play of light and shadows with words alone can be challenging. But through a series of captivating images, you can immerse your audience in the architecture.

And finally, if you’re aiming to evoke emotions or make a powerful statement, photo essays are outstanding. Images have an incredible ability to shock, inspire, and move people in ways that words often struggle to achieve. So if you want to raise awareness about an environmental issue or ignite a sense of empathy, a compelling series of photographs can have a profound impact.

Photo essay examples and ideas

Looking to create a photo essay but don’t know where to start? Here are some handy essay ideas and examples for inspiration!

1. A day in the life

Your first photo essay idea is simple: Track a life over the course of one day. You might make an essay about someone else’s life. Or the life of a location, such as the sidewalk outside your house. 

The subject matter you choose is up to you. But start in the morning and create a series of images showing your subject over the course of a typical day.

(Alternatively, you can document your subject on a special day, like a birthday, a wedding, or some other celebration.)

2. Capture hands

Portraits focus on a subject’s face – but why not mix it up and make a photo essay that focuses on your subject’s hands?

(You can also focus on a collection of different people’s hands.)

Hands can tell you a lot about a person. And showing them in context is a great way to narrate a story.

3. Follow a sports team for a full season

Sports are all about emotions – both from the passionate players and the dedicated fans. While capturing the intensity of a single game can be exhilarating, imagine the power of telling the complete story of a team throughout an entire season.

For the best results, you’ll need to invest substantial time in sports photography. Choose a team that resonates with you and ensure their games are within a drivable distance. By photographing their highs and lows, celebrations and challenges, you’ll create a compelling photo essay that traces their journey from the first game to the last.

4. A child and their parent

Photographs that catch the interaction between parents and children are special. A parent-child connection is strong and unique, so making powerful images isn’t challenging. You just need to be ready to capture the special moments as they happen. 

You might concentrate on a parent teaching their child. Or the pair playing sports. Or working on a special project.

Use your imagination, and you’ll have a great time with this theme.

5. Tell a local artist’s story 

I’ve always enjoyed photographing artists as they work; studios have a creative vibe, so the energy is already there. Bring your camera into this environment and try to tell the artist’s story!

An artist’s studio offers plenty of opportunities for wonderful photo essays. Think about the most fascinating aspects of the artist’s process. What do they do that makes their art special? Aim to show this in your photos.

Many people appreciate fine art, but they’re often not aware of what happens behind the scenes. So documenting an artist can produce fascinating visual stories.

6. Show a tradesperson’s process

Do you have a plumber coming over to fix your kitchen sink? Is a builder making you a new deck?

Take photos while they work! Tell them what you want to do before you start, and don’t forget to share your photos with them.

They’ll probably appreciate seeing what they do from another perspective. They may even want to use your photos on their company website.

7. Photograph your kids as they grow

There’s something incredibly special about documenting the growth of our little ones. Kids grow up so quickly – before you know it, they’re moving out. Why not capture the beautiful moments along the way by creating a heartwarming photo essay that showcases their growth?

There are various approaches you can take, but one idea is to capture regular photos of your kids standing in front of a distinct point of reference, such as the refrigerator. Over a year or several years, you can gather these images and place them side by side to witness your childrens’ incredible transformations.

8. Cover a local community event

A school fundraiser, a tree-planting day at a park, or a parade; these are are all community events that make for good photo essay ideas.

Think like a photojournalist . What type of images would your editor want? Make sure to capture some wide-angle compositions , some medium shots, and some close-ups.

(Getting in close to show the details can often tell as much of a story as the wider pictures.)

9. Show fresh market life

Markets are great for photography because there’s always plenty of activity and lots of characters. Think of how you can best illustrate the flow of life at the market. What are the vendors doing that’s most interesting? What are the habits of the shoppers?

Look to capture the essence of the place. Try to portray the people who work and shop there.

10. Shoot the same location over time

What location do you visit regularly? Is there a way you can make an interesting photo essay about it?

Consider what you find most attractive and ugly about the place. Look for aspects that change over time. 

Any outdoor location will look different throughout the day. Also think about the changes that occur from season to season. Create an essay that tells the story of the place.

11. Document a local festival

Festivals infuse cities and towns with vibrant energy and unique cultural experiences. Even if your own town doesn’t have notable festivals, chances are a neighboring town does. Explore the magic of these celebrations by documenting a local festival through your lens.

Immerse yourself in the festivities, arriving early and staying late. Capture the colorful displays and the people who make the festival come alive. If the festival spans multiple days, consider focusing on different areas each time you visit to create a diverse and comprehensive photo essay that truly reflects the essence of the event.

12. Photograph a garden through the seasons

It might be your own garden . It could be the neighbor’s. It could even be the garden at your local park.

Think about how the plants change during the course of a year. Capture photos of the most significant visual differences, then present them as a photo essay.

13. Show your local town or city

After spending several years in a particular area, you likely possess an intimate knowledge of your local town or city. Why not utilize that familiarity to create a captivating photo essay that showcases the essence of your community?

Delve into what makes your town special, whether it’s the charming streets, unique landmarks, or the people who shape its character. Dedicate time to capturing the diverse aspects that define your locale. If you’re up for a more extensive project, consider photographing the town over the course of an entire year, capturing the changing seasons and the dynamic spirit of your community.

14. Pick a local cause to highlight

Photo essays can go beyond passive documentation; they can become a part of your activism, too!

So find a cause that matters to you. Tell the story of some aspect of community life that needs improvement. Is there an ongoing issue with litter in your area? How about traffic; is there a problematic intersection?

Document these issues, then make sure to show the photos to people responsible for taking action.

15. Making a meal

Photo essay ideas can be about simple, everyday things – like making a meal or a coffee.

How can you creatively illustrate something that seems so mundane? My guess is that, when you put your mind to it, you can come up with many unique perspectives, all of which will make great stories.

16. Capture the life of a flower

In our fast-paced lives, it’s easy to overlook the beauty that surrounds us. Flowers, with their mesmerizing colors and rapid life cycles, offer a captivating subject for a photo essay. Try to slow down and appreciate the intricate details of a flower’s existence.

With a macro lens in hand, document a single flower or a patch of flowers from their initial shoots to their inevitable wilting and decomposition. Experiment with different angles and perspectives to bring viewers into the enchanting world of the flower. By freezing these fleeting moments, you’ll create a visual narrative that celebrates the cycle of life and the exquisite beauty found in nature’s delicate creations.

17. Religious traditions

Religion is often rich with visual expression in one form or another. So capture it!

Of course, you may need to narrow down your ideas and choose a specific aspect of worship to photograph. Aim to show what people do when they visit a holy place, or how they pray on their own. Illustrate what makes their faith real and what’s special about it.

18. Historic sites

Historic sites are often iconic, and plenty of photographers take a snapshot or two.

But with a photo essay, you can illustrate the site’s history in greater depth.

Look for details of the location that many visitors miss. And use these to build an interesting story.

19. Show the construction of a building

Ever been away from a familiar place for a while only to return and find that things have changed? It happens all the time, especially in areas undergoing constant development. So why not grab your camera and document this transformation?

Here’s the idea: Find a building that’s currently under construction in your area. It could be a towering skyscraper, a modern office complex, or even a small-scale residential project. Whatever catches your eye! Then let the magic of photography unfold.

Make it a habit to take a photo every day or two. Watch as the building gradually takes shape and evolves. Capture the construction workers in action, the cranes reaching for the sky, and the scaffolding supporting the structure.

Once the building is complete, you’ll have a treasure trove of images that chronicle its construction from start to finish!

20. Document the changing skyline of the city

This photo essay example is like the previous one, except it works on a much larger scale. Instead of photographing a single building as it’s built, find a nice vantage point outside your nearest city, then photograph the changing skyline.

To create a remarkable photo essay showcasing the changing skyline, you’ll need to scout out the perfect vantage point. Seek high ground that offers a commanding view of the city, allowing you to frame the skyline against the horizon. Look for spots that give you an unobstructed perspective, whether a rooftop terrace, a hillside park, or even a nearby bridge.

As you set out on your photography expedition, be patient and observant. Cities don’t transform overnight; they change gradually over time. Embrace the passage of days, weeks, and months as you witness the slow evolution unfold.

Pro tip: To capture the essence of this transformation, experiment with various photographic techniques. Play with different angles, framing, and compositions to convey the grandeur and dynamism of the changing skyline. Plus, try shooting during the golden hours of sunrise and sunset , when the soft light bathes the city in a warm glow and accentuates the architectural details.

21. Photograph your pet

If you’re a pet owner, you already have the perfect subject for a photo essay!

All pets , with the possible exception of pet rocks, will provide you with a collection of interesting moments to photograph.

So collect these moments with your camera – then display them as a photo essay showing the nature and character of your pet.

22. Tell the story of a local nature preserve

Ah, the wonders of a local nature preserve! While it may not boast the grandeur of Yosemite National Park, these hidden gems hold their own beauty, just waiting to be discovered and captured through the lens of your camera.

To embark on this type of photo essay adventure, start by exploring all the nooks and crannies of your chosen nature preserve. Wander along its winding trails, keeping an eye out for unique and captivating subjects that convey the essence of the preserve.

As you go along, try to photograph the intricate details of delicate wildflowers, the interplay of light filtering through a dense forest canopy, and the lively activities of birds and other wildlife.

23. Show the same subject from multiple perspectives

It’s possible to create an entire photo essay in a single afternoon – or even in a handful of minutes. If you don’t love the idea of dedicating yourself to days of photographing for a single essay, this is a great option.

Simply find a subject you like, then endeavor to capture 10 unique images that include it. I’d recommend photographing from different angles: up above, down low, from the right and left. You can also try getting experimental with creative techniques, such as intentional camera movement and freelensing. If all goes well, you’ll have a very cool set of images featuring one of your favorite subjects!

By showcasing the same subject from multiple perspectives, you invite viewers on a visual journey. They get to see different facets, textures, and details that they might have overlooked in a single photograph. It adds depth and richness to your photo essay, making it both immersive and dynamic.

Photo essay ideas: final words

Remember: Photo essays are all about communicating a concept or a story through images rather than words. So embrace the process and use images to express yourself!

Whether you choose to follow a sports team through a thrilling season, document the growth of your little ones, or explore the hidden treasures of your local town, each photo essay has its own magic waiting to be unlocked. It’s a chance to explore your creativity and create images in your own style.

So look at the world around you. Grab your gear and venture out into the wild. Embrace the beauty of nature, the energy of a bustling city, or the quiet moments that make life special. Consider what you see every day. What aspects interest you the most? Photograph those things.

You’re bound to end up with some amazing photo essays!

Now over to you:

Do you have any photo essay examples you’re proud of? Do you have any more photo essay ideas? Share your thoughts and images in the comments below!

Read more from our Tips & Tutorials category

Kevin Landwer-Johan is a photographer, photography teacher, and author with over 30 years of experience that he loves to share with others.

Check out his website and his Buy Me a Coffee page .

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How to create a photo essay

By Marissa Sapega

According to LDV Capital, there will be 45 billion cameras in the world by 2022 . The proliferation of smartphones with hi-res cameras — coupled with our obsession with documenting the mundane on social media — has led to a glut of images shared on the web .

We're talking 3.2 billion images shared online every single day.

A decade ago, observers were predicting that this would spell the end of professional photography. But as we all know from our Instagram feeds, the need for professional photography — properly produced, contextualised, and published — has never been greater.

With the emergence of next generation digital publishing platforms, we're seeing a new era for photographic essays. Many of the most powerful examples are from journalism, where immersive photos are transforming long-form journalism into a more dynamic and interactive experience.

But powerful photos — coupled with immersive, interactive digital storytelling techniques — are being increasingly incorporated in marketing and communications across multiple industries, from brands to nonprofits. 

In this guide, we'll cover:

• The main types of photo essays
• The new era of photo essays
• Tips for making thoughtful and powerful photo essays
• How to make a compelling photo essay
• We'll also provide a range of photo essay examples as we go

If you're looking for more examples, check out our roundup of photo essay examples .

Let's dive in!

What do the BBC, Tripadvisor, and Penguin have in common? They craft stunning, interactive web content with Shorthand. And so can you! Publish your first story for free — no code or web design skills required. Sign up now.

Types of photo essays

There are two primary types of photo essays: thematic and narrative.

Thematic photo essays

Thematic essays focus on a topical story (like a natural disaster). One example of a great thematic essay comes from NBC News Olympics photos: Emotion runs high .

This piece encapsulates the overall gloom of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics — through a series of powerful behind-the-scenes photographs of athletes in varying levels of distress — but does not focus on a particular subject. 

Another example of a great photo story comes from the BBC. In “ From Trayvon Martin to Colin Kaepernick , they tell the story of how Black Lives Matter became entwined with sports. 

Narrative photo essays

Narrative photo essays take the story a step further and tell a specific story through images. 

One striking example is SBS's 28 Days in Afghanistan . This narrative essay documents photojournalist Andrew Quilty's time in the war-ravaged nation through stark photographs and supplementary text.

What is a photo essay in 2023?

A traditional photo essay aims to replace the written word with photographs. Done poorly, it is nothing more than series of images lumped together. Done well, though, the photojournalist or artist takes the reader on an engaging journey.

The main difference between photo essays of yore and photo essays in 2023 is the sophistication of digital publishing. With the rise of digital storytelling platforms, we're seeing a rise in truly interactive and immersive digital photo essays. 

Today, many digital photo essays include quotes and text to supplement the visuals and are formatted using interactive scrollytelling techniques. Scrollytelling is a form of visual storytelling that leverages user engagement (scrolling) to reveal images and text in an interesting and dynamic way. The interactivity compels the viewer to continue consuming the content, and creators have a wide latitude when designing the overall effect.    

Given the benefits of a more dynamic and interactive form of photo essays, it’s easy to see why they have become so popular in recent years. But as with any photo essay, creating an exceptional digital photo essays requires planning, structure, and know-how.

Let's take a closer look with ten tips for great photo essays.

Looking to learn more about interactive visual storytelling? Check out our guide, 8 tips for powerful visual storytelling .

10 tips for great photo essays

1. Create visual structure

An authentic photo essay requires visual markers to help transform a collection of images into a narrative. For example, photo chapter headings in Growing up young introduce each new girl in the story.

Similarly, in SBS’s photojournalism story — 28 days in Afghanistan , mentioned above — each dated header delineates a part of the story, providing an easy-to-follow chronological structure and pace.

Daniel Boud intersperses his own thoughts in between a haunting series of photographs of the iconic Sydney Opera House as it underwent a restoration during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in The Sydney Opera House at Rest .

Text can add depth to the photo essay—but take care where you add it. It should support and enhance the final product, not overshadow it.

2. Make it interactive

In 2023, the best photo essays are interactive. 

One great example of an interactive photo essay is WaterAid’s essay, Water and Climate . This photo essay highlights the people climate change has impacted most brutally, including a video, stark close-up photography, and graphics to get its point across. 

The photo essay uses minimal text, preferring to allow the images to speak for themselves. As a user scrolls, it exposes them to more content. Each visual and supplemental text further immerses the viewer into the story until the end, where they encounter a call to action to join WaterAid in helping those in need.

Nonprofits like WaterAid often use interactive photo essays to compel people to act , because they work. Half the battle of convincing someone to part with their money is creating an emotional connection with them—something a photo essay does particularly well.

3. Produce more content than you need

Have you ever seen how much film footage ends up on the cutting room floor for the average movie (known as the shooting ratio)? It’s a lot.   

Why is this? First, filmmakers know that many of the shots they take will be either poor-quality or simply not up to their exacting standards. Second, if a director included all the footage they took throughout the entire production in the final product, her movie would be a bloated mess.

The editor’s job is to strip away the dead weight to reveal a clean, refined, final product that keeps viewers raptly engaged. However, an editor may struggle to do his job if the director has not provided enough usable footage.

The same principles apply to creating an exceptional photo essay. Always assemble more visuals and content than you think you’ll need so you can use the cream of the crop for the final product. Shedding content may be difficult, but it’s necessary, so be prepared to edit your piece without mercy.

Publishing photos on the web, but confused about the range of file formats? Check out our guide to file formats .

4. Use only the best photos

A photo essay is not an excuse to throw together all the imagery you have. Just like any good story, it needs a focused and compelling narrative that keeps things connected. Each image needs to bring something to the table. 

Remember that photo quality plays a significant role in the overall caliber of a photo essay. If your iPhone isn’t doing your subject justice, don’t be afraid to pull in a professional to make your work come alive.

A great example of this comes from Sky Sports. In their photo essay, Pictured: Diego Maradona , they had to be ruthless when deciding upon the imagery to include.

They no doubt had hundreds — perhaps thousands — of photos to choose from from the many photo shoots in Maradona's life. Yet they knew that each one had to be poignant and compelling in its own way. 

5. Don’t be afraid to edit your photos

Not everyone can be Ansel Adams or Annie Leibovitz. Happily, with the readily available photo-editing software like Photoshop and high-quality cameras on every smartphone, you don’t need to be. Do your best to acquire top-quality photos, but don’t be timid about improving them!

Thanks to heavy exposure to advertising, viewers today now expect doctored images. Whether you’re refining a photo for a flawless finish or adding a touch of grittiness, use this expectation to your advantage. Dial up the contrast, crop out unnecessary elements, and use filters if they suit your needs.

6. Visit the archives

With so many gleaming, airbrushed-to-perfection photographs online today, exposure to imagery that’s not polished within an inch of its life can be a refreshing change. 

For example, take a look at Mancity’s My Debut Trevor Francis (v Stoke 1981) , which exclusively uses archival images. Not only was this a necessity (the focus was on a decades-old football match), but it lent the entire piece a tattered legitimacy. You wouldn’t expect “Insta-worthy” images because that’s not the experience the author is trying to convey.

7. Storyboard before building

You wouldn’t build a house without drafting a blueprint, would you? (Well, not unless you weren’t too invested in the end-product.) Much like a blueprint, a storyboard helps you convert the vision inside your head into a concrete plan for construction. It can also contribute to your shot list for your photography project. 

Storyboarding forces you to take a step back and evaluate how each element fits into the larger narrative. You may find that half your content is no longer necessary, and that’s okay. It may seem like a barrier to “getting to the fun part” of adding fancy flourishes and creative details, but it’s a critical step for building a good photo essay that genuinely influences viewers.

8. Experiment!

While there are certainly best practices to follow when creating a photo essay, no “one true path” will culminate in perfection every time. Photo essays are a way to express a story; such art is not limited to a template or cookie-cutter outputs.

So, mix it up! Test out different photos, filter effects, text, quotes, and visuals. Pretend you’re playing with a Rubik’s cube when you’re storyboarding and shuffle the content around with abandon. There is no right way to draft a photo essay, and you’ll never settle on one that you believe best conveys your story without a bit of experimentation. (Of course, your first iteration may end up being your best, but at least this way you won’t have any doubts.)

9. Combine data and maps

Adding hard metrics and maps to a photo essay can help support a narrative in ways that photographs can’t. In this essay on segregation in Detroit , NBC included interactive maps of the city that underscored the severity of Detroit’s redlining policy. 

These maps drive home this multimedia photo essay’s primary takeaway: Detroit’s enforced segregation has resulted in almost a century of lower quality of life for its black residents.

10. Get inspired

No matter how compelling the vision in your head is, you can still benefit from a little inspiration. If you're looking for photo essay ideas, consider: 

• Focusing on a single subject for a day (known as a day in the life photo essay).
• Document local events, such as art shows, protests, or community gatherings — this is an endless source of photo essay topics.
• Capture social issues from your local area.
• Start a photo series, in which you document the same specific subject over a period of time.
• Research the great photo essayists from history, such as W. Eugene Smith, and James Nachtwey.
• Dive into the archives of the great photo essay magazines, such as National Geographic and Life Magazine.
• Do some research on your potential subject. This will help you formulate different angles from which to approach your photo essay.
• Sign up to Shorthand's newsletter , which rounds up the best visual stories on the web every other week. 

Now, let's dive into how to make a stunning photo essay using Shorthand.

How to make a stunning digital photo essay

Traditionally, photo essays on the web were little more than a series of images pasted into a blog post. Because most blogs are structured primarily for words, these photos essays didn't do justice to their source media. 

However, as web browsers became more powerful and bandwidth increased, a range of content platforms — including no-code digital storytelling platforms like Shorthand — have evolved to make it easier to create stunning visual stories. We've linked to many of these in this guide. 

In this section, we're going to run through how to make a photo essay using Shorthand. If you're not a Shorthand customer, you can sign up here and follow along.

1. Create a new story

In your Shorthand dashboard, click 'New Story.' If you'd like, you can choose from any of our templates to help you get started. For now, though, we're going to start with a blank canvas.

The template chooser

2. Add your title image

Every photo essay needs a stunning title image to hook the reader. Depending on what kind of photo essay you're creating, this could be a photo of the subject or theme of the piece. You can also choose to add a title, subtitle, and author. 

3. Add a text section

Every photo essay needs a written introduction, to help contextualise the images that follow. Simply click 'New Section' and 'Text', before pasting in your introductory copy.

Adding a Text section.

4. Add your first photo

Now it's time to add the first photo in your essay. Simply click 'New Section' and 'Media.' In photo essays, hierarchy is critical, so make sure you've thought about which photo is most appropriate at the top of your essay. In Shorthand, your photo will appear in all its  full-screen glory.

Image in a 'Media' section.

5. Add a Reveal section

You also have the option of adding a 'Reveal' section, which allows you to add text that floats over your images. This text can act as a commentary or de facto caption for each photo in your essay.

Simply click 'New Section' and 'Reveal.' You'll be able to also upload a version of the image for mobile, and set focus areas to make sure the most important parts of your image are shown.

A 'Reveal' section with accompanying text box.

6. Add transition effects

Depending on the nature of your photo essay, you may wish to add transition effects between some images. A ‘Reveal’ section is the best way to achieve this. You'll have the option of choosing from several types of transitions that occur as your reader scrolls from one full-screen image to the next, and each image can have its own text box, too.

Testing a Reveal section in the Shorthand editor

7. Add Scrollmation effects

If you want to use images in concert with large amounts of text, then consider using Shorthand's Scrollmation feature. This allows you to transition through a range of images as the reader scrolls down a column of text. 

To do this — you guessed it — simply click 'New Section' and 'Scrollmation' or 'Background Scrollmation.' 

The difference between the two is simple: In a Scrollmation section, the text appears in a column beside your images, while in a Background Scrollmation section,  images fill the screen and the text column appears over the images. A sequence of related images can give the effect of animation triggered by the reader’s scrolling.

A Scrollmation section within the editor

Background Scrollmation in the editor

8. Add a Media Gallery

If you have many different images, and want to create a mosaic effect in your essay, then you can use a media gallery. To do this, simply click 'New Section' and 'Media Gallery.' 

You can then upload your images, and experiment with their size and arrangement to achieve your intended effect.

Creating a Media Gallery section in the editor

9. Preview your story

Photo essays — more than many other genres of content on the web — can run into problems with different screen sizes. Before you publish, make sure you test your story using Shorthand's preview option. 

You'll be able to see what your story looks like on desktop, mobile, and tablet viewports, and make adjustments as needed. You can also share your preview link with collaborators, and get pre-publication feedback and quality-assurance.

Story previews in the editor, simulating a phone and iPad.

10. Publish 🚀

The final step is to publish your essay to the world! You now have an immersive, potentially interactive photo essay — without writing a line of code. 

Contemporary photo essays are creative endeavours rife with opportunities for interactivity. Organisations and artists alike use them as modern, impactful vehicles to convey powerful stories. Try creating one for yourself using Shorthand for free today!

Publish your first story free with Shorthand

Craft sumptuous content at speed. No code required.

Photo Essay in 7 Steps

By Tata Rossi 24 days ago, Amateur Photography

The question of how to create a photo essay bothers many photographers, publicists and journalists. A standard photo essay allows “telling” a whole story without a single word.

Based on the huge number of topics available, photo essay can be different: strict and official, funny and amusing, dedicated to one or several shootings. I’ll try to reveal all the secrets of creating a photo essay below.

What Is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a form of visual narrative, a way to present a story through a series of images. This technique is frequently used for producing photo reports, which can cause emotions and help people understand the topic without a single word. A photo essay is a series of photographs that tell viewers about an event, incident, or a person.

There are lots of praiseworthy photo essay examples . I have prepared several interesting ideas that can encourage you to undertake the task of creating your first photo essay.

Narrative Photo Essay Examples

If you want to create a photo essay, but cannot find the perfect theme, this is not a reason to give up. You can easily come up with something interesting if you follow the recent photography trends and use them in every imaginable way during the shooting.

1. A Day in the Life

Those just starting to learn photography, often undertake A Day in the Life photography assignment, so consider it as a wonderful jumping-off point for your career as well. Such a photo essay can depict a busy day of a farmer or the artist, cover the daily household chores of parents or their pastime with their children, or perpetuate a popular high school student.

2. Landmark or History

Taking pictures of historical monuments or landmarks, both well-known and not so famous, involves the usage of different approaches, angles, depths and lighting. Why learning how to create a photo essay with a focus on a historical item, you can use reflections or shoot with the help of drones.

This will help you find the perfect focal point and show different scenes with the same subject. A great example is the North Korean architecture in The Vintage Socialist Architecture of North Korea by Raphael Olivier.

3. Behind the Scenes Photo Essay

In this case, a photo essay helps to open the veil of secrecy in creating a specific product – theatre plays, filming, portrait photo sessions, etc. All in all, this is a great way to capture events from the very beginning to the end.

With this type of photo essay you can demonstrate the subtleties of creating something and how it all evolves in perfect harmony. One of the best photo essay examples of this type is Behind the Scenes with Michelle Obama created by Callie Shell.

4. Social Event

Local events such as fundraising, art shows or festivals can become a great place to start creating a photo essay. Impartial photographs of people working, performing or tasting local food can be compiled into a photo story along with background objects that help feel the mood better.

5. Sports Event

While building photo essay, you need to snap photos that convey the atmosphere of the sports event documented, the emotions of fans when the team wins or losses, etc. You can also present the story of one or more athletes, their path to the coveted victory. Such a sports photo essay will definitely impress those, who can’t imagine their life without sports.

A selection of photos with cute or funny animals won’t leave anyone indifferent. Such a photo essay often gets lots of hits; they are often shared on social networks, which means that the photographer who created such an interesting story is sure to be recognized.

Such a series often becomes immensely popular. There are a great variety of photo essay ideas for photography of nature to choose from – create a collection of photos of all the lakes in his city, shoot the same place in different time of the year, etc. The main thing is to unleash your creativity and work hard to take really original shots.

8. Man’s Fate

A photo series about the fate and life of any individual can cause strong emotions, giving viewers the opportunity to look into the world of another person. You need to think about an interesting photo essay introduction and develop your idea, spending months or even years covering the story of a particular person.

9. Local Customs

This is ideal for travel photographers, especially if they often visit countries with extremely interesting and unusual cultures. Tiny details can become the key elements of a photo essay.

Pay attention to the patterns of the native clothes, peculiarities of their cuisine, ornaments, etc. You can go even further and organize a portrait photo session for indigenous people.

10. Alternative Lifestyles

If you have acquaintances whose lifestyle is different from the usual one, why not create a photo essay dedicated to this topic? For example, you can show how modern hippies live, or why people prefer a village to a metropolis, or photograph representatives of one of the youth subcultures.

11. Concert

One of the most interesting photo essay assignments ideas is taking photos at the concert. The genre of the music is of no importance, as the outcome is bound to be eye-pleasing and intriguing. Try to concentrate not only on the performers, but also on the audience.

12. Pressing Social Topic

If there is a sore point in any social sphere, you can try showing the situation from all possible sides. Today the topic of “perfect human body” is losing popularity, while more and more people are talking about the inner world. To cover this theme in your photo essay assignment, you can photograph people with different weight, body type, height, professions, etc. The diversity is at its peak.

How to Create a Photo Essay: 7 Steps

Before you begin, you need to have a distinct photo essay outline in your head or on the paper, which is even better. Try to predict all possible problems and solve the related issues. For example, determine a budget, schedule a photoshoot, and if there is a need for a script, write it. Then you can get down to work.

Decide on a Message

What do you want to say with this photo story? The message should be related to the mission and vision of a photographer or your client. For example, you can choose nature. Think about photo essay ideas, what topics you want to touch – protection, water contamination, picturesque landscapes, etc.

Map Out Your Further Actions

Identify a subject or group of subjects for photographing. Coordinate the time and place that is suitable for both a photographer and the models. Photo essay doesn’t have to be done in a day (although, it can be), therefore, if the shooting lasts for several days, work on the schedule.

Also plan micro-topics and think about the angles you will photograph from. This may seem like needless measures, but they can greatly affect the success of your photojournalism essay.

Select Photos

At this stage you must demonstrate your professionalism. All photos must have the same message. Consider your target audience and choose the pictures that will surely interest it. Any photo essay tells a certain story, so be sure to place your photos in a logical order. To grasp what I mean, check any photo essay project examples created by W. Eugene Smith, who is believed to be a real pro in this sphere.

Make Sure You Have a Variety of Image

Images in a photo essay shouldn’t be identical. Such a story is unlikely to arise much interest in your audience. Therefore, try to alternate frames with different angles, different people, etc.

Edit Your Photos

You need to crop your photos, so they have an identical size before uniting them into a photo essay. Many people learning how to do a photo essay often neglect this recommendation and the results of their work look chaotic.

Besides, if you decide to add a frame, it should be the same in each photo. The border is optional, but may be useful in certain cases. Write a caption for each photo with a simple explanation of what is happening. You can look through the photo essay examples on popular websites to understand what will suit.

Choose Only the Best Photos

Professionals recommend selecting 100 shots right after the shooting. Then look through the selected images once again and leave 25. Repeat the process and put aside 15 images, so your final number is 10. These are your best photos.

Don’t think that more images mean a better story. A short report with a clearly understandable meaning will have a more pronounced impact than a long and meaningless one. As successful examples of photo story projects, you can check the works of Marco Venturini Autieri .

Add the “Call for Action” Element

Calling for support makes sense after you give the viewers a chance to find out their mission with the help of a photo essay. This will allow the audience to feel their importance, to grasp the whole point of your project. Only in this case can you count on a full understanding and emotional support from visitors of your site.

Tips for Beginners

While learning how to make a photo essay, you may think that this task is too difficult. Follow these simple rules and you can make a truly high-quality and interesting photo essay that is guaranteed to attract viewers’ attention.

1. Look through examples of photo story projects. Before you get down to work, examine several examples of such photo stories. Pay special attention to photo essay that is similar to your chosen topic. Pay attention to the style of the photos, how they are arranged, if there are certain captions, etc.

2. Ask experienced colleagues for advice. If you are acquainted with the authors of famous photo essays, get in touch with them and ask to give you some professional recommendations. Thus you can get useful tips that will not only help simplify the process, but also make your works more interesting to the audience.

3. Take care of the quality of your photos. Your photo essays should be pleasant to look at, which means you need to use images of the highest quality. While performing culling, get rid of blurry and failed shots.

4. Don’t be afraid to step aside a bit from the initial idea. It is advisable to create a photo essay planning guide to know what you should do next, but don’t be afraid to amend it in the process of work. Sometimes the photo story goes into another direction quite organically, and your job as a photojournalist is to extract the right story from the images you’ve taken, even if it was not an original idea.

5. Prepare decent equipment. The quality of your photo report directly depends on the gear you use. While shooting in the fresh air, I recommend choosing any of the best cameras for street photography . For studio shooting, you need a professional camera, for example, the Canon 80D paired with the Canon 10-18mm f/4-5.6 IS STM, which is the best lens for Canon 80d .

6. Edit your images. Be sure to edit each photo that you are going to use for a photo essay. It is important that they look coherent. To cope with the task you can use Lightroom . With its help, you can qualitatively improve RAW files and bring tones and shades to perfection, creating a real harmony.

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How to Make a Photo Essay

Last Updated: September 27, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Heather Gallagher . Heather Gallagher is a Photojournalist & Photographer based in Austin, Texas. She runs her own photography studio named "Heather Gallagher Photography" which was voted Austin's Best Family Photographer and top 3 Birth Photographers in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Heather specializes in family Photojournalism and has over 15 years of experience documenting individuals, families, and businesses all over the world. Her clients include Delta Airlines, Oracle, Texas Monthly, and her work has been featured in The Washington Post and The Austin American Statesman. She is a member of the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers (IAPBP). There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 287,247 times.

Photo essays are an increasingly popular medium for journalists, bloggers, and advertisers alike. Whether you’re trying to show the emotional impact of a current news story or share your hobby with friends and family, images can capture your topic in a personal, emotional, and interesting way. Creating a photo essay can be as easy as choosing a topic, getting your images, and organizing the essay.

Things You Should Know

• Reflect long and hard on your topic, considering your audience, current events, and whether to go for a thematic or narrative approach.
• Create an outline, including your focus image, establishing shot, clincher, and other image details.
• When you finally take your photos, remember to take more photos than you think you need and don't be afraid to let the project change as you create it.

Finding Your Topic

• 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 tool by publishing it on your website or social media page.
• Create a how to photo essay to help others learn about your hobby, so they can take it up as well. [4] X Research source

• Thematic subjects are big ideas including things like local gun laws, at-risk youth, or welcoming home soldiers.
• Narrative essays can include a day in the life, how to tutorials, or progression series that show changes over time such as tracking a building project.
• If you have been given a commission or specific publication to work with, you may need to choose a topic that will fit a thematic or narrative approach as outlined by the publication. Make sure you are aware of any publication guidelines in advance.

Organizing Your Shoot

• Consider how difficult it will be to get permission to photograph your subjects. If you already have relationships established, it will be easier. If not, allow for extra time to get permission and/or waivers.
• Schools, daycares, and other places with kids typically have more regulations on who can be photographed and for what purposes. You’ll usually need to get parental approval, in addition to permission from those in charge. [7] X Research source

• Consider doing interviews with people involved prior to the shoot. Ask things like, “What’s the most interesting thing you do during this event?” or “How long have you been involved with this organization?”
• These interviews are also a great opportunity to ask for permission and get waivers.
• If you’re going to visit a job site, charitable event, or other large group activity, ask the person or persons in charge to explain what you’re doing to everyone before you arrive. [8] X Research source

Capturing Your Images

• Many new photographers stay away from high ISO shots because they allow more light through producing a “busy” image. However, these images are often easier to edit later as there’s more information to work with. [11] X Research source
• If it’s very bright in your location or you’ve set up artificial lighting, a low ISO is likely adequate, For darker areas, you’ll likely need to use a higher ISO.
• If you need one second to capture an image with a base ISO of 100, you’ll need one eighth of a second to capture with an ISO of 800. [13] X Research source

• Even snapping candid shots, which you may need to capture quickly, take a few moments to think about how objects are placed to make the most impact.
• Always think about how the main subject’s surroundings play into the overall image, and try to create different levels and points of interest.
• You can change composition as part of the editing process in some cases, so if you can’t line up the shot just right, don’t let it deter you from capturing the image you want. [14] X Research source

Organizing the Essay

• If you’re doing a day in the 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 be an apt focus shot.
• If your essay is about the process of building a home, your focus image may be something like a contractor and architect looking at blue prints with the framed up home in the background.
• If your essay is about a family reunion, the focus image may be a funny shot of the whole family making faces, pretending to be fighting, or a serious photo of the family posed together. Capture whatever seems natural for the family. [18] X Research source

• Regardless of essay type, you’ll need a focus image to grab attention.
• Use an overall shot to give context to your essay. Where is it, when is it happening, who’s involved, what’s going on, and why should someone be interested? The five “W’s” of journalism are a great way to determine what your overall shot should capture.
• Find your final image. This should be something provocative that asks your viewer to think about the topic.
• Between the focus and overall shot and ending image, include a series of images that move the viewer from the lead-in shots to its result. Use images that build in intensity or draw the viewers further into the essay.

• If the images aren’t telling the story, ask your friends to look at your other photos and ask, “I wanted this image to make this point. You got a different idea. Would any of these images make this point to you more clearly?”
• If the others like the images you’ve chosen, you may still want to ask them to look at your other photos and tell you if they think any of the images you didn’t include should be added in. They may see something you missed. [20] X Research source

• If you're commissioned to add photos to an essay, you should make sure images reflect the written word, but also add emotion and context the writing could not capture. For example, an essay on poverty may include an image of a child and parent living on the street could capture more emotional context.
• Captions should only include information the viewer could not derive from the photo itself. For instance, you can include a date, the subject’s name, or a statistic relevant to your subject in the caption.
• If you choose not to have any text or just a title and some introductory and/or closing words, make sure you convey all necessary information succinctly. [21] X Research source

Expert Q&A

• Be creative with your topics. However, something as simple as "things I like" will suffice so long as you stay creative. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Make sure you're familiar with your camera. It will make the photo composition a lot easier. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Don't get discouraged. It may take several tries to get the desired results in your photos. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://digital-photography-school.com/5-photo-essay-tips/
• ↑ Heather Gallagher. Professional Photojournalist & Photographer. Expert Interview. 8 April 2020.
• ↑ http://improvephotography.com/30816/10-ideas-creative-photo-essays/
• ↑ http://www.apogeephoto.com/how-to-create-a-photo-essay/
• ↑ https://petapixel.com/how-to-create-a-photo-essay/
• ↑ http://photo.journalism.cuny.edu/week-5/
• ↑ http://clickitupanotch.com/2010/12/creating-a-photo-essay/
• ↑ https://photographylife.com/what-is-iso-in-photography
• ↑ https://wiredimpact.com/blog/how-to-make-a-photo-essay-nonprofit/
• ↑ http://digital-photography-school.com/5-tips-for-creating-a-photo-essay-with-a-purpose/
• ↑ https://www.format.com/magazine/resources/photography/how-to-make-photo-essay-examples

About This Article

To make a photo essay, start by selecting a subject that is easy to capture and that inspires you, like a friend or a family pet. Then, decide if you want to present your photo essay as thematic, which shows specific examples of a big idea, or narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end. Next, create an outline of your essay to determine which photos you’ll need, like an establishing shot. Finally, take your photos, select which images you want to use in your essay, and organize them according to your theme before adding text to explain the essay. To learn how to capture the best images, keep scrolling! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to create a photo essay: Step-by-step guide with examples

Published by Feature Shoot • 3 years ago

In the 1930s, Life magazine did something radical; while most magazines of the time prioritized words, its editors published pages and pages of photographs, sometimes accompanied only by brief captions.

Over the next few decades, Life ’s photographers—Gordon Parks, Margaret Bourke-White, and W. Eugene Smith among them—would help pioneer a new genre known as the “photo essay.” They often photographed ordinary people—families, midwives, laborers, and more—and shared their stories with an audience of millions.

By 1945, Life was the most popular magazine in America, read by an estimated 13.5 million people. Throughout its run, the magazine published 200,000 pages of photo essays, proving that often, images could tell stories, promote understanding, and inspire action at least as well as the written word.

75 years later, the photo essay remains a gold standard for photographers of all genres. While it’s a medium most commonly associated with photojournalism and documentary photography, modern photo essays can take many forms, from newspaper spreads to wedding albums. A photo essay is a collection of images that work together to tell a story.

Photo essays come in all forms, from day-in-the-life series to long-term documentaries; they can feature people, animals, events, or landmarks. They might capture international news and politics or uncover the lives of regular citizens overlooked by mainstream media. They can convey a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, or they can be thematic, built around a common subject.

Below, we share our tips for how to make a photo essay, separated into eight steps, with inspiring examples from photo history as well as the 500px community.

Do your research

When finding a subject for your essay, it’s often a good idea to start close to home. Look for topics that are both original and accessible. Follow the local news, talk to members of your community, and keep an eye out for those untold, hidden stories. In 2018, for example, Skanda Gautam , a photojournalist with The Himalayan Times daily newspaper in Nepal, created a remarkable essay on air pollution in Kathmandu.

By then, the air quality was so poor that it posed serious threats to the public, and Skanda, who calls the city home, set out to document everyday life for its citizens. He photographed the polluted streets and activists crying out for change; the images were shared around the world, bringing much-needed attention to this pressing issue.

Stories like this one exist everywhere, if you’re willing to look for them. Find subjects that affect you personally or that resonate with you. Maybe it’s a protest taking place in your hometown or a community group making waves in your neighborhood. Once you find a subject that interests you, dig deeper and do some research. Check to see if any other photographers have already covered it, and if not, reach out to the people involved to see if you can learn more.

This news-gathering and research phase might take a while, but it’s the first step toward creating a meaningful photo essay.

Build trust

When we hear the term “photo essay,” one of the first works that comes to mind is Country Doctor , shot by W. Eugene Smith for Life magazine in 1948. The essay told the story of Dr. Ernest Ceriani, a general practitioner in Kremmling, Colorado, who served as the only physician across a 400-square-mile area.

Smith spent 23 days in the Rocky Mountains documenting Dr. Ceriani and his life’s work. In the beginning, he famously shot without film in his camera; the idea was to get Dr. Ceriani to feel comfortable with him before actually taking any pictures. Eventually, it was like Smith wasn’t even there; he faded into the background.

Trust forms the foundation of every great photo essay, so spend some time getting to know your subjects—without the camera. Take as much time as you need to do this, even if it’s weeks, months, or years. Tell your subject right off the bat what your intentions are, and keep the lines of communication open.

Keep an open mind

Sometimes, you’ll go into a project with an idea of what you want only to find another story lingering beneath the surface. In 2009, for instance, when the award-winning photojournalist Moe Zoyari was on assignment for United Press International (UPI) to cover the presidential election in Afghanistan, he also took the time to document daily life in its cities.

Over 44 days, he discovered a new project, ultimately titled Life After War , about the vibrancy of civilian life and the resilience of the people. He saw the scars of war, but he also found children playing and local businesses thrumming with life. Moe’s series is a testament to the importance of an open mind; allow your instincts to guide you, and take as many photos as possible, even if they aren’t what you originally planned.

The final story might reveal itself later, when you’re back home at the computer, but while you’re out there in the field, take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself. Look for overlooked details, interesting moments, and unexpected happenings.

Aim for variety

We’ve already mentioned the importance of taking as many photos as you can, but you also want to look for ways to make them all different. As the legendary photo editor Howard Chapnick once put it, great photo essays avoid redundancy, and every image captures a different perspective.

For some, that might mean using different lenses or angles, getting details as well as wide shots, and for others, it might mean capturing one subject in many different settings and scenarios. You can combine portraits and landscapes. In short, it’s not just about quantity; it’s also about diversity.

When the Australian photographer Drew Hopper documented life on the River Ganges, for example, he woke up early and stayed out late; he saw a man performing his morning prayers, women doing laundry, and boats heading out at dusk. In capturing all these moments, he painted a dynamic and nuanced portrait of a single place, rich with meaning and layers of understanding.

Limit yourself

In the heyday of Life magazine, photographers were at least somewhat beholden to editors in terms of image selection and layout. There was only room for a fixed number of images, and because they captured hundreds if not thousands of frames, many had to be cut.

Today’s photographers aren’t limited by the cost of film or limited space; using social media, they can publish as many images as they wish. But at the same time, editing remains at the heart of the photo essay, so be objective and ruthless. Sometimes, the most powerful stories are told with a select few images. Give yourself a number—say, ten to fifteen images—and then try to hold yourself to it.

Cut any images that don’t serve the larger story—or any that feel redundant—and then ask friends and colleagues for their opinions. Sometimes, seeking an outside perspective can be invaluable; you might be attached to an image emotionally, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the strongest of the bunch. Don’t rush the process; take several passes over several days or weeks, gradually narrowing down your images.

Also, keep in mind that even if you cut an image from your essay, that doesn’t mean you have to discard it completely. Parks, Smith, and Bourke-White had countless photos cut from publication; many have been published and exhibited throughout the decades.

Trust your gut

Photo essays require an investment of your time, energy, and empathy, so even if a friend suggests you cut this photo and keep that one, the final choice is yours. If you feel strongly about an element of your story, trust that instinct.

In 1961, Gordon Parks did just that. He’d spent weeks documenting the life of a boy named Flavio da Silva and his family, who lived in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, but when his editors saw the images, they initially wanted to include only one photo of Flavio. Still, Parks insisted, and in the end, he convinced them to publish a full ten-page spread focusing on Flavio and his family. They remained in touch for years afterward.

Trusting your gut can be especially important when it comes to the first and last image in your essay. These are your bookends; one introduces your audience to the subject, and the other leaves a final impression. Make sure to select images that pack an emotional punch and make a strong statement.

Incorporate text and captions

From 2014-2017, the architecture photographer Chris Forsyth created a captivating photo essay about the metro stations of Berlin, Montreal, Munich, and Stockholm. Part of the joy of discovery came in researching their history, designs, and nuances, and his captions always provide insight into the meaning and significance of each space.

There’s no rule that says you have to include text in your photo essay, but often, captions can go a long way. When documenting your story, keep a journal of some kind where you can jot down locations, dates, and descriptions. If you interview someone, take notes. You don’t have to publish these notes, but they’ll help you keep track of information as it comes.

Publish your images

In 1951, three years after C ountry Doctor , W. Eugene Smith photographed Maude Callen, a midwife and nurse in South Carolina, for Life . The piece inspired readers to make donations and send food; in the end, $20,000 was raised and used to open the Maude Callen clinic and support her work. One subscriber put it this way : “In all the years I have been reading Life , I have never been so moved or affected by anything as by your article on Maude Callen.”

Photo essays still have the power to transform lives, except these days, you don’t need to be published in Life to reach millions of people. Whether you’re publishing with a magazine or sharing your work online, your images have the potential to create change and make a difference, so when you’re ready, don’t be afraid to share them with the world.

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Photography for the Serious Amateur

How To Create a Memorable Photo Essay

• March 17, 2007
• Photo Project

In this Photo Project, we are going to explore how you can develop “Photo Stories”, or “Photo Essays”. Being able to tell a visual story without too many words is an important part of your capacity as a visual storyteller, and one skill that I had to take time and effort to develop. There are a number of different skills that you can develop and fine tune as you conceptualize, write, and photograph these stories, and learning how to create an engaging Photo Essay is one skill that you will take a lifetime to develop. That’s a guarantee.

As you develop your style, and your voice you will find your own ways to document, interpret and display the topic that you want to speak about, but let’s start with some simple steps that almost anyone will find useful!

Table of Contents

What Are Photo Stories?

Photo Stories or photo essays are a sequence of photographs that tell a story by themselves when placed together. They aim to inform, educate and to invoke emotion and empathy in the viewer. They’re a form of documentary photojournalism, and you’ll see them frequently in magazines along with some text. One of my favourite sources of photo stories is National Geographic magazine. You can usually understand most of what the text is about simply by looking at the accompanying photographs. Of course, the content is gripping too, but for many people it is the photographs that make the magazine what it is.

How Can I Photograph a Photo Story?

Now, down to business. It’s easy to start making photo stories, but as you develop your skill, you’ll find that it can also be challenging. Here are a few guiding steps to help you get started with creating engaging Photo Essays.

Pick a Topic to Document in Your Photo Essay

You would start by choosing a topic, preferably something which is close to your heart and easy to access. Try doing something like “A day in the life of…” series for your family or just a series of photographs of something in your neighbourhood. This will get you in the mood for more challenging series…

You could then move on to more interesting time-based stories, like capturing certain buildings and their interiors over the passage of a day, or a year! The working of a local charity, featuring the key people behind it and the work that they do, the people their work benefits would make an impressive photo story. Here’s a decent attempt at capturing a Russian, Ilya, and the 44 disabled dogs that he cares for. The photo story is in Russian , but it could be in any language and not make much of a difference. The story is still there.

Don’t Feel Intimidated By The Task

Photo stories are most often seen in journalism and reportage of events as in this photo story about Riots in Dublin but there’s no reason why they can’t be used to tell interesting everyday stories too, like this “ Story of a parrot ” by Subhasish or Surreal stories like Xylonets ‘ “ If You Go Out to the Barn Tonight . . . You Better Not Go Alone ” and this one about the “ Modern Family ” by bihua .

Try To Capture Moments and Emotions

Remember that what you are trying to do is to capture the key moments that define what ever it is you are photographing. You can imagine that you’re capturing multiple slices of time that convey the story that you want to tell. Capture different types of images, portraits, action shots, sequences, establishing shots showing locations and environments. Don’t hold back, capture it all.

Among those shots, also try capturing a variety of emotions , good moments, sad moments, interactions between people, interactions between things – objects and places – and also capture some of the surroundings in these shots to convey some of the contextual information that can’t be put into words.

Essential skills that you’ll need will be good composition, a discerning eye for detail that could add meaning to the photograph and good communication skills (if your story is about people). But, worry not if this list sounds daunting, for we are all learning… That’s why I asked you to start with an easy topic, remember?

Creating photo-stories helps you to refine your skill in composition and portraiture, and if you’re doing something outdoors, maybe even your landscape skills. Remember, there are no hard and fast rules as long as you capture the essence of what you are trying to convey.

Get Familiar With Your Equipment

If you are intimately familiar with your equipment, you are free to focus your attention on the world around you, and the scenes that are unfolding around you all the time. That’s not to say that you should not pay attention to the technical aspects of photography… By all means, be aware of your exposure settings, and the aesthetics of the photograph that you’re trying to capture, but also be aware of your surroundings, and observant of what is about to happen next .

Edit Before You Show

In writing, an editor is a person who looks over your work, understands what it is about, and makes or suggests changes to make the piece more cohesive, understandable and polished. They may suggest that you add or remove content of the overall piece to be more understandable. You should do the same with your Photo Essay.

Once you have your photographs ready, look at them objectively and try to remove all the fluff . This is difficult as it requires you to put aside your own attachment to the images that you have just now captured so lovingly. However, removing extra images from the ones that you will eventually display makes the overall story more understandable, easier to take in, and quicker to get your message across.

If you feel that you have missed out an important part of the overall message, you may want to go back and take a few more photographs to complete your story.

Presenting Your Photo Story

The ideal old-world finish to the photo-story is to print your pictures out and paste them in a photo-book with larger pictures wherever you want to emphasise the photograph and to show some extra detail in it. You could also put together a multimedia presentation like this one made by the baltimore sun . These days, its not all that difficult to do. Otherwise you can just put them together in a folder on your computer and number them 001, 002, and so on so that they are displayed in order when seen with a slide show software. [TIP:] The two zeros in front of numerals zero to nine ensure that they are not displayed just before ten and twenty.

Remember that your work needs a title and a short introduction to set the stage. After that, let the images speak for themselves.

Each time you create a photo essay, you will learn more, and it will be come an easier process as you become more adept at knowing what you’re trying to achieve with each photograph. But each step forward will most likely also show you a few more steps down your journey. There is so much to learn on the way to your destination.

Share Your Work With Us

We’d love to see your work! Feel free to tag us on Instagram , and use the hashtag #BPTprojects . I encourage other members of the BPT community to offer their thoughts in a constructive manner so that we can all grow together. Remember to be kind, and generous with your critique.

You can also leave a link to your photo-essay in the comments down below.

Challenge Yourself with More Photo Projects

If you’re interested in more photo projects, check out the other Photo Projects that we already have, ready for you at the Photo Project page . Get into the game and continue to develop your eye, with more projects like this.

Thank you for reading this, and we hope that you have a great deal of fun working on your first photo-essay.

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• Susheel Chandradhas

Susheel Chandradhas is a Product Photographer and Filmmaker based in India. He has been taking photographs (almost) all his life. He has a diploma and a bachelors degree in Visual Communication, where his classmates all believed that he would write a book on photography... Instead, he writes on this website (because - isn't a community more fun?).

His passions include photography, parkour, wide-angle lenses, blue skies, fire extinguishers, and fast computers.

In addition to writing for Beyond Photo Tips, Susheel is a staff writer for Fstoppers.com , and owns and runs ColoursAlive, a photography, and video production studio.

You can connect with Susheel on Twitter , Instagram , or LinkedIn .

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Hey, thanks for this brilliant idea! I’ve started Bullet Journalling and photo stories will be the perfect way to supplement what I write. I’ll report back when I’m done! 😀

I’m sure everyone here would love to see some of your photo stories, if they aren’t too personal, of course. We have a group on Flickr, so if you’re up for it you can upload to Flickr, and share your stories in the group. https://www.flickr.com/groups/beyondphototips/

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Published: March 17, 2007 | Last Updated: June 9, 2023

Start Your First Photo Essay Step by Step

Images rule the world. Photo essays can visualize the rise and fall of the rich, the misery and struggle of the poor, the talent and creativity of artists, or the great work of average people, which makes our daily life possible. This structure can help you organize your first photo essay. Preparation can take quite a while, especially when you work on a project besides your regular job. Sometimes, it takes years to find the right person or get permissions to shoot. Here are some basic steps for creating good stories.

Some photography projects need a lot of preparation.

What Is a Photo Essay?

Photo essay, photo reportage, photo story. All these terms describe a collection of images about one story or subject. While photo stories and photo reportage are usually associated with a chronological course of events, a photo essay is a wider concept of storytelling.

Stories and reportage are often said to include the beginning, a middle part, and an end. Photo essays don’t need these three ingredients to cover a topic. The photographer creates a collection of images, which represent the topic from his or her point of view. Although photo stories are also told by a photographer through his perspective, an essay seems even more subjective.

A photo story captures an event from the beginning to the end.

In photo essays, the photographer’s perspective is hence more present: He or she selects the topic, the subjects, the focus, and the style of photography. There is no strict course of events to be followed, the photographer creates a common thread through the topic itself.

Doing it right is almost impossible. As for almost any topic, critique will be louder as you get further into sensitive topics. After all, discussions and debates are part of democracy. As long as you know that you did the best you could, you can be proud of your work. Consciously going through your project step by step is the foundation of every good photo essay.

Find a Topic of Interest

The first step towards your first photo essay is selecting a topic. The closer your topic is to your own environment, the more accessible it might be. Any topic is fine, as long as it seems original or novel. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but you should find a subject of interest. The flowers in front of your window kitchen? Rather not. A group of volunteers in your city? Cool! A handicraft that is going to die out, soon? Great!

Religion is one of my favourite topics. People all over the world can understand it, even if they don't share the same passion.

A good photo essay needs emotion. While you don’t need crying people in front of your camera, you should choose a topic that leaves some room for empathy and identification with your participants. Your camera should build a bridge between the photographed and the audience.

Of course, a photo essay about nature is also possible, but it shouldn’t be a focus, here.

Research Your Topic Intensively

Step number two is the most important one: Do your homework. There are two big reasons why you should take it seriously. Firstly, you will need to defend your work if you want to publish it. Secondly, it’s irresponsible to create a false image.

Documenting other people’s lives needs more skills and knowledge than handling a camera. Especially when we are working with sensitive issues, we should always critically question our own prejudice. Good research can help to create new perspectives rather than recreating our preconceptions.

Sensitive topics need more care in every step.

Preparation also helps you find a suitable perspective, suitable participants, and suitable venues.

Today, research is easier than ever. Online research should help you get an overview of your topic. You can also find the work of others that you might find inspiring, but at some point, every good research should lead you beyond the web. There is hardly any topic which has not caught the attention of scientists and journalists. Take a look at scientific articles, magazines, newspapers, and books to get an in-depth inside of the topic.

Find a Contact Person

99 percent of documentary work must not be shot secretly. If you want to shoot an essay about people or institutions in your area, feel free to contact them. Meet them first without your camera and get to know them as humans and not your subjects.

Many people are more afraid of a photographer than the photographer is afraid of meeting new people. Finding insiders and make them become your participants will improve your photo essay dramatically. Having a participant in your story is worth more than only photographing a subject. A subject is only photographed, a participant has an own voice and will provide you with more information.

Also, be prepared that you might need to change or even ditch a topic. Always ask yourself the question: Are you the right person to tell the story? Personally, I think, as long your participants are fine with it and you don’t misuse a given structure of power, you should feel free to go.

People might ask you why you want to photograph them. Better be prepared but avoid making promises about the outcome. When you’re unsure about what will happen to your photographs, tell the truth. Never act as a liberator and tell people that your photographs will better their situation or give voice to their cause. Too many times, that won’t happen.

Go Out and Do More Research

As soon as you reduced your future photo essay to a topic, a group of participants, and venue, you need to go back to your homework. Find out everything, you can. Search for names, check promising locations on Google Maps and get a better idea of the best way to present your topic.

Now that you are in contact with your participants, you can also go out and do your own research in the field. Spending a day with a participant will tell you a lot about your topic and the environment of your participants. You can also check if your participants use you to promote their own cause. Especially in political photo essays, that’s a big issue. The more time you spend with the participants, the closer you get to the truth. While it’s easy to stage a shooting, it’s hard to stage a whole day.

Not photographing right away will also help you create a bigger picture in your mind. As soon as you got your camera with you, you might be too focused on your gear and miss important details. Sometimes, the most interesting and surprising pictures can be found behind you. You won’t see them when you only look through your viewfinder.

Sometimes, the most interesting stories are the little details behind you.

Shoot the Photographs

Once you’re done with all the aspects of research, you should grab your camera and shoot. Make a plan, what you want to capture, but always be ready to improvise. No day is like the other and there will always be unpredictable events. That’s what’s most exciting about shooting a photo essay.

Nils Heininger is a photographer on the road. He loves long rides on motorbikes, camels and old trains. While discovering the world, he uses his camera to share stories from people across the globe. With a Micro-four thirds in his pocket and a full-frame in his bag, he's always ready for new adventures.

Thanks Nils! A ton of great insight into a subject that often eludes me. I think that's the next step on my own journey to becoming a better photographer and story teller. It's also a good reason to slow down, spend more time, and become more involved in individual places while traveling. See less, but more deeply.

• Learn Photography ▾
• Picfair Resources ▾

How to create a photo essay

• Author Picfair
• Level Intermediate
• Reading Time 8 minutes

Cover images by James Gourley

Create a meaningful set of images by producing a photo essay or story

A photographic essay is a deeper and more meaningful way to use your photography than a single image tends to be. Typically associated with documentary and news-gathering, a photo essay doesn’t necessarily have to follow those genres, but can be used as a way to tell a longer or more in-depth story about all manner of subjects. Creating a photo essay however is about more than just taking a set of images and presenting them as one package. They require more forethought, planning and editing than many other forms of photography, but the results are often more rewarding, too. Follow our guide below if it’s something you’d like to consider putting together. ‍ ‍

1 Find a story

The first thing you will need to do is to figure out what you want to do your photo essay on.

"Inspiration can come from anywhere, but a good starting to place is to look at news sources to see if something catches your eye."

Inspiration can come from anywhere, but a good starting to place is to look at news sources to see if something catches your eye. If you’re not sure where to begin, you could start by looking at what’s going on in your local area - if nothing else, it’ll make the practicalities easier. Start jotting down ideas that you can explore and figure out exactly why you want to do it. Try to be as active as you can in discovering what’s going on in the world and eventually something will keep your attention for long enough that it will seem like the right idea.

‍ 2 Do your research

‍ Next, try and find out as much as you can about whatever it is you want to create your photo story on.

"If you find that others have done photo essays on the same or similar subject, then that’s something you should be aware of."

Importantly, you’ll need to see what else already exists out there - if anything - on your story. If you find that others have done photo essays on the same or similar subject, then that’s something you should be aware of. That’s not to say that you can’t also do one, but it pays to be prepared so that you can perhaps approach it in a different way. You’ll also need to do some research into the practicalities that will be required to help you along the way. You’ll need to look into people you should be contacting, how you will get to the destination (if it’s not local), any requirements you need for visiting the location, any restrictions on what you can and cannot shoot and so on. Doing as much research ahead of time as possible will make the project run smoothly when it comes to actually shooting it. ‍

3 Make a structured plan  

Once your research is complete, it’s time to make a detailed and structured plan about how you’re going to go about shooting your photo essay. It doesn’t have to be completely rigid so as to disallow flexibility, but sorting out shoot times, shoot dates, shoot locations will give you something to work with, even if things eventually go off plan. Some photo essays can be shot in an afternoon, others might take several months or even years to complete. Having an idea of how long you want to spend on a particular project can help focus your mind and give you an end date for when you might want to publish the essay. It’s also useful to tell subjects and those involved with the shoot a rough timeline of events. You might find it helpful to organise everything together in one easily accessible place - such as online calendars and spreadsheets, so you can quickly refer to anything you need to.

4 Tell a story

Your photo essay needs to be more than just a set of images on a similar theme.

"...including some introductory or contextualising shots before you get into the heart of the subject matter is a good approach."

Think of it exactly like a story, which usually requires a beginning, a middle and an end. That’s a very simplistic way of putting it, but photographically, including some introductory or contextualising shots before you get into the heart of the subject matter is a good approach. There might not necessarily be a neat “resolution” to whatever story you’re trying to tell, and it might not always be a happy ending, but having that at least in your mind as you go along can help to create a neatly-packaged story that has a definite and well-constructed narrative.

5 Stick with a cohesive style

Exactly how you’re going to shoot your photo essay is entirely up to you, but in order for your story to have a cohesive look, it’s usually best if you stick to the same style throughout.

"With a photo essay, you want the images to hang extremely well together as a set, so keeping things consistent will help you do that..."

That could be as simple as not mixing black and white and colour, always using a particular lens, always shooting in a particular way, or even applying the same post-processing techniques to the finished shots. With a photo essay, you want the images to hang extremely well together as a set, so keeping things consistent will help you do that - that is, unless you’re actively trying to use disparate styles as an artistic or storytelling technique. ‍

5 Create a strong edit

The chances are that in the process of creating your photo essay, you will have shot dozens, if not hundreds of images.

"It can help to step away from your essay for at least a few days if you can to give yourself some distance and perspective - don’t be afraid to be brutal and keep your final selection down to only those that are the strongest or the best."

For the final edit of your photo story, you need to make sure that the images selected to appear are the strongest of the set, with each adding something unique to the finished story. Try to avoid “padding out” your story with too many fillers, even if you think they are strong images on their own. It’s a good idea to avoid too much repetition, and here again you should look to include images that create a strong story arc with a defined beginning, middle and end. It can help to step away from your essay for at least a few days if you can to give yourself some distance and perspective - don’t be afraid to be brutal and keep your final selection down to only those that are the strongest or the best. There’s no defined number for how many images should be included in a final story, but as a general rule, you’ll probably want it to be under 20 for the most impact.  ‍

6 Ask for input

It’s very easy to get so close to your subject and your images that you become blind to any flaws in them, or the structure of your story. Asking for advice and input from somebody you trust can help to tighten up your story even further.

"Asking for advice and input from somebody you trust can help to tighten up your story even further."

In certain situations, it can be helpful to ask the subject of the photographs themselves what they think, to make it more of a collaborative process - but you should be able to determine whether that’s appropriate on a case-by-case basis. If you have any contacts who are photographers, editors or publishers, asking them to cast an eye over your finished story is a good idea, too. ‍

7 Add some text  

It can be a good idea to add some text or individual captions for a photo essay, to give some background information and context to whatever is shown in the pictures. If you’re not a writer, try to keep it as basic as possible - including things such as names, locations and dates. A short introduction to the piece to give some background information is useful, too. Ask somebody you trust to check it over for sense, clarity and mistakes.

8 Get the story seen

Once your story is complete and you’re happy with it, the next stage is to get it seen - also known as, the hard part.

"Once your story is complete and you’re happy with it, the next stage is to get it seen - also known as, the hard part."

A sensible first step is to create an album on your Picfair store which is dedicated to your photo essay. That way, anybody who is looking for that particular piece won’t have to wade through all of your other work to find it. ‍ You can then start sending out information about the work to editors and publishers, including a link to the album on your Picfair page as an easy way for them to look at it.

Editor's tip: ‍ If you're not sure where to begin with pitching to publishers, be sure to check our how to pitch guide .

Expertly crafted guides and tutorials brought to you directly from the Team Picfair.

Start your own photography store with a beautiful and customisable showcase for your photos, complete with all the tools you need to sell your images as prints & digital downloads. Get 50% off Picfair Plus with the code UPGRADE-50

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How To Create a Meaningful Photography Essay In 5 Steps

The storytelling nature of photography is no secret. It has been used for a century to narrate stories in a very peculiar and effective way. Narrative photographic projects have great power, and regardless of the level of experience and maturity of the photographer, they are very appealing. Find out how to create a meaningful photography essay in 5 steps.

Photography is an amazing art form that portrays interesting stories, events, adventures, life stories, experiences, history and has been around for a very long time having great influence in human life and emotions. Photography freezes the moment and records real life happenings that can be cherished for a lifetime and beyond. To make a good photograph, the photographer needs to look for perfect locations, light, subjects and add a little creativity to it.

Rather than a single image, a set or collections of images are always more powerful in telling a story, bringing in emotions within the viewer and taking/guiding the viewer through the path of the story. It is self consistent, self explanatory and doesn't another person to help with any form of narration. Besides these, photography essays can be a powerful source to bring out suppressed problems in the societies and other issues that are often overlooked.

Photographic essays invite us to research a topic or a theme in depth. Documentary photography is perhaps one of the closest things to “narrative” as we traditionally know it. Even though times have changed, and photography has been open to more independent photographers who don't have the same resource bonanza as the editorial or journalistic photographers of previous decades, this new democracy opens the door to the freedom of speech – a freedom that doesn't have to obey any media interests whatsoever.

Alright, But What Is A Photography Essay In The First Place?

A photo essay is a narrative that uses a group or series of photographs to tell a story, evoke emotions or emphasize a specific concept. The camera plays a utilitarian role, and is pretty far from what the final result can convey to those who read it (either completely or just partially). Photography essays can be either just photographs or photographs with comments, captions or text that accompany them to complete the story.

Some examples of photography essays include collage (simplest form of telling a story), an article, a book, an art show or exhibition, part of a website or a dedicated website and so on. Earlier photography essays were printed in the printing press, but in recent times they have moved to the web which is better in terms of easy access, but will not have a similar effect to looking and reading one physically.

What Elements Should A Photography Essay Include?

Being a narrative in a very holistic form, a photography essay should include the following elements in the most extreme cases:

• Introduction
• Contextualization
• Development
• Continuation

Not all essays will allow such a complex storyline, but we can take some of these elements to formulate an idea of what an essay should include. Therefore, a photo essay is a way to tell a story from beginning to end, with substance and a meaningful content.

Most photographic essays require preparation, organization and direction. Photographic essays began to be published in the 1930s after magazines saw that a story could best be told if text was accompanied by photographs. It is no coincidence that, by this time, cameras had evolved such that they could capture images quickly enough to freeze motion.

Also around this time, portability came into the picture, thanks to the practical nature of 35mm film . It was LIFE magazine that coined the term “Photographic Essay”. One of the most classic photography essays they published is “ Country Doctor ” by W. Eugene Smith . This essay documented Dr. Ceriani’s working life as a traveling doctor in rural areas of the United States.

An essay can be short, mid- or long-term according to various factors that can affect the image recording process. After achieving a certain number of images, the editing process can take place and the story can begin its narrative course. Some things that can affect the recording process are the limited resources we endure while working abroad, and limited access to the subject or the circumstances-recurrence ratio.

Here Are The 5 Steps Involved In Creating A Photography Essay:

1. pick a topic.

Obvious indeed, but choosing a good topic can be difficult without prior research. This is perhaps the hardest part of creating a photographic essay.

The wisest way to approach this is to select a topic that won't be so hard to access – not just because it might be easy. Since it will be accessible, the risk of frustration will be lower than it is when handling a difficult topic. Experience will eventually lead us into working with trickier subjects.

A photo essay doesn't need to always be dramatic and dense. They can be done just for the fun of it, or to discover new possibilities for the photographic narrative. Some topics that are generous when they are addressed are:

• Everyday Work  

2. Choosing The Subjects Correctly

When working on a photographic essay, it is important to choose subjects correctly to keep ourselves within a certain scope. Check to see if your subjects are suitable or the story you are planning to tell and if the stories made with them will be interesting for your target audience.

Even if you don't have a human subject to portray, making use of personification can always be a good guide to avoid losing course. For example, you can focus on silence by stating that the images attempted to capture the presence of silence.

Also, solitude can be addressed without any human elements, but still maintain the purpose of capturing “the human footprint”, for example.

3. Quantity Of Images

It is important to define the number of pictures we are willing to present on our final essay. Defining that number is important for a couple of reasons.

• The first one is because it will set the bar of our project's scope (critical when we start to consider our resources).
• The second one is our readers. The story should be told from start to finish with high impact, just like a short novel or a story. If we stuff our essay with “filler” images, it will ultimately lose its power.  

4. Execution

Let the fun part begin! After defining the previous three elements, we can start shooting to create a great storytelling essay.   Shooting story telling photographs for a photography essay need to be powerful just like how you would shoot individual images to tell a story. Look for perfect light, relevant locations relating to the story to be told, perfect subjects for the story and also compositional guidelines.

Always have introductory and closing images just like how you would have an introduction and conclusion to any essay. Shoot at different light, angles, perspectives, etc. and finalise during the editing part the images that will work together to complete the photography essay.

Editing must not be confused with post-processing, which is an important element of the production of the final photographs. Editing refers to the precise selection of the images that will be included in the essay. There is no perfect quantity or order. You (or your editor) will have to be very objective to select the perfect mix to tell the story the way you want it to be told.

Ak yourself questions like, do the photographs speak the story or will they require accompanying text, is the sequence or series logical, do they stand together and complete the story from start to finish, etc. Try and tell the story with minimal images by avoiding repetition as that can bore the viewers.

Who Can Create A Photography Essay?

Some photographers believe that only photojournalists or documentary photographers can create photography essays. That is not the case – photo essays can be created on any topics like nature, wedding, events, portraits, travel, etc.

Constant planning, execution and checking can and should be applied to all the stages discussed above. You will need to have a powerful title and written text that is strong and concise. Sometimes longer text may be required.

Photo essays are a great way to improve not just as photographers, but as storytellers, too. Viewing photo essays with a reader's mindset will give you a better feeling of photography’s storytelling power.

About Author

Federico has a decade of experience in documentary photography , and is a University Professor in photography and research methodology . He's a scientist studying the social uses of photography in contemporary culture who writes about photography and develops documentary projects. Other activities Federico is involved in photography are curation, critique, education, mentoring, outreach and reviews. Get to know him better here .

Dear Federico, this is a very informative, to the point article for everyone who wants to enter the world of creating photo essays. Currently, I am teaching photography at one of the well known institutes in India and I am playing a role of a honeybee. I am creating a blend of my experience along with such articles and letting the student know what are the pros and cons of various genres of photography and how to go about it. I am obviously giving you credit for this article. Thanks and you are welcome to India. You will love my country!

Frederico, thank you for this article about photo essays! I am both a digital photographer and a freelance writer, and this idea combines both of my passions. What are the most successful photo essays that you have done that you can share?

Hi, Thank you for the article, very interesting, something I would really love to try. I do have one question though, how do I know whether a photo essay would be a success, who would judge it?

I have emailed Frederico asking permission to reprint this article in my photo club’s digital newsletter (www.spsphoto.org). I would like your permission as well. We are having a photo essay competition this month. I will include links to the original article, as well as yours and Federico’s website. Thank you.

Fine by us, Linda. Thanks for asking first.

Thank you, and Federico, for permission to reprint. I am sure my photo club members will appreciate this timely article for our annual photo essay competition !

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Essays About Photography: Top 5 Examples Plus Prompts

Discover the joy of photography by reading our guide on how to write essays about photography, including top essay examples and writing prompts. 

It is truly remarkable what pictures can tell you about the time they were taken and their subjects. For example, a well-taken photograph can expose the horrors of conflict in a war-torn country or the pain endured by victims of racial persecution. At the same time, it can also evoke a mother’s joy after seeing her newborn baby for the first time. Photography is crucial to preserving precious moments that deserve to be remembered.

Photography can be considered a form of art. So much intent is put into a picture’s composition, subject, angle, and lighting. There is a lot of talent, thought, and hard work that goes into photography to produce such thought-provoking images, 

If you are writing essays about photography, you can start by reading some examples. 

5 Essay Examples To Inspire You

1. why photography is a great hobby by lillie lane, 2. the importance of photography by emily holty, 3. why i love photography by bob locher.

• 4.  The Shocking History Of Death Photography by Yewande Ade
• 5. ​​Fashion photography by Sara Page

5 Helpful Prompts On Essays About Photography

1. what is your favorite thing to photograph, 2. why is photography so important, 3. should photography be considered an art form, 4. different types of photography, 5. interpretations of photographs.

“Be imaginative when writing your shots. Photography is about the impact of your chances. The odds are good that nobody will care to check over your picture When it is an item in a background. Discover how to produce a fantastic photograph, and take these skills and use them.”

Lane gives readers tips on taking better photos in this essay. These include keeping balance, choosing a subject widely, investing in certain pieces of equipment, and using the appropriate settings for taking pictures. She stresses that photos must appear as natural as possible, and following her advice may help people to get good pictures. 

“No matter where you go photography plays into your life somehow. We don’t realize how big of an impact photography truly has on us until we see the details of our life hidden in a photograph. When you flip through your photo album and start looking for those details you suddenly realize you are truly blessed. A photograph keeps a moment frozen in time so we have it forever. Something like joy becomes clearer as we look deeper into the photograph.”

Holty does an excellent job of describing what makes photography so appealing to many people. You can take a picture of anything you want if you want to remember it, and photos help us look at the intricacies and details of what we see around us every day. Photography also helps us keep memories in our heads and hearts as time passes by, and most of all, it allows us to document the greatness of our world. It is ever-present in our lives, and we will keep taking photos the more adventures we have. 

“Every day in normal circumstances people take thousands of pictures of the Grand Canyon. It takes very little thought to realize that few if any of these pictures will be in any way noteworthy above pictures already taken. But that said, they are OUR pictures, our personal affirmation of the wonderful scene stretched out below us, and that gives them a special validity for us.”

Locher reflects on the role photography played in his life and why he enjoys it so much, partly due to his spirituality. He previously worked in the photographic equipment business and rekindled his love for photography in his 60s. Photography, to him, is a way of affirming and acknowledging God’s creations around him and appreciating the natural world. He also briefly discusses the importance of equipment and post-editing; however, no photo is perfect. 

4.   The Shocking History Of Death Photography by Yewande Ade

“In fact, it was easier for the photographer if the dead person was in a sleeping position because there would be no need to put him or her in an appropriate position or prop the eyes open. The restful pose gave some families comfort because it made them believe that their loved one(s) had passed on happily and to a more peaceful realm. It gave the semblance of death as a painless act like sleep.”

An interesting phenomenon in the history of the camera is post-mortem photography, in which deceased people, usually children, were posed and made to look “alive,” to an extent, so their loved ones could remember them. This was done as a way of mourning; the subjects were made to look as if they were merely asleep to give their loved ones comfort that they had passed on peacefully and happily. Eventually, a reduction in the death rate led to the end of this practice. 

5. ​​ Fashion photography by Sara Page

“Modern fashion photography differs because photographers aim to be extraordinary with their work, they know that extra ordinary will interest the audience much more It is extremely evident that fashion photography has changed and developed throughout the years, however there is not just reason. It is clear that fashion photography has changed and developed because of advancements in technology, change in attitudes and the introduction of celebrities.”

Page’s essay focuses on the history of fashion photography and some techniques used in practice. It dated back to 1911 and astonished the public with glamorous photos of people wearing perfectly-styled outfits. As the years have gone on, photographers have taken the lighting of the photos more into account, as well as their settings. In addition, editing software such as Photoshop has allowed even better photos to be produced. Fashion photography has only become more extravagant with the current social culture. 

In your essay, write about your favorite subject when you take pictures- is it people, landscapes, objects, or something else? Explain why, give examples, and perhaps elaborate on your camera settings or the lighting you look for when taking photos.  

Photography is an important invention that has helped us immensely throughout the years- how exactly? Explain why photography rivals painting and why it is essential. Then, write about its importance to you, the entire world, and humanity. 

Some say photography pales compared to the intricacies of music, painting, sculpture, and even cinema and should not be considered a form of art. For an interesting argumentative essay, determine whether photography is genuine art or not and defend your position. Explore both sides of the topic and give a strong rebuttal against the opposing viewpoint. 

From street photography to food photography to portraiture, many different types of photography are classified according to the subject being captured. Write about at least three types of photography that interest you and what they entail. You may also discuss some similarities between them if any. Check out our list of the top CreativeLive photography courses .

Like other works of art, a photograph can be interpreted differently. Choose a photo you find exciting and describe how you feel about it. What is being portrayed? What emotions are being evoked? What did the photographer want to show here? Reflect on your chosen work and perhaps connect it with your personal life. 

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers . If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Martin is an avid writer specializing in editing and proofreading. He also enjoys literary analysis and writing about food and travel.

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Essay on Photography

Students are often asked to write an essay on Photography in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Photography

What is photography.

Photography is the art of capturing pictures using a camera. A camera is like a box that keeps a moment from running away. When you take a photo, you save a memory that you can see later.

Types of Photography

There are many kinds of photography. Some people take photos of nature, like mountains and rivers. Others click pictures of cities or people. Some even capture stars at night. Each type tells a different story.

The Importance of Photography

Photos are important because they help us remember past times. They show us how things were and how they have changed. Photos can make us feel happy or sad by reminding us of different moments.

Learning Photography

Anyone can learn photography. You start by learning how to use a camera. Then you practice taking photos. Over time, you get better at making your pictures look nice. It’s fun to learn and can become a hobby or a job.

Also check:

• Paragraph on Photography

250 Words Essay on Photography

Photography is the art of capturing light with a camera to create a picture. This can be done using a digital camera or even a phone today. In the past, people used film cameras that had to be developed in a dark room.

The Magic of Cameras

A camera is a tool that takes in light through a lens and saves the image. In old cameras, light hit a film to create a photo. Now, digital cameras use electronic sensors to record the image. The sensors work like our eyes, catching light and colors.

There are many kinds of photography. Some people take pictures of nature, like forests and animals. Others like to take photos of cities and buildings. There are also photographers who take pictures of people and capture their emotions and moments.

To be good at photography, you need to learn how to use a camera well. You also need to understand light and how it affects your photos. Practice is important. The more you take pictures, the better you get at it.

Sharing Photos

After taking pictures, people often share them with others. They might put them on the internet, in a photo album, or hang them on a wall. Sharing photos lets others see the world through your eyes.

Photography is a fun and creative way to show how you see the world. It can be a hobby or a job, and it helps us remember special times and places.

500 Words Essay on Photography

Photography is the art of capturing light with a camera to create an image. This can be done using a digital camera that stores pictures electronically or an old-fashioned film camera that records them on film. When you take a photo, you freeze a moment in time, which you can look back on later.

The History of Photography

The story of photography began hundreds of years ago with simple cameras called pinhole cameras. Over time, inventors created better cameras and ways to make pictures clearer and more colorful. In the past, taking a photo was not easy; it took a long time for the picture to be ready. But now, thanks to modern technology, we can take pictures instantly with digital cameras and even our phones.

There are many kinds of photography. Some people take pictures of nature, like mountains, flowers, or animals. This is called nature photography. Others enjoy taking pictures of buildings or cities, known as architectural photography. Then there are photographers who like to take pictures of people. This can be portraits of one person or family photos with lots of people. Another exciting type is sports photography, where photographers capture fast-moving action at sports events.

How Photography Works

A camera works a bit like our eyes. When we look at something, light enters our eyes and helps us see. Similarly, when you take a picture, light comes into the camera through a hole called the lens. Inside the camera, the light hits a part that is sensitive to light, either film or a digital sensor, and creates an image.

Photography is important for many reasons. It helps us remember special moments like birthdays or holidays. It also lets us see places we’ve never been to and learn about different people and animals. Newspapers and websites use photos to show us what is happening in the world. Photography can even be a way for people to express their feelings and tell stories without using words.

Anyone can learn to take good photos. It’s not just about having an expensive camera. It’s about looking carefully at what you want to photograph and thinking about where to place things in the picture. It’s also about practicing a lot. The more photos you take, the better you get at it. There are also many books and videos that can teach you how to be a better photographer.

The Fun of Photography

Photography can be a lot of fun. It lets you be creative and can even turn into a hobby or a job. You can take pictures of your friends, pets, or trips you go on. With photography, you can explore new places and meet new people. The best part is, you can start at any age and keep learning and enjoying it your whole life.

In conclusion, photography is a powerful form of art that lets us capture memories, explore the world, and share stories. It’s a skill that anyone can learn and enjoy. Whether you’re taking a picture of a beautiful sunset or snapping a photo of your best friend laughing, photography helps us save those special moments forever.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Phone Addiction
• Essay on Phishing
• Essay on Pet Fish

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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WNDR in Photos

The WNDR museum recently opened a branch in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. Take a look at some of the diverse, one-of-a-kind installations WNDR has to offer on its mission to disrupt and transform the traditional museum experience.

1. “The Wisdom Project” - WNDR Studios

WNDR Guests can participate in this ever-growing installation that draws wisdom from its visitors.

2. “Speak Up!” - WNDR Studios

The medium is technology. Digital telephones retrofitted with a Teensy microcontroller are the conduits. You are the receiver.

3. “MPO-1 (Time Machine)” - Joshua Ellingson

Explore the reflection of “Pepper’s Ghost” as you hover near a theremin in this retro illusion.

4. “Magnetic Symphony” - WNDR Studios

Electromagnetic wires are the locks, and their tin cans are the key to this audiovisual symphony.

5. “Flex” - Austin Watson, Pedro Neves

This pressure-reactive flexible fabric bends to the touch. Ignited by computer programming, this exhibition is a tactile exploration.

6. “We Are All Artists” - Brad Keywell

“Who decides who is an ‘artist’?” is the question Keywell poses in this exhibit. Perhaps, for the first time, the answer is all of us.

7. “Color & Light” - WNDR Studios

The change between monochrome and rainbow happens surprisingly fast in this room. Explore colors in an ever-changing dimension.

8. “Let’s Survive Forever” - Yayoi Kusama

This exhibit is an exploration of reflection. The mirrors, LED lights, and reflective orbs form a mirage that interact in “a form of self-obliteration.”

9. “Fortune” - WNDR Studios

Ask this animatronic oracle to riddle you a fortune, and you may just be rewarded for your curiosity. —Staff writer Alisa S. Regassa can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X at @alisaregassa .

Chasing totality, Long Islanders trek up north for solar eclipse — a photo essay

Nestled in the Adirondack Mountains, Harris Lake near Newcomb, New York, hummed with anticipation as travelers set out picnic blankets and telescopes to view the total solar eclipse. Warnings to children to keep their special eclipse glasses on mixed with excited chatter and music from personal speakers.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said estimates show that about one million people traveled to the state to observe the phenomenon.

The last solar eclipse in the contiguous United States was in 2017; according to NASA, the next total eclipse in the U.S. won't take place until 2044.

The Patel family traveled from different parts of the tri-state area to meet each other for the eclipse. Rita Patel and her husband Ajay are from Melville on Long Island. She said it took them seven hours — with traffic — to make the drive, but they didn't mind.

"This was so close to home. It's not like we had to fly to another country. This was five, six, seven hours. Whatever, it was worth it," Patel said. "It was like a halo around the moon. You know, I can't describe it."

Ajay Patel sat in the driver's seat of his car about 15 minutes after the sun was completely eclipsed. The moon still covered a portion of the sun, but many cars at Lake Harris had already taken off. Rita said they weren't worried about traffic.

"I want to enjoy the few little bits left," she said. "We made few stops while coming because of the fear of not reaching it in time. Going home, we'll take it easy."

As the sky around the lake gradually darkened, an elk's bugle resounded from the nearby forest. A study published by the National Institutes of Health shows that wild animals also react to a solar eclipse; often, they exhibit anxiety.

Madeline Infantino, who made the trip up from Wheatley Heights on Long Island, said she felt something similar — a mixture of awe and fear.

"This sense of power just came from the sun," she said. "That ring lit up so bright, it made us feel kind of small."

The moon blocked the sun completely for about three minutes in the region, beginning at approximately 3:21 p.m.

Ralph Infantino, Madeline's husband, said he felt humbled.

"I think we take our planet for granted," he said. "And coming out here, especially in such a beautiful setting, it really humbles you in terms of what joy and beauty there is on the Earth."

Watch CBS News

What time the 2024 solar eclipse started, reached peak totality and ended

By Sarah Maddox

Updated on: April 9, 2024 / 5:04 AM EDT / CBS News

The 2024 solar eclipse will be visible across North America today. As the moon's position between the Earth and sun casts a shadow on North America, that shadow, or umbra, will travel along the surface from west to east at more than 1,500 miles per hour along the path of totality . 

That means the eclipse will start, peak and end at different times — as will the moments of total darkness along the path of totality — and the best time to view the eclipse depends on where you are located. Some places along the path will have more totality time than others.

In Texas, the south-central region had clouds in the forecast , but it was better to the northeast, according to the National Weather Service. The best eclipse viewing weather was expected in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, as well as in Canada's New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

What time does the 2024 total solar eclipse start?

The total solar eclipse will emerge over the South Pacific Ocean before the shadow falls across North America, beginning in parts of Mexico. The path of totality , where onlookers can witness the moon fully blocking the sun (through eclipse viewing glasses for safety ), is expected to first make landfall near the city of Mazatlán around 9:51 a.m. MT. 

The total solar eclipse will cross over the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas, where it will emerge over Eagle Pass at 12:10 p.m. CT and then peak at about 1:27 p.m. CT.

In Dallas, NASA data shows the partial eclipse will first become visible at 12:23 p.m. CT and peak at 1:40 p.m. CT. The next states in the path of totality are Oklahoma and Arkansas, where the eclipse begins in Little Rock at 12:33 p.m. CT. 

Cleveland will see the beginning of the eclipse at 1:59 p.m. ET. Darkness will start spreading over the sky in Buffalo, New York, at 2:04 p.m. ET. Then, the eclipse will reach northwestern Vermont, including Burlington, at 2:14 p.m. ET. Parts of New Hampshire and Maine will also follow in the path of totality before the eclipse first reaches the Canadian mainland  at 3:13 p.m. ET.

Although the experience won't be exactly the same, viewers in all the contiguous U.S. states outside the path of totality will still be able to see a partial eclipse. Some places will see most of the sun blocked by the moon, including Washington, D.C., where the partial eclipse will start at 2:04 p.m. ET and peak at about 3:20 p.m. ET.

In Chicago, viewers can start viewing the partial eclipse at 12:51 p.m. CT, with the peak arriving at 2:07 p.m. CT.  In Detroit, viewers will be able to enjoy a near-total eclipse beginning at 1:58 p.m. ET and peaking at 3:14 p.m. ET.

New York City will also see a substantial partial eclipse, beginning at 2:10 p.m. ET and peaking around 3:25 p.m. ET.

In Boston it will begin at 2:16 p.m. ET and peak at about 3:29 p.m. ET.

The below table by NASA shows when the eclipse will start, peak and end in 13 cities along the eclipse's path.

What time will the solar eclipse reach peak totality?

Millions more people will have the chance to witness the total solar eclipse this year than during the last total solar eclipse , which was visible from the U.S. in 2017. 

The eclipse's peak will mean something different for cities within the path of totality and for those outside. Within the path of totality, darkness will fall for a few minutes. The longest will last more than 4 minutes, but most places will see between 3.5 and 4 minutes of totality. In cities experiencing a partial eclipse, a percentage of the sun will be obscured for more than two hours.

Mazatlán is set to experience totality at 11:07 am PT. Dallas will be able to see the moon fully cover the sun at 1:40 p.m. CT. Little Rock will start to see the full eclipse at 1:51 p.m. CT, Cleveland at 3:13 p.m. ET and Buffalo at 3:18 p.m. ET. Totality will reach Burlington at 3:26 p.m. ET before moving into the remaining states and reaching Canada around 4:25 p.m.

Outside the path of totality, 87.4% of the sun will be eclipsed in Washington, D.C. at 3:20 p.m. ET, and Chicago will have maximum coverage of 93.9% at 2:07 p.m. CT. New York City is much closer to the path of totality this year than it was in 2017; it will see 89.6% coverage at 3:25 p.m. EDT. 

Detroit is another city that will encounter a near-total eclipse, with 99.2% maximum coverage at 3:14 p.m. ET. Boston will see 92.4% coverage at 3:29 p.m. ET.

What time will the solar eclipse end?

The eclipse will leave continental North America from Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NT, according to NASA.

At the beginning of the path of totality in Mazatlán, the eclipse will be over by 12:32 p.m. PT, and it will leave Dallas at 3:02 p.m. CT. The eclipse will end in Little Rock at 3:11 p.m. CT, Cleveland at 4:29 p.m. CDT and Buffalo at 4:32 p.m. ET. Burlington won't be far behind, with the eclipse concluding at 4:37 p.m. ET.

Meanwhile, the viewing will end in Chicago at 3:21 p.m. CT, Washington, D.C. at 4:32 p.m. ET, and New York City at 4:36 p.m. ET. 

In Detroit, the partial eclipse will disappear at 4:27 p.m. ET, and in Boston, it will be over at 4:39 p.m. ET.

How long will the eclipse last in total?

The total solar eclipse will begin in Mexico at 11:07 a.m. PT and leave continental North America at 5:16 p.m. NT. From the time the partial eclipse first appears on Earth to its final glimpses before disappearing thousands of miles away, the celestial show will dazzle viewers for about 5 hours, according to timeanddate.com . 

The length of the total solar eclipse at points along the path depends on the viewing location. The longest will be 4 minutes and 28 seconds, northwest of Torreón, Mexico. Near the center of the path, totality takes place for the longest periods of time, according to NASA.

Spectators will observe totality for much longer today than during the 2017 eclipse , when the longest stretch of totality was 2 minutes and 32 seconds.

The moon's shadow seen on Earth today, called the umbra, travels at more than 1,500 miles per hour, according to NASA. It would move even more quickly if the Earth rotated in the opposite direction.

What is the longest a solar eclipse has ever lasted?

The longest known totality was 7 minutes and 28 seconds in 743 B.C. However, NASA says this record will be broken in 2186 with a 7 minute, 29 second total solar eclipse. The next total solar eclipse visible from parts of the U.S. won't happen until Aug. 23, 2044.

Sarah Maddox has been with CBS News since 2019. She works as an associate producer for CBS News Live.

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The Masters: When it starts, how to watch, betting odds for golf’s first major of 2024

Patrons watch during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Scottie Scheffler hits on the practice range during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Santiago De la Fuente, of Mexico, and his caddie react on the third green during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Santiago De la Fuente, of Mexico, walks off the third green during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Xander Schauffele hits on the practice range during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Patrons was the tee shot of Jose Maria Olazabal, of Spain, on the fourth hole during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Adam Schenk hits on the practice range during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Camilo Villegas, of Colombia, catches a golf ball on the practice range during a practice round in preparation for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Monday, April 8, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — The Masters begins Thursday on the revered grounds of Augusta National, where defending champion Jon Rahm will tee up alongside Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Tiger Woods and the biggest names in golf for the year’s first major championship.

With a schism still separating the stars of the PGA Tour from those playing in the rival LIV Golf league, the lure of the blooming azaleas, Amen Corner and the Hogan Bridge have brought together a field of 89 vying for the green jacket.

Here is a look at what you need to know leading up to the Masters.

WHEN IS THE MASTERS?

The first round begins at 8:15 a.m. EDT Thursday, when honorary starters Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson tee off on Tea Olive , the first hole at Augusta National. Jock Hutchison and Fred McLeod were the first honorary starters in 1963, but it was not until Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen took over in 1981 that it became such a treasured tradition.

The rest of the field tees off following them in groups of three, which were announced Tuesday. After the second round, the top 50 players and ties make the cut for the weekend and are paired according to score for the final two rounds.

HOW CAN I WATCH THE MASTERS?

The Masters streams on its website coverage throughout the week, beginning with pretournament shows at 9 a.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday. The par 3 contest also takes place Wednesday on ESPN+ beginning at noon and ESPN at 3 p.m.

The Masters stream for the first round begins at 8:15 a.m. on Thursday and continues throughout the day as cameras highlight holes and groups. The first two rounds are broadcast on ESPN beginning at 3 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. CBS has the final two rounds on Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. The tournament also can be streamed on ESPN+, Paramount+ and Fubo+.

WHAT ARE THE BETTING ODDS FOR THE MASTERS?

Scheffler, the 2022 champion and world’s No. 1 player, is the 4-1 favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook . McIlroy is 10-1 to end a decadelong majors drought. Rahm is 11-1 to become the fourth player to repeat as champion. Xander Schauffele is 14-1, 2021 champion Hideki Matsuyama is 20-1 and reigning PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka is 22-1. Woods is 150-1.

WHO SHOULD I WATCH AT THE MASTERS?

Scheffler is such a heavy favorite that some sportsbooks are offering the chance to wager on him against the field. He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational for the second time in March, became the first ever to defend his title at The Players Championship a week later and tied for second at the Houston Open a couple of weeks ago.

Rahm has been playing well, tying for fourth Sunday at the LIV Golf event in Miami. Koepka struggled at the same tournament, finishing 7 over and tied for 45th. Jordan Spieth bounced back from missed cuts at The Players and the Valspar Championship to tie for 10th last weekend at the Texas Open , where McIlroy closed with a 66 to finish third and pick up some momentum.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR AT THE MASTERS?

Rahm persevered last year to become the fourth Spaniard to win the Masters . He shared the first-round lead with Koepka and Viktor Hovland, then stayed in contention during a second round twice suspended because of approaching thunderstorms and halted when three towering pines fell near the 17th tee.

Torrential rain caused play Saturday to be suspended, too, and Rahm resumed Sunday four strokes off Koepka’s lead. But he halved the deficit by the end of the third round, and Rahm’s final-round 69 put him four shots clear of the fading Koepka and fan favorite Phil Mickelson , whose closing 65 at the age of 52 made him the oldest player to finish in the top five.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

• Solar Eclipse 2024

What the World Has Learned From Past Eclipses

C louds scudded over the small volcanic island of Principe, off the western coast of Africa, on the afternoon of May 29, 1919. Arthur Eddington, director of the Cambridge Observatory in the U.K., waited for the Sun to emerge. The remains of a morning thunderstorm could ruin everything.

The island was about to experience the rare and overwhelming sight of a total solar eclipse. For six minutes, the longest eclipse since 1416, the Moon would completely block the face of the Sun, pulling a curtain of darkness over a thin stripe of Earth. Eddington traveled into the eclipse path to try and prove one of the most consequential ideas of his age: Albert Einstein’s new theory of general relativity.

Eddington, a physicist, was one of the few people at the time who understood the theory, which Einstein proposed in 1915. But many other scientists were stymied by the bizarre idea that gravity is not a mutual attraction, but a warping of spacetime. Light itself would be subject to this warping, too. So an eclipse would be the best way to prove whether the theory was true, because with the Sun’s light blocked by the Moon, astronomers would be able to see whether the Sun’s gravity bent the light of distant stars behind it.

Two teams of astronomers boarded ships steaming from Liverpool, England, in March 1919 to watch the eclipse and take the measure of the stars. Eddington and his team went to Principe, and another team led by Frank Dyson of the Greenwich Observatory went to Sobral, Brazil.

Totality, the complete obscuration of the Sun, would be at 2:13 local time in Principe. Moments before the Moon slid in front of the Sun, the clouds finally began breaking up. For a moment, it was totally clear. Eddington and his group hastily captured images of a star cluster found near the Sun that day, called the Hyades, found in the constellation of Taurus. The astronomers were using the best astronomical technology of the time, photographic plates, which are large exposures taken on glass instead of film. Stars appeared on seven of the plates, and solar “prominences,” filaments of gas streaming from the Sun, appeared on others.

Eddington wanted to stay in Principe to measure the Hyades when there was no eclipse, but a ship workers’ strike made him leave early. Later, Eddington and Dyson both compared the glass plates taken during the eclipse to other glass plates captured of the Hyades in a different part of the sky, when there was no eclipse. On the images from Eddington’s and Dyson’s expeditions, the stars were not aligned. The 40-year-old Einstein was right.

“Lights All Askew In the Heavens,” the New York Times proclaimed when the scientific papers were published. The eclipse was the key to the discovery—as so many solar eclipses before and since have illuminated new findings about our universe.

To understand why Eddington and Dyson traveled such distances to watch the eclipse, we need to talk about gravity.

Since at least the days of Isaac Newton, who wrote in 1687, scientists thought gravity was a simple force of mutual attraction. Newton proposed that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe, and that the strength of this attraction is related to the size of the objects and the distances among them. This is mostly true, actually, but it’s a little more nuanced than that.

On much larger scales, like among black holes or galaxy clusters, Newtonian gravity falls short. It also can’t accurately account for the movement of large objects that are close together, such as how the orbit of Mercury is affected by its proximity the Sun.

Albert Einstein’s most consequential breakthrough solved these problems. General relativity holds that gravity is not really an invisible force of mutual attraction, but a distortion. Rather than some kind of mutual tug-of-war, large objects like the Sun and other stars respond relative to each other because the space they are in has been altered. Their mass is so great that they bend the fabric of space and time around themselves.

Read More: 10 Surprising Facts About the 2024 Solar Eclipse

This was a weird concept, and many scientists thought Einstein’s ideas and equations were ridiculous. But others thought it sounded reasonable. Einstein and others knew that if the theory was correct, and the fabric of reality is bending around large objects, then light itself would have to follow that bend. The light of a star in the great distance, for instance, would seem to curve around a large object in front of it, nearer to us—like our Sun. But normally, it’s impossible to study stars behind the Sun to measure this effect. Enter an eclipse.

Einstein’s theory gives an equation for how much the Sun’s gravity would displace the images of background stars. Newton’s theory predicts only half that amount of displacement.

Eddington and Dyson measured the Hyades cluster because it contains many stars; the more stars to distort, the better the comparison. Both teams of scientists encountered strange political and natural obstacles in making the discovery, which are chronicled beautifully in the book No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity , by the physicist Daniel Kennefick. But the confirmation of Einstein’s ideas was worth it. Eddington said as much in a letter to his mother: “The one good plate that I measured gave a result agreeing with Einstein,” he wrote , “and I think I have got a little confirmation from a second plate.”

The Eddington-Dyson experiments were hardly the first time scientists used eclipses to make profound new discoveries. The idea dates to the beginnings of human civilization.

Careful records of lunar and solar eclipses are one of the greatest legacies of ancient Babylon. Astronomers—or astrologers, really, but the goal was the same—were able to predict both lunar and solar eclipses with impressive accuracy. They worked out what we now call the Saros Cycle, a repeating period of 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours in which eclipses appear to repeat. One Saros cycle is equal to 223 synodic months, which is the time it takes the Moon to return to the same phase as seen from Earth. They also figured out, though may not have understood it completely, the geometry that enables eclipses to happen.

The path we trace around the Sun is called the ecliptic. Our planet’s axis is tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane, which is why we have seasons, and why the other celestial bodies seem to cross the same general path in our sky.

As the Moon goes around Earth, it, too, crosses the plane of the ecliptic twice in a year. The ascending node is where the Moon moves into the northern ecliptic. The descending node is where the Moon enters the southern ecliptic. When the Moon crosses a node, a total solar eclipse can happen. Ancient astronomers were aware of these points in the sky, and by the apex of Babylonian civilization, they were very good at predicting when eclipses would occur.

Two and a half millennia later, in 2016, astronomers used these same ancient records to measure the change in the rate at which Earth’s rotation is slowing—which is to say, the amount by which are days are lengthening, over thousands of years.

By the middle of the 19 th century, scientific discoveries came at a frenetic pace, and eclipses powered many of them. In October 1868, two astronomers, Pierre Jules César Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer, separately measured the colors of sunlight during a total eclipse. Each found evidence of an unknown element, indicating a new discovery: Helium, named for the Greek god of the Sun. In another eclipse in 1869, astronomers found convincing evidence of another new element, which they nicknamed coronium—before learning a few decades later that it was not a new element, but highly ionized iron, indicating that the Sun’s atmosphere is exceptionally, bizarrely hot. This oddity led to the prediction, in the 1950s, of a continual outflow that we now call the solar wind.

And during solar eclipses between 1878 and 1908, astronomers searched in vain for a proposed extra planet within the orbit of Mercury. Provisionally named Vulcan, this planet was thought to exist because Newtonian gravity could not fully describe Mercury’s strange orbit. The matter of the innermost planet’s path was settled, finally, in 1915, when Einstein used general relativity equations to explain it.

Many eclipse expeditions were intended to learn something new, or to prove an idea right—or wrong. But many of these discoveries have major practical effects on us. Understanding the Sun, and why its atmosphere gets so hot, can help us predict solar outbursts that could disrupt the power grid and communications satellites. Understanding gravity, at all scales, allows us to know and to navigate the cosmos.

GPS satellites, for instance, provide accurate measurements down to inches on Earth. Relativity equations account for the effects of the Earth’s gravity and the distances between the satellites and their receivers on the ground. Special relativity holds that the clocks on satellites, which experience weaker gravity, seem to run slower than clocks under the stronger force of gravity on Earth. From the point of view of the satellite, Earth clocks seem to run faster. We can use different satellites in different positions, and different ground stations, to accurately triangulate our positions on Earth down to inches. Without those calculations, GPS satellites would be far less precise.

This year, scientists fanned out across North America and in the skies above it will continue the legacy of eclipse science. Scientists from NASA and several universities and other research institutions will study Earth’s atmosphere; the Sun’s atmosphere; the Sun’s magnetic fields; and the Sun’s atmospheric outbursts, called coronal mass ejections.

When you look up at the Sun and Moon on the eclipse , the Moon’s day — or just observe its shadow darkening the ground beneath the clouds, which seems more likely — think about all the discoveries still yet waiting to happen, just behind the shadow of the Moon.

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How dark will the solar eclipse be? Path of totality gives you a much different experience

The long-anticipated total solar eclipse will arrive Monday afternoon and cover the skies over a large portion of the United States.

The total eclipse will appear in the skies above the U.S., all the way from southern Texas to northern Maine. The rare event will see the shadow of the moon cover a narrow strip of land in darkness in the middle of the day.

The total eclipse will begin in Mexico at about 11:07 a.m. PDT on Monday before crossing into Texas at 1:27 p.m. CDT. It will end in Maine at 3:35 p.m. EDT. The partial eclipse will last for awhile longer. Even if you're not in the path of totality and won't see the full eclipse, you may still see a percentage of it.

To find out exactly when the eclipse will be happening in your area, you can search by  USA TODAY's database by ZIP code  for a viewing guide.

But how dark will it really get during an eclipse? Here's what to expect.

How dark does it get during a total solar eclipse?

If you're in the path of totality, where the moon completely covers the sun, the sky will become dark as if it were dawn or dusk, according to NASA .

For those who only experience a partial solar eclipse, the sky will appear slightly darker than it was before the eclipse, depending on how much the moon blocks the sun in their location, NASA says.

“When the moon covers 85% of the sun, it’s still no darker than being in the shade on a sunny day and even at 95%, it’s an overcast day-darkness,” said  Dr. Angela Speck in a video . Speck is the chair of the Physics and Astronomy department of the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Speck points out in the video that even at 99.9% partial eclipse, there is still at least 100 times more light coming from the sun than during totality.

And even if you're in the path, don't expect the darkness to last too long. Totality may only last a couple minutes in some areas.

How much of a temperature drop do you get during a total solar eclipse?

NASA says you can expect the temperature to drop about 10 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the humidity and cloud cover at your location.

Total solar eclipse livestream

USA TODAY is providing live coverage of the 2024 solar eclipse beginning at noon E.T. on Monday in a number of areas along the eclipse's path of totality, including Washington, D.C., Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana and New York. You can watch live at the embedded video below or on USA TODAY's  YouTube channel .

Contributing: Doyle Rice & Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY

Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X  @GabeHauari  or email him at [email protected].

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What Solar Eclipse-Gazing Has Looked Like for the Past 2 Centuries

Millions of people on Monday will continue the tradition of experiencing and capturing solar eclipses, a pursuit that has spawned a lot of unusual gear.

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By Sarah Eckinger

• April 8, 2024

For centuries, people have been clamoring to glimpse solar eclipses. From astronomers with custom-built photographic equipment to groups huddled together with special glasses, this spectacle has captivated the human imagination.

Creating a Permanent Record

In 1860, Warren de la Rue captured what many sources describe as the first photograph of a total solar eclipse . He took it in Rivabellosa, Spain, with an instrument known as the Kew Photoheliograph . This combination of a telescope and camera was specifically built to photograph the sun.

Forty years later, Nevil Maskelyne, a magician and an astronomy enthusiast, filmed a total solar eclipse in North Carolina. The footage was lost, however, and only released in 2019 after it was rediscovered in the Royal Astronomical Society’s archives.

Telescopic Vision

For scientists and astronomers, eclipses provide an opportunity not only to view the moon’s umbra and gaze at the sun’s corona, but also to make observations that further their studies. Many observatories, or friendly neighbors with a telescope, also make their instruments available to the public during eclipses.

Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen, Fridtjof Nansen and Sigurd Scott Hansen observing a solar eclipse while on a polar expedition in 1894 .

Women from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and their professor tested out equipment ahead of their eclipse trip (to “catch old Sol in the act,” as the original New York Times article phrased it) to New London, Conn., in 1922.

A group from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania traveled to Yerbaniz, Mexico, in 1923, with telescopes and a 65-foot camera to observe the sun’s corona .

Dr. J.J. Nassau, director of the Warner and Swasey Observatory at Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, prepared to head to Douglas Hill, Maine, to study an eclipse in 1932. An entire freight car was required to transport the institution’s equipment.

Visitors viewed a solar eclipse at an observatory in Berlin in the mid-1930s.

A family set up two telescopes in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1963. The two children placed stones on the base to help steady them.

An astronomer examined equipment for an eclipse in a desert in Mauritania in June 1973. We credit the hot climate for his choice in outfit.

Indirect Light

If you see people on Monday sprinting to your local park clutching pieces of paper, or with a cardboard box of their head, they are probably planning to reflect or project images of the solar eclipse onto a surface.

Cynthia Goulakos demonstrated a safe way to view a solar eclipse , with two pieces of cardboard to create a reflection of the shadowed sun, in Lowell, Mass., in 1970.

Another popular option is to create a pinhole camera. This woman did so in Central Park in 1963 by using a paper cup with a small hole in the bottom and a twin-lens reflex camera.

Amateur astronomers viewed a partial eclipse, projected from a telescope onto a screen, from atop the Empire State Building in 1967 .

Back in Central Park, in 1970, Irving Schwartz and his wife reflected an eclipse onto a piece of paper by holding binoculars on the edge of a garbage basket.

Children in Denver in 1979 used cardboard viewing boxes and pieces of paper with small pinholes to view projections of a partial eclipse.

A crowd gathered around a basin of water dyed with dark ink, waiting for the reflection of a solar eclipse to appear, in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1995.

Staring at the Sun (or, How Not to Burn Your Retinas)

Eclipse-gazers have used different methods to protect their eyes throughout the years, some safer than others .

In 1927, women gathered at a window in a building in London to watch a total eclipse through smoked glass. This was popularized in France in the 1700s , but fell out of favor when physicians began writing papers on children whose vision was damaged.

Another trend was to use a strip of exposed photographic film, as seen below in Sydney, Australia, in 1948 and in Turkana, Kenya, in 1963. This method, which was even suggested by The Times in 1979 , has since been declared unsafe.

Solar eclipse glasses are a popular and safe way to view the event ( if you use models compliant with international safety standards ). Over the years there have been various styles, including these large hand-held options found in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1979.

Parents and children watched a partial eclipse through their eclipse glasses in Tokyo in 1981.

Slimmer, more colorful options were used in Nabusimake, Colombia, in 1998.

In France in 1999.

And in Iran and England in 1999.

And the best way to see the eclipse? With family and friends at a watch party, like this one in Isalo National Park in Madagascar in 2001.