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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 Write an Artist Statement - All you Need to Know

Your artist's statement is your chance to talk not just through your art but about your art. You can use your artist's statement to reveal the concepts, philosophy, themes and ideas behind your artwork and this useful guide will tell you how!

What is an Artist Statement? 

 An artist's statement is as important as an artist's work. Simply put, the artist statement is a brief description of your artworks that shapes the viewers' perspective when they are looking at your art.

Think of it as your substitute when you are not present to answer questions related to your art. Art is subjective. People will look at your craft and evaluate it. So, it helps if you communicate your story to the viewer. Viewers often have questions about the art they are looking at. An effective artist statement answers those questions while you are not there.

Writing an artist statement should ideally be natural and free flowing because essentially, you are expressing your own story. However, it can seem challenging to put one together. 

Creative professionals write artist statements as part of their online portfolio. An online portfolio acts as your professional address and launchpad to find work opportunities and recognition. Artist statements go hand-in-hand with a online portfolio website . A website helps you gain credibility and legitimacy. Take a look at some great examples of artist portfolio websites .

Create your artist portfolio website  on Pixpa within minutes without any coding. Start your free trial. No credit card required .

Given below are a few valuable tips from professional essay writers that will help you to write a clear, concise, and compelling artist statement.   Here are stunning  great tattoo artist portfolio website examples  designed for your use. 

How to write an artist statement – The structure

Your artist statement is about YOU. So you must make it personal. Writing an artist statement is also an exercise for you to clarify your ideas about your work. 

• What is the intent and purpose of your art?
• What does it say about you as an artist?
• What keeps you motivated every day?
• What is your artist story?
• What questions are you often asked about your work?
• Who is your audience

You must establish the connection between what you are creating as an artist, and why are you doing it. How are you expressing your ideas with the medium of your choice?

Your artist statement is an introduction to your work and should be no more than 100 -150 words. The opening sentence should be distinct and captivating and draw the readers in. Begin with a short paragraph about the basic premise behind your work, artistic style, and vision. What do you want to say with your art? What is it that makes your work unique? What inspires you? What makes you stand out from the rest of the artists working in your space? 

Be honest about your work. Avoid repetition of words. Use simple language and short sentences that draw attention to, and illustrate your ideas to your audience 

The next paragraph should be a concise expression of the type of work presented and the artistic process. Describe your job, your favorite colors, and your technique as an. As a photographer, explain your work from a creative and technical standpoint.

An artist statement can be a full-page statement or a short statement, only focusing on your current project.

In a full-page artist statement, do remember to include the following:

• The reason behind creating your work and its history
• Overall vision
• The context of your work -Medium, artistic process, technique, and influences. Highlight what materials you work with and your sources and inspiration
• The expectations of your audience and how they perceive your work
• Your current work’s relation to your previous projects
• How your work fits with current contemporary art practice

Tip: While writing, do remember that you should avoid exaggerated statements and avoid pretentiously grand terms like 'the only one' or the 'best.'

Where is an artist statement used?

Remember, an artist statement complements your bio or resume.  It is an opportunity to help the reader envision your work before actually seeing it, and present a picture of who you are as an artist. 

Here are a few places where you may need to submit your artist statement:

• To a gallery owner or curator who needs details about your work.
• To a competitive event or an artist collective.
• When applying to graduate school
• When applying for grants or art scholarships
• When applying for a teaching position.
• To a reviewer who is writing about your work for a magazine or catalog.
• As an introduction to your creative work for potential buyers.

Along with your portfolio of works, you must have an artist statement ready at all times. It is the first point of communication between you as an artist and the viewer.

Examples of famous artist statements

Here are some artist statement examples that you can get inspired from:

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, silkscreen print

"I long for the old days of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, stars who had real glamour and mystique. We only knew so much about their lives; the rest was a mystery… My fascination with letting images repeat and repeat – or in a film's case 'run on' – manifests my belief is that we spend much of our lives seeing without observing."

Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Mundi. Wikipedia

"The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow."

Painting by Berthe Morisot

"It is important to express oneself… provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience… My ambition is limited to capturing something transient, and yet, this ambition is excessive."

From any of the sample artist statements above, you can understand that conveying the purpose of your art and your philosophy towards it is important.

Check out these great examples of  artist portfolio websites  for your inspiration and further examples of artist statements.

Tips for writing a compelling artist statement:

1. share the inspiration behind your art.

One of the best ways to introduce your art to the viewers is to write about the inspiration behind it. This lays a foundation before you begin to explain your artwork to your viewers. Inspiration can be a daily phenomenon or a particular incident. Regardless, explain it in as simple words as you can. This act accomplishes the principal goal of connecting with the viewer. Not doing so leaves a viewer unconnected, especially if it's abstract art. Without it, your art is a splash of multiple colors on canvas with nothing to make of it.

2. Shape the viewer's perspective

The next important thing to do when you write an artist statement is to explain your art in words that would shape the perspective of viewers. Your art is your viewpoint, and one can easily misunderstand it. To ensure that you and the viewer are on the same page, add a line or two to explain your art. But, restrain from divulging all the details about your work. Try to leave a little room for curiosity such that the viewer is bound to further inquire about your art.

3. Keep the artist statement as small as possible

If you are wondering how long should your artist statement be, then you should know that lengthy biographies drain viewers, especially when they are out to see beautiful art. A lot of fancy words make a statement boring and challenging to comprehend. A long-winded explanation makes the work appear insecure.

Some of the best artist statements are under 100 words. A rule of thumb that you can follow here is - the shorter, the better. Find an example of an artist statement that you can relate to and get inspired by ideas from it.

Consider this as the most critical point in your lessons on how to write an artist statement. An effective artist statement is anywhere from a hundred words to one-page-long. To bring your statement in this range, cut down on technical details and fancy words that you may have included in your artist statement.

4. Use an active voice

Write your artist statement in an active voice. It makes the tone more conversational as if you are speaking to your viewer in person. It establishes an instant connection with the viewer. Use online editing tools like  the Hemingway  App to ensure that your artist statement appears in the active voice. 

5. Avoid spelling and grammatical mistakes

One of the primary purposes of an artist statement is to draw the audience into your artworks and lead them to explore your art further. A sloppy artist statement puts a reader off, departing them with less interest or no interest in art at all. Inconsistency in writing, typos, and spelling errors might turn a viewer away.

You can use tools like  Grammarly  to avoid small grammatical mistakes. A well-punctuated, typo-free, artist statement is a joy to read.

Here's a simple list of do's and don'ts to sum everything up. You can use this as your artist statement format:

Do’s - Best practices to create a successful artist statement

• Keep your artist statement short
• Be specific and on the point
• Bring clarity, confidence and focus on your statement
• Write about 'Why' you created the artwork
• Use precise details such as where you are from, where you live, your medium and style of work
• Use active voice
• Always write in the first person. Use "I" instead of "you" in your sentences. This helps in writing a statement that is easily readable by the viewer. Do remember to keep your bio updated

A few DONT’S to remember while writing your artist statement:

• Don't be pompous. It shouldn't just highlight your accomplishments.
• Do not generalize or romanticize
• It should not be too long 
• Avoid grammatical errors
• Don't use unnecessary references or things unrelated to your work
• Do not use passive voice
• It should not read like a cliched vision statement
• Do not summarize your biographical information or CV in your artist statement

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Do get feedback about your artist statement from your friends, peers, and mentors, before you start using it. Make sure that you get at least three people to proofread it for you. A good practice is to have a friend read the artist statement aloud to you. Hearing it out loud can help you identify mistakes and assess the statement objectively.

Make sure that your artist statement converses in a simple language that everyone understands.

Remember, your artist statement will not just represent your work on your artist portfolio. It will also serve as an example of your professionalism and expertise. An effective artist statement will draw more people to your work, enhance their experience, and help them appreciate it.

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Artist Statements for photography

An artist statement should address or include the following:

• A poetic interpretation of your work, supporting the conceptual and visual connections in your work.
• Self awareness of how other artists or sources have inspired or influenced you to make your work.
• A brief discussion about  why you are making the work

Avoid writing a statement that simply describes how the work has been made or offers a written explanation of the visual strategies employed in making the work.  If you are not sure whether you are being too literal in your statement, consider the following guide;

• If a viewer can see it in the image, don’t describe it in your statement

A poetic interpretation of your work

This is an important part of any statement as it supports the ideas and concepts in the work.  Sometimes you may feel the need to explain why certain aspects of your work is important to you, or why you choose a particular theme, or you may want to articulate something about the background of your ideas.

For me, the American West is the place where things fall apart.  When I was a boy, I got to know it via films, Westerns and adventure stories by German writer Karl May.  Whenever I imagined the West, I saw incredible country that had only just been conquered, in a fairly recent past, the 19th century.  When I went there, I thought that because I had been present when the West was won, so it speak, civilization must be established there.  But it wasn’t at all: civilization simply passed through… Wenders, W. (1987)  Written in the West . Schirmer Art Books, pg. 11.

A poetic interpretation can also consider how you want to support the way people experience your work.

Self awareness and inspiration

An artist statement submitted for assessment should also articulate and provide evidence of your influences and sources, and how they have helped shape or inform the ideas in your work.  Simply adding a quote, or including a long list of books in a bibliography is not enough.  If you quote another source, you must form a discussion around  the content of the quote.

Perhaps the easiest way to address an artist statement is to start with  why .  Why are you making this work, why are you choosing, above all other things, to photograph the thing you are photographing?  Answering this question in the statement will begin to help you formulate ideas for the statement.

Some examples and links

Tate Gallery, UK

Around 1998 I was commissioned to do a work involving the Thames. I came over to London and spent a lot of time around the river. The river is mesmerising and I felt deeply drawn to it. At the same time, I had just ended a long love relationship and was extremely sad. So the two things came together in what I now see was a kind of vicarious suicide. This is Still Water (The River Thames, for Example) (1999). It is a series of pictures of the water that are footnoted with whatever I was thinking of at the time, what the river provoked in me and what was in the river itself.

I had this fabulous assistant, Helena Blaker, who helped me to research the river, get some basic facts, and it turned out that the darkness of the river, which I thought was simply mud, etc, was in fact the darkness of London. We were able to interview the river police, taxi drivers, whoever worked on or knew the river, and through them we found out incredible things. The Thames attracts a very high number of suicides, many from other countries, and a significant number of so-called deaths by misadventure and death by extremely violent means – lots of dismemberment and so on. More research from Dickens to Conrad revealed that this darkness had historic dimensions as well.

I think of my images of the Thames as a mirror. All the associative images that coalesce around this work, whether it is the similarity of the water with the desert or with aspic, the endless range of imagery, is a product of photographing something that is a master chameleon. Or the ultimate mime. The ultimate mime is the thing that keeps its distinction from everything else. When you think about that fact – of imitation or reflection and the possibility of losing your identity in that connection – you realise how water never loses its identity, it is always discretely itself. And I am deeply drawn to that possibility of existing in two spaces at the same time, without any contradiction; a lot of paradox but no contradiction, a lot of things being the opposite of what they are, but somehow they can carry on with being both sides of the story. The river chameleonised me, as it had done London. So this peculiar reciprocity drew me in deeper and deeper. And the footnotes (taken from another water) weave all of this together.

Heidi Museum of Modern Art, March to July 2013

Wall text (Curator’s Statement)

Over a career spanning almost forty years Fiona Hall has been variously described as an alchemist, an adventurer an eco-writer, and a creative genius. She is best known for her transfiguration of commonplace materials into extraordinary organic forms that have both contemporary and historical resonance.  Her interdisciplinary practice attends to the complicated relationship between nature and culture, celebrating the marvels of the natural world while engaging head-on with issues as wide-ranging as gender politics and colonial history.

In recent years worldwide environmental destruction has become Hall’s predominant concern.  This exhibition draws attention to the Earth and its life-forms as battlefields and wastelands decimated by the violent forces of human greed and folly.  Two major bodies of work on this theme are brought together, augmented by an array of conceptually linked installations and individual pieces highlighting environmental debates.  In Fall Prey , Hall’s focus is on critically endangered species from across the globe and the degradation of the ecosystems they inhabit.  The accompanying Kermadec works shift the agenda to the unique marine environment of the Kermadec Trench on the Pacific Rim of Fire; a ten kilometer-deep cradle of life teeming with biodiversity and under threat from the mining and fishing industries.

Big Game Hunting represents the artist’s love of, and lamentation for, the natural realm.  In it she navigates the volatile terrain of environmental politics, exposing our role in abetting the disappearance of species and depletion of biosystems.   While her message is universal and her art communicates to everyone, like an archaeological site it must be excavated layer by layer to fully yield its secrets.  Visual stimulation, intellectual engagement, wit, and wonder are to be found in equal measure, underpinned by a powerful warning to humanity: as Hall observes her work is a ‘carrion call, sounding the siren in a dying wilderness’.

THE BARBARIANS AT THE GATE

This installation links the lives of bees, universally accepted as ‘social’ insects, with the colonial concept of nation-state building.  With colonization and other movements of people over the centuries, bees have spread with plants and other animals into foreign habitats, forever changing world ecologies.  Their ordered colonies have been likened to societies with rigorous town planning or to prisons, while their habits have inspired Western imperialists to the extent that they are now being trained by the American military to detect bombs.  The term drone is used to describe unmanned surveillance and missile aircraft.  Today bees are themselves threatened by colony collapse, at the hands of twenty-first century ‘barbarians’.

The Barbarians at the gate draws particular attention to the history of conflict in the Middle East.  Nineteen beehives are painted in military camouflage patterns associated with the nineteen countries that have sent armed forces to this region, which to Hall are ‘very strange bedfellows’, that speak ‘volumes about historical allegiances and divides’.  Each hive supports an architectural icon representing a regime of power within that country, alerting us to the many forces at play in both the history of colonization and the globalization of identities.

Sample Statements from  Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on their art Johnson, B. (2004)  Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on their art . Norfolk, Va. Aperture Foundation / The Chrysler Museum.

I want that chocked up feeling in your throat which maybe comes from despair or teary-eyed sentimentality: conveying intangible emotions.

A photograph should transcend itself, the image, its medium, in order to have its own presence.

These are pictures of emotions personified, entirely of themselves with their own presence – not of me.  The issue of identity of the model is no more interesting than the possible symbolism of any other detail.

When I prepare each character I have to consider what I’m working against; that people are going to look under the make-up and wigs for that common denominator; the recognisable.  I’m trying to make other people recognise something of themselves rather than me.

I have this enormous fear of being misunderstood, of people thinking the photos are about me, that I’m really vain and narcissistic.  Then sometimes I wonder how it is I’m fooling so many people, I’m doing one of the most stupid things in the world which I can’t even explain, dressing up like a child and posing in front of the camera trying to make beautiful pictures.  And people seem to fall for it.  (My instincts tell me it must not be very challenging then.)

Believing in one’s own art becomes harder and harder when the public response grows fonder.

Though it is generally accepted that abstract art refers to those works inspired by the imagination of the artist rather than by objective reality, in photography, in which images are produced by the lens, this distinction is difficult to sustain.  In the broadest sense of the term, an optical image is an abstraction from the natural world – a selected and isolated fragment of what stands before the camera.  When the selected image is self-explanatory and does not imply more than what lies within the area it is usually referred to as abstract, that is, independent of its surroundings – a pattern of rock, for example, or lichens, or grasses.  On the other hand, in the wider scenic view common in most landscape photography, the selected image implies a world outside the limits encompassed by the lens.

Photography of nature tends to be either centripetal or centrifugal.  In the former, all elements of the picture converge toward a central point of interest to which the eye is repeatedly drawn.  The centrifugal photograph is a more lively composition, like a starburst, in which the eye is led to the corners and edges of the picture: the observer is thereby forced to consider what the photographer excluded in his selection.

I do not photograph for ulterior purposes, I photograph for the thing itself – for the photograph – without consideration of how it may be used.  Some critics suggest that I make photographs primarily to promote conservation, but this allegation is far from the truth.  Although my photographs may be used in this way, it is incidental to my original motive for making them which is first of all for personal aesthetic satisfaction…

Ultimately, to be successful as a work of art, a photograph must be both pleasing and convincing.  It must not leave the viewer in doubt about the validity of its subject, whether representational or imaginary.  Every part must contribute to the unity of the image from corner to corner – no discordant note should be permitted.

I’ve been a photographer since I was a teenager.  My mother was a baby photographer, going door to door.  I always had my Rolleiflex and strobe with me because I was working for my parents.  I never thought about photography in other terms, as art or anything.  But then I went to a commercial photography school which happened to be in an art school.  So I was exposed to kids who were doing art and to a lot of the documentary photography from the old Life magazine of the fifties when they were doing those great photo essays.  Eugene Smith had quit Life because they wouldn’t give him enough time to do the assignments.  He was always writing these diatribes about the truth, and how he wanted to tell the truth, the truth, the truth.  It was a real rebel position.  It was kind of like a teenager’s position: why can’t things be like they should?  Why can’t I do what I want?  I latched on to that philosophy.  One day I snapped, hey you know, I know a story that no ones ever told, never seen, and I’ve lived it.  It’s my own story and my friend’s story.  I would go back to Oklahoma and start photographing my friends.  That’s when it snapped – I wanted to be a story teller; tell a story.  Which I hate even to admit to now, because I hate photojournalism so badly.

In the beginning, I was just trying to make photographs.  Someone would come in and I’d see a light and shadow and recognise things that were dramatic.  First of all, I was trained as a portrait photographer.  And you’ve got to make people look good or you don’t get your $10.95.  Second, they’re my friends and they’re seeing the photographs as we go along.  If you’re coming back and showing pictures where they don’t look good, they’re not going to want you to take their pictures any more.  Many photographers and photojournalists are great at grabbing the picture, being quick and focused and framing the composition but they don’t care what the people look like.  I did.  I could do all that plus get the person to look like I would like them to look, or they would like to look.

The shot of Billy on the bed with a gun, I always looked at that as alike a baby picture.  If you looked at some of the baby pictures my mother or I took, it could have been that pose.  I didn’t get it at first, but I knew it was great.  It was a natural picture.  With the white sheet on the background it could be a studio picture.  I was able to get that quality when it was actually happening, that quality of looking up.  People often ask if I set these pictures up and then say, ‘No you couldn’t have, but how did you get them to look like that?’

It (Tulsa) came out right after I finished it in 1971.  The first section is 1963, the middle section is 1968, and then the last section is 1971.  About half of the book is 1971.  I went to Tulsa and did all those pictures in a matter of months.  I knew every aspect of the life and knew what was missing from the book.  I went back and was almost … waiting for those photographs to happen.  I didn’t know how they would happen but I knew I would be ready.  It was a real hot period.

There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described.  What I write here is a description of what I have come to understand about photography, from photographing and from looking at photographs.

A work of art is that thing whose form and content are organic to the tools and materials that made it.  Still photography is a chemical, mechanical process.  Literal description, or the illusion of literal description, is what the tools and materials of still photography do better than any other graphic medium.  A still photograph is the illusion of a literal description of how a camera saw a piece of time and space.  Understanding this, one can postulate the following theorem: Anything and all things are photographable.

A photograph can only look like how the camera saw what was photographed.  Or, how the camera saw the piece of time and space is responsible for how the photograph looks.  Therefore, a photograph can look any way.  Or there’s no way a photograph has to look (beyond being an illusion of a literal description).  Or, there are no external or abstract or preconceived rules of design that can apply to still photographs.

I like to think of photographing as a two-way act of respect.  Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe.  And respect for the subject, by describing it as it is.  A photograph must be responsible for both.

I photograph to see what things look like photographed.

I really don’t care what my father looked like, and I’m sure you don’t very much either.  What is important however, is what did or did not transpire between us.  That lack of communication, love, conflict is my legacy, my history.  This is what matters to me, and this is what I want to share with you.  I write with this photograph not to tell you what you can see, rather to express what is invisible.  I write to express these feelings.  We are our feelings.  Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.

I photograph my children growing up in the same town I did.  Many of the pictures are intimate, some are fictions and some are fantastic but most are of ordinary things every mother has seen; a wet bed, bloody nose, candy cigarettes.   They dress up, they pout and posture, they paint their bodies, they dive like otters into the dark river.

They have been involved in the creative process since infancy.  At times, it is difficult to say exactly who makes the pictures.  Some are gifts to me from my children: gifts that come in a moment so fleeting as to resemble the touch of an angel’s wing.  I pray for that angel to come to us when I set the camera up knowing that there is not one good picture in five hot acres.  We put ourselves into a state of grace we hope is deserving of reward and it is a state of grace with the Angel of Chance.

When the good pictures come, we hope they tell truths, but truths ‘told slant,’ just as Emily Dickinson commanded.  We are spinning a story of what it is to grow up.  It is a complicated story and sometimes we try to take on the grand themes: anger, love, death, sensuality and beauty.  But we tell it all without fear and without shame.

Memory is the primary instrument, the inexhaustible nutrient source; these photographs open doors into the past but they also allow a look into the future.  In Beckett’s Endgame , Hamm tells a story about visiting a madman in his cell.  Hamm dragged him to the window and exhorted; ‘Look! There!  All that rising corn! And there!  Look!  The sails of the herring fleet!  All that loveliness!” But the madman turned away.  All he’d seen was ashes.

There’s the paradox; we see the beauty and we see the dark side of things; the cornfields, the full sails, but the ashes as well.  The Japanese have a word for this dual perception; mono no aware .  It means something like ‘beauty tinged with sadness.’  How is it that we must hold what we love tight to us, against our very bones, knowing we must also, when the time comes, let it go?

For me, those pointed lessons of impermanence are softened by the unchanging scape of my life, the durable realities.  This conflict produces an odd kind of vitality, just as the madman’s despair reveals a beguiling discovery.  I find contained within the vertiginous deceit of time its vexing opportunities and sweet human persistence.

In this confluence of past and future, reality and symbol, and Emmett, Jessie and Virginia.  Their strength and confidence, there to be seen in their eyes, is compelling; nothing is so seductive as a gift casually possessed.  They are substantial; their green present is irreducibly complex.  The withering perspective of the past, the predicable treacheries of the future; for this moment, those familiar complications of time all play harmlessly around them as dancing shadows beneath the great oak.

In my portraits, I try to capture something universal, but something personal at the same time.  I look for specific things that set my sitters apart – little details, like a certain gesture or gaze, which makes them different than other people.

I go to my subjects where they are in their own reality, rather than photographing them in the studio.  I like to photograph them in their natural circumstances.

As a photographer you enlarge or emphasize a certain moment, making it another reality.  In the photograph you can scrutinize all kinds of details, you can see things you normally would not pay so much attention to.

My whole idea of working has a lot to do with how humans live.  How we live, how I live, how humans live together – human collectivity.  That is my core value: what it is to be human.  That is everything I believe in.  I do not believe in current ideas of post humanity… For me the most important phenomena are those that bring forth changes in society or in history.  These changes used to be noticeable in the physical world immediately.  Today this is not so clear anymore.  Today’s changes through new computers, sundry inventions in gene technology and new technological systems are not as visible as they once were in the street.

If I look at my work from the beginning it is more the idea of trying to establish a kind of material that one can work with for the future, rather than making nostalgic images to record something that later will become lost…  What fascinates me is the sort of insight and information that I receive from the nature of the space, and this has to be the case before I am able to do anything about this space…  These spaces are those of a specific place.  The everyday streets are in a funny way more truly monumental as witnesses to the everyday life of people.  Also, it makes things much easier to read than if I used images of famous sites… [I]n general, my work is less about expanding the possibilities of photography than about re-investing it with a truer perception of things by returning to a simple method, one that photography has had from the beginning of its existence…  For I do believe that in photographs like those of the nineteenth-century English photography Thomas Annan or Eugene Atget, you can read the motivation of the person who made the image in them; the psychological, emotional or intellectual scaffolding that the person saw in the environment.  And there is the matter of how we can retrieve that or read it from the surface of the image.  My belief in the psychology of that situation is very strong….  I believe that if I asked five students to take a photograph of the same street or building in the city, one would be able to see which of them was really interested in the street or building and which was not…  Why this happens interest me very much.  You forget that by now this is clearly accepted in painting, but in photography this level of sophisticated reading remains under guise.  For what matters is how much of yourself you put into your work.  If you have a real relationship with a particular building, landscape or person, as in a portrait, it will show in the picture.

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

Photo Editing , Tutorials

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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.

PIN THIS FOR LATER

Jaymi Heimbuch

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Photography and its Intention as an Art Form

“...the photographer must exercise the element of selection far more specifically than the painter. He cannot recall from memory as the painter can, a particular lighting, subject angle, a gesture, movement, expression, a desirable disposition of subject elements. They must be present in front of his camera. Thus, if the lighting is not right, he comes back when it is; if the mood is not appropriate, he waits for change; if the situation lacks significance, he waits until something happens to give it depth and meaning.” [6]

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• 1 media/Joseph Pennell_thumb.jpg 2021-03-13T22:20:13+00:00 Joseph Pennell 3 Joseph Pennell, photographed by unknown. Source: Library of Congress media/Joseph Pennell.jpg plain 2021-03-13T22:42:17+00:00
• 1 media/jacob deschin_thumb.jpg 2021-03-13T22:45:17+00:00 Jacob Deschin 1 Jacob Deschin, 1975. Photographed by Mike Mandel. Source: Art Institute of Chicago media/jacob deschin.jpg plain 2021-03-13T22:45:17+00:00
• 1 media/revenge of the goldfish_thumb.jpg 2021-03-13T22:51:01+00:00 Revenge of the Goldfish 1 Revenge of the Goldfish, 1981. Photographed by Sandy Skoglund. Source: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/photographs/bec34a74-ca3a-432c-90da-415fd36f7003 media/revenge of the goldfish.jpg plain 2021-03-13T22:51:01+00:00

Pictures That Tell Stories: Photo Essay Examples

Like any other type of artist, a photographer’s job is to tell a story through their pictures. While some of the most creative among us can invoke emotion or convey a thought with one single photo, the rest of us will rely on a photo essay.

In the following article, we’ll go into detail about what a photo essay is and how to craft one while providing some detailed photo essay examples.

What is a Photo Essay? 

A photo essay is a series of photographs that, when assembled in a particular order, tell a unique and compelling story. While some photographers choose only to use pictures in their presentations, others will incorporate captions, comments, or even full paragraphs of text to provide more exposition for the scene they are unfolding.

A photo essay is a well-established part of photojournalism and have been used for decades to present a variety of information to the reader. Some of the most famous photo essayists include Ansel Adams , W. Eugene Smith, and James Nachtwey. Of course, there are thousands of photo essay examples out there from which you can draw inspiration.

Why Consider Creating a Photo Essay?

As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth 1000 words.” This adage is, for many photographers, reason enough to hold a photo essay in particularly high regard.

For others, a photo essay allow them to take pictures that are already interesting and construct intricate, emotionally-charged tales out of them. For all photographers, it is yet another skill they can master to become better at their craft.

As you might expect, the photo essay have had a long history of being associated with photojournalism. From the Great Depression to Civil Rights Marches and beyond, many compelling stories have been told through a combination of images and text, or photos alone. A photo essay often evokes an intense reaction, whether artistic in nature or designed to prove a socio-political point.

Below, we’ll list some famous photo essay samples to further illustrate the subject.

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Famous Photo Essays

“The Great Depression” by Dorothea Lange – Shot and arranged in the 1930s, this famous photo essay still serves as a stark reminder of The Great Depression and Dust Bowl America . Beautifully photographed, the black and white images offer a bleak insight to one of the country’s most difficult times.

“The Vietnam War” by Philip Jones Griffiths – Many artists consider the Griffiths’ photo essay works to be some of the most important records of the war in Vietnam. His photographs and great photo essays are particularly well-remembered for going against public opinion and showing the suffering of the “other side,” a novel concept when it came to war photography.

Various American Natural Sites by Ansel Adams – Adams bought the beauty of nature home to millions, photographing the American Southwest and places like Yosemite National Park in a way that made the photos seem huge, imposing, and beautiful.

“Everyday” by Noah Kalina – Is a series of photographs arranged into a video. This photo essay features daily photographs of the artist himself, who began taking capturing the images when he was 19 and continued to do so for six years.

“Signed, X” by Kate Ryan – This is a powerful photo essay put together to show the long-term effects of sexual violence and assault. This photo essay is special in that it remains ongoing, with more subjects being added every year.

Common Types of Photo Essays

While a photo essay do not have to conform to any specific format or design, there are two “umbrella terms” under which almost all genres of photo essays tend to fall. A photo essay is thematic and narrative. In the following section, we’ll give some details about the differences between the two types, and then cover some common genres used by many artists.

⬥ Thematic 

A thematic photo essay speak on a specific subject. For instance, numerous photo essays were put together in the 1930s to capture the ruin of The Great Depression. Though some of these presentations followed specific people or families, they mostly told the “story” of the entire event. There is much more freedom with a thematic photo essay, and you can utilize numerous locations and subjects. Text is less common with these types of presentations.

⬥ Narrative 

A narrative photo essay is much more specific than thematic essays, and they tend to tell a much more direct story. For instance, rather than show a number of scenes from a Great Depression Era town, the photographer might show the daily life of a person living in Dust Bowl America. There are few rules about how broad or narrow the scope needs to be, so photographers have endless creative freedom. These types of works frequently utilize text.

Common Photo Essay Genres

Walk a City – This photo essay is when you schedule a time to walk around a city, neighborhood, or natural site with the sole goal of taking photos. Usually thematic in nature, this type of photo essay allows you to capture a specific place, it’s energy, and its moods and then pass them along to others.

The Relationship Photo Essay – The interaction between families and loved ones if often a fascinating topic for a photo essay. This photo essay genre, in particular, gives photographers an excellent opportunity to capture complex emotions like love and abstract concepts like friendship. When paired with introspective text, the results can be quite stunning. 

The Timelapse Transformation Photo Essay – The goal of a transformation photo essay is to capture the way a subject changes over time. Some people take years or even decades putting together a transformation photo essay, with subjects ranging from people to buildings to trees to particular areas of a city.

Going Behind The Scenes Photo Essay – Many people are fascinated by what goes on behind the scenes of big events. Providing the photographer can get access; to an education photo essay can tell a very unique and compelling story to their viewers with this photo essay.

Photo Essay of a Special Event – There are always events and occasions going on that would make an interesting subject for a photo essay. Ideas for this photo essay include concerts, block parties, graduations, marches, and protests. Images from some of the latter were integral to the popularity of great photo essays.

The Daily Life Photo Essay – This type of photo essay often focus on a single subject and attempt to show “a day in the life” of that person or object through the photographs. This type of photo essay can be quite powerful depending on the subject matter and invoke many feelings in the people who view them.

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Photo Essay Ideas and Examples

One of the best ways to gain a better understanding of photo essays is to view some photo essay samples. If you take the time to study these executions in detail, you’ll see just how photo essays can make you a better photographer and offer you a better “voice” with which to speak to your audience.

Some of these photo essay ideas we’ve already touched on briefly, while others will be completely new to you. 

Cover a Protest or March  

Some of the best photo essay examples come from marches, protests, and other events associated with movements or socio-political statements. Such events allow you to take pictures of angry, happy, or otherwise empowered individuals in high-energy settings. The photo essay narrative can also be further enhanced by arriving early or staying long after the protest has ended to catch contrasting images. 

Photograph a Local Event  

Whether you know it or not, countless unique and interesting events are happening in and around your town this year. Such events provide photographers new opportunities to put together a compelling photo essay. From ethnic festivals to historical events to food and beverage celebrations, there are many different ways to capture and celebrate local life.

Visit an Abandoned Site or Building  

Old homes and historical sites are rich with detail and can sometimes appear dilapidated, overgrown by weeds, or broken down by time. These qualities make them a dynamic and exciting subject. Many great photo essay works of abandoned homes use a mix of far-away shots, close-ups, weird angles, and unique lighting. Such techniques help set a mood that the audience can feel through the photographic essay.

Chronicle a Pregnancy

Few photo essay topics could be more personal than telling the story of a pregnancy. Though this photo essay example can require some preparation and will take a lot of time, the results of a photographic essay like this are usually extremely emotionally-charged and touching. In some cases, photographers will continue the photo essay project as the child grows as well.

Photograph Unique Lifestyles  

People all over the world are embracing society’s changes in different ways. People live in vans or in “tiny houses,” living in the woods miles away from everyone else, and others are growing food on self-sustaining farms. Some of the best photo essay works have been born out of these new, inspiring movements.

Photograph Animals or Pets  

If you have a favorite animal (or one that you know very little about), you might want to arrange a way to see it up close and tell its story through images. You can take photos like this in a zoo or the animal’s natural habitat, depending on the type of animal you choose. Pets are another great topic for a photo essay and are among the most popular subjects for many photographers.

Show Body Positive Themes  

So much of modern photography is about showing the best looking, prettiest, or sexiest people at all times. Choosing a photo essay theme like body positivity, however, allows you to film a wide range of interesting-looking people from all walks of life.

Such a photo essay theme doesn’t just apply to women, as beauty can be found everywhere. As a photo essay photographer, it’s your job to find it!

Bring Social Issues to Life  

Some of the most impactful social photo essay examples are those where the photographer focuses on social issues. From discrimination to domestic violence to the injustices of the prison system, there are many ways that a creative photographer can highlight what’s wrong with the world. This type of photo essay can be incredibly powerful when paired with compelling subjects and some basic text.

Photograph Style and Fashion

If you live in or know of a particularly stylish locale or area, you can put together an excellent thematic photo essay by capturing impromptu shots of well-dressed people as they pass by. As with culture, style is easily identifiable and is as unifying as it is divisive. Great photo essay examples include people who’ve covered fashion sub-genres from all over the world, like urban hip hop or Japanese Visual Kei. 

Photograph Native Cultures and Traditions  

If you’ve ever opened up a copy of National Geographic, you’ve probably seen photo essay photos that fit this category. To many, the traditions, dress, religious ceremonies, and celebrations of native peoples and foreign cultures can be utterly captivating. For travel photographers, this photo essay is considered one of the best ways to tell a story with or without text.

Capture Seasonal Or Time Changes In A Landmark Photo Essay

Time-lapse photography is very compelling to most viewers. What they do in a few hours, however, others are doing over months, years, and even decades. If you know of an exciting landscape or scene, you can try to capture the same image in Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall, and put that all together into one landmark photo essay.

Alternatively, you can photograph something being lost or ravaged by time or weather. The subject of your landmark photo essay can be as simple as the wall of an old building or as complex as an old house in the woods being taken over by nature. As always, there are countless transformation-based landmark photo essay works from which you can draw inspiration.

Photograph Humanitarian Efforts or Charity  

Humanitarian efforts by groups like Habitat for Humanity, the Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders can invoke a powerful response through even the simplest of photos. While it can be hard to put yourself in a position to get the images, there are countless photo essay examples to serve as inspiration for your photo essay project.

How to Create a Photo Essay

There is no singular way to create a photo essay. As it is, ultimately, and artistic expression of the photographer, there is no right, wrong, good, or bad. However, like all stories, some tell them well and those who do not. Luckily, as with all things, practice does make perfect. Below, we’ve listed some basic steps outlining how to create a photo essay

Steps To Create A Photo Essay

Choose Your Topic – While some photo essayists will be able to “happen upon” a photo story and turn it into something compelling, most will want to choose their photo essay topics ahead of time. While the genres listed above should provide a great starting place, it’s essential to understand that photo essay topics can cover any event or occasion and any span of time

Do Some Research – The next step to creating a photo essay is to do some basic research. Examples could include learning the history of the area you’re shooting or the background of the person you photograph. If you’re photographing a new event, consider learning the story behind it. Doing so will give you ideas on what to look for when you’re shooting.  

Make a Storyboard – Storyboards are incredibly useful tools when you’re still in the process of deciding what photo story you want to tell. By laying out your ideas shot by shot, or even doing rough illustrations of what you’re trying to capture, you can prepare your photo story before you head out to take your photos.

This process is especially important if you have little to no control over your chosen subject. People who are participating in a march or protest, for instance, aren’t going to wait for you to get in position before offering up the perfect shot. You need to know what you’re looking for and be prepared to get it.

Get the Right Images – If you have a shot list or storyboard, you’ll be well-prepared to take on your photo essay. Make sure you give yourself enough time (where applicable) and take plenty of photos, so you have a lot from which to choose. It would also be a good idea to explore the area, show up early, and stay late. You never know when an idea might strike you.

Assemble Your Story – Once you develop or organize your photos on your computer, you need to choose the pictures that tell the most compelling photo story or stories. You might also find some great images that don’t fit your photo story These can still find a place in your portfolio, however, or perhaps a completely different photo essay you create later.

Depending on the type of photographer you are, you might choose to crop or digitally edit some of your photos to enhance the emotions they invoke. Doing so is completely at your discretion, but worth considering if you feel you can improve upon the naked image.

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Best Photo Essays Tips And Tricks

Before you approach the art of photo essaying for the first time, you might want to consider with these photo essay examples some techniques, tips, and tricks that can make your session more fun and your final results more interesting. Below, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best advice we could find on the subject of photo essays. 

⬥ Experiment All You Want 

You can, and should, plan your topic and your theme with as much attention to detail as possible. That said, some of the best photo essay examples come to us from photographers that got caught up in the moment and decided to experiment in different ways. Ideas for experimentation include the following: 

Angles – Citizen Kane is still revered today for the unique, dramatic angles used in the film. Though that was a motion picture and not photography, the same basic principles still apply. Don’t be afraid to photograph some different angles to see how they bring your subject to life in different ways.

Color – Some images have more gravitas in black in white or sepia tone. You can say the same for images that use color in an engaging, dynamic way. You always have room to experiment with color, both before and after the shoot.

Contrast – Dark and light, happy and sad, rich and poor – contrast is an instantly recognizable form of tension that you can easily include in your photo essay. In some cases, you can plan for dramatic contrasts. In other cases, you simply need to keep your eyes open.

Exposure Settings – You can play with light in terms of exposure as well, setting a number of different moods in the resulting photos. Some photographers even do random double exposures to create a photo essay that’s original.

Filters – There are endless post-production options available to photographers, particularly if they use digital cameras. Using different programs and apps, you can completely alter the look and feel of your image, changing it from warm to cool or altering dozens of different settings.

Want to never run out of natural & authentic poses? You need this ⬇️ 

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If you’re using traditional film instead of a digital camera, you’re going to want to stock up. Getting the right shots for a photo essay usually involves taking hundreds of images that will end up in the rubbish bin. Taking extra pictures you won’t use is just the nature of the photography process. Luckily, there’s nothing better than coming home to realize that you managed to capture that one, perfect photograph. 

⬥ Set the Scene 

You’re not just telling a story to your audience – you’re writing it as well. If the scene you want to capture doesn’t have the look you want, don’t be afraid to move things around until it does. While this doesn’t often apply to photographing events that you have no control over, you shouldn’t be afraid to take a second to make an OK shot a great shot. 

⬥ Capture Now, Edit Later 

Editing, cropping, and digital effects can add a lot of drama and artistic flair to your photos. That said, you shouldn’t waste time on a shoot, thinking about how you can edit it later. Instead, make sure you’re capturing everything that you want and not missing out on any unique pictures. If you need to make changes later, you’ll have plenty of time! 

⬥ Make It Fun 

As photographers, we know that taking pictures is part art, part skill, and part performance. If you want to take the best photo essays, you need to loosen up and have fun. Again, you’ll want to plan for your topic as best as you can, but don’t be afraid to lose yourself in the experience. Once you let yourself relax, both the ideas and the opportunities will manifest.

⬥ It’s All in The Details 

When someone puts out a photographic essay for an audience, that work usually gets analyzed with great attention to detail. You need to apply this same level of scrutiny to the shots you choose to include in your photo essay. If something is out of place or (in the case of historical work) out of time, you can bet the audience will notice.

⬥ Consider Adding Text

While it isn’t necessary, a photographic essay can be more powerful by the addition of text. This is especially true of images with an interesting background story that can’t be conveyed through the image alone. If you don’t feel up to the task of writing content, consider partnering with another artist and allowing them tor bring your work to life.

Final Thoughts 

The world is waiting to tell us story after story. Through the best photo essays, we can capture the elements of those stories and create a photo essay that can invoke a variety of emotions in our audience.

No matter the type of cameras we choose, the techniques we embrace, or the topics we select, what really matters is that the photos say something about the people, objects, and events that make our world wonderful.

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Four Arts of Photography: An Essay in Philosophy

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Paloma Atencia-Linares, Four Arts of Photography: An Essay in Philosophy, The British Journal of Aesthetics , Volume 58, Issue 3, July 2018, Pages 327–329, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayx004

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There are three main things that Dominic Lopes does in his most recent book Four Arts of Photography. Firstly, he retraces and summarizes traditional thought about photography by early writers—practitioners, cultural critics—and mainstream philosophy of photography. In a systematic way, Lopes lays out in an argument, with various clear premises, scattered but recurrent traditional views about the nature of the medium and the underlying scepticism regarding the artistic capacity of photography. Secondly, and partly in response to this tradition, Lopes proposes an alternative approach—what he calls The New Theory. This New Theory promises to be broader in scope than the orthodox view: it offers a novel view on the idea of what counts as a photograph, and it aims to address and account for various photographic practices that were neglected by the tradition—mainly non-epistemic practices. Finally, interspersed in the development of the former dialectic, Lopes proposes four categories that aim to capture four ways in which photography may become art. Elegantly, he does this by responding to four different sceptical premises or assumptions of traditional theories. In doing all this, the book not only provides the reader with a helpful guide to the history of thought about photography from various traditions—something quite unusual and certainly praiseworthy, as probably the majority of books on photography are focused on a specific ideological approach: historical, critical or philosophical; it also informs us about the wide variety of photographic practices and their different sources of artistic value; furthermore, the book projects thought about photography into the future by offering a new philosophical framework and set of ideas.

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Is Photography Art? — Both Sides of the Debate Explained

I s photography art? This question has been debated since the creation of the first camera, and is still sometimes contested to this day. The answer may seem obvious to those working within the photographic medium, but there is some dissent, even within the artistic community. We will be playing devil’s advocate and taking a look at both sides of the is photography art debate.

Photography definition in art

Defining art.

Before we can answer is photography art? We need to make sure we have a rock-solid definition of “art.” Art means different things to different people, so for the purposes of total clarity, we’ll be going by the dictionary definition.

For any other unclear terms, our ultimate guide to film terminology is a great resource for looking things up.

PHOTOGRAPHY DEFINITION IN ART

What is art.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines art as: “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” The dictionary also defines a work of art as something that is “produced as an artistic effort or for decorative purposes.”

So, is photography art? Based on this definition, it seems pretty clear that photography is considered a visual art. The umbrella of art is far reaching and can encompass any skillful creative endeavor. Despite the inherent artistic value in still photography, there are still plenty of individuals who would argue that photography is not an artistic pursuit. Let’s elucidate their point of view.

Does photography count as art?

Debunking why photography is not art.

Those on the opposing side in the is photography art debate rely on a few different arguments to make their case. One common stance against photography as art is that photography captures reality rather than creating a subjective reality, which is what “real art” does.

Why photography is not art stance: it merely captures reality

Taking this into consideration, does photography count as art? If so, what type of art is photography? It is easy to debunk the stance that derides photography as an art form.

The idea that photography cannot do any more than capture a moment of real life is quite reductive to the entirety of what makes photography art. 

You needn’t look far to find examples of aesthetic photographs that push the bounds of objective reality.

A clear-cut example of photography as an artform

It is easy to view the photographer as artist when taking all of the creative photography choices they make into consideration: subject, lighting techniques , camera framing , lens choice , symbolism , technical settings, post-processing, and many more decisions are what makes photography art.

What type of art is photography? In this case, surrealism

This same argument that opposes the classification of the photographer as artist because they capture reality also suggests that there is no artistic merit in capturing a moment in time that shows real life plainly. Believing this argument suggests that the work of street photographers is non-artistic.

What is photography in art? The answer may be subjective

In the debate over is photography a form of art , suggesting that capturing reality is not artistic devalues the important photographic work done by the likes of war journalists, which is not a favorable stance to hold when taking historical context into account.

What is fine art photography if not candid images showcasing the horrors of war

The importance of war photographers, sports photographers , and other photojournalists can not be understated.

Is photography a fine art? This powerful photo from the Vietnam war says yes

Let’s dig deeper into what made photography an art form initially.

Photography as an Art Form

What made photography an art form.

Is photography art or science? When the first camera was invented , the question: is photography a fine art? was certainly more open to debate. The development of photography as an art form happened quickly. The practice of photography began rooted in science and experimentation but it wasn’t long for photography to be considered a visual art.

A case could be made for science in the question: is photography art or science? But, what made photography an art form in the first place was the application of science in the creation of art. What type of art is photography? The answers are as limitless as with any other medium. Just as a painter uses paint, a brush, and a canvas, the photography uses a camera and film as their tools.

What is photography in art?

Is photography art — arguments against.

Is photography art? Another time-tested argument against an affirmative answer has to do with replication. This argument posits that since photographs can be replicated infinitely, their artistic value is inherently lower than a traditional work of art, such as a painting, that was made by hand and exists as a one-of-a-kind piece.

Copies and prints can be made of a painting, but the original painting remains a singular work of art elevated above all subsequent copies.

What is fine art photography

Some detractors answer the question is photography a form of art on a conditional basis. There are people who assert that a still photograph is never art, while there are others who assert that photography is considered art under the right circumstances, but that not every photograph taken is automatically considered a work of art.

Acclaimed visual artist Roger Ballen holds a complicated view on is photography art? He believes there is an important distinction between a photographer and an artist who uses photography as their medium.

What is photography in art? Roger Ballen answers

Now that we’ve heard from those who don’t believe photography is art, at least not in all instances, let’s hear from the other point of view.

Related Posts

• What is Double Exposure? →
• What is Overexposure in Photography? →
• Types of Camera Lenses for film and photography →

Is photography art?

The case in favor of photography as art.

It is plain to see that a carefully composed , exposed , focused , and captured image has inherent artistic value. Photography, as a medium, can shade reality with new context and meaning. Messages and symbolism can be conveyed through the presentation of a still image.

The juxtaposition of visual elements can take on new value when frozen in time as a photograph. All of the near-infinite photographic variables and possibilities make it clear that photography is artistic

This TED Talk examines photography as a form of creative self-expression.

TED Talk by Flore Zoe

The manipulation of different camera types as tools, and of the visual subject as a canvas make for endless photographic potential. The first cameras in history maybe have been used more for the purposes of documentation rather than art, but it was not long before the artistic potential of the camera was first explored. Drawing, painting, and sculpting existed as art forms for thousands of years before the invention of the camera.

Whenever a new art form comes into existence, there is a hesitancy from the industry’s gatekeepers to recognize the new with the same reverence as the old .

Over time, barriers to artistic acceptance have been eroded and the pretentious protection of “traditional art” has lessened. These days, the general consensus is that photography is, in fact, an art form. For tips on taking artistic photographs, check out the video below.

How to Take Artistic Photographs

More So than with photography, a debate continues as to whether or not filmmaking is artistic. Any passionate filmmaker or cinephile will tell you, “Yes! Of course filmmaking is art!” But there are individuals who do not share that point of view. If you believe that filmmaking and photography are art forms, then we have numerous articles that can help further your understanding and appreciation of these creative mediums.

Cameras for Photography and Video

Is photography considered an art form? Absolutely. The most important piece of technology when working as a photographer or a videographer is the camera. There are many different types and models of cameras on the market these days. Telling them apart and, more importantly, knowing which one to choose for your own projects can be a challenge. Our camera guide can bring you up to speed on the different types of cameras available to you.

Up Next: Types of cameras →

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Photography in postwar america, 1945-60.

Le Tricorne

Alexey Brodovitch

Fort Peck Dam, Montana

Margaret Bourke-White

Feet, Wall Street

Lisette Model

New York, N.Y.

Louis Faurer

Irving Penn

William Klein

Rodeo, New York City

Robert Frank

Marian Anderson, contralto, New York

Richard Avedon

Lisa Hostetler Department of Photographs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2004

“A photograph is not merely a substitute for a glance. It is a sharpened vision. It is the revelation of new and important facts.” This sentiment, expressed by the Photo League photographer Sid Grossman ( 1990.1139.1 ), encapsulates photography’s role in America in the 1940s and ’50s. The era saw the apotheosis of photojournalism and few photographers were unaffected by its rise, whether they joined the bandwagon or reacted against it.

Ushering the age of the image into American culture was Margaret Bourke-White’s Fort Peck Dam, Montana ( 1987.1100.25 ), which appeared on the cover of the first issue of Life magazine in November 1936. For the next three decades, magazines ( Life foremost among them) told the world’s news stories through pictures. World War II was the first major widespread conflict covered extensively by photojournalists, who earned reputations as heroes for risking their lives to visualize the events. W. Eugene Smith was perhaps the most famous postwar photographer to earn his stripes on the battlefield, and, after the war, his photo essays—a form that he perfected in stories such as “Country Doctor” (1948), “Spanish Village” (1951), and “A Man of Mercy” (on Albert Schweitzer, 1954)—were as unrelenting as his war photographs, making the viewer experience the world as the subjects did and demanding a sympathetic response. Smith’s work created this effect both through individual pictures, and by sequencing the photographs in order to create a sense of narrative through mood. His insistence on producing his own layouts made for a tempestuous relationship with the publications for whom he worked, however, and he joined the Magnum photo collective in 1955 in order to work more freely.

The fast-paced world of the photojournalist invaded photography from the late 1930s through the rest of the century, even finding parallels in the fashion magazine. Art directors such as Vogue ‘s M. H. Agfa and Harper’s Bazaar ‘s Alexey Brodovitch ( 2005.100.295 ), who emigrated to America just prior to the war, brought the freedom of small-camera photography developed by photojournalists like Felix H. Man and Martin Munkacsi in Europe to the pages of American fashion magazines. They also brought fresh visual concepts directly from the avant-garde in Paris and incorporated those ideas into their graphic designs. Brodovitch was particularly innovative in this regard; not only did he invent a new visual language for the fashion magazine, but he also hired fashion photographers according to new criteria: he wanted to be “astonished” by radical images and was willing to neglect the display of the merchandise, so he evaluated photographers based on their personal work done outside the fashion studio. His bet was that mood was a better seller than description when it came to fashion. Whether their specialty was elegance or attitude, he encouraged photographers like Irving Penn ( 2002.455.5 ) and Richard Avedon ( 61.565.2 ) to mine their imagination for new images, regardless of whether their interests seemed directly related to fashion. It was principles like these that allowed artists to pursue their own work without compromising their artistic integrity. Two of his most successful protégés made some of their best photographic art during the years they were primarily engaged in fashion photography: Penn made voluptuous nudes and Avedon devoted himself to making stark portraits of cultural figures that interested him.

In the years around World War II, other photographers transcribed documentary photography and photojournalism into personal statements inspired by contemporary social life. Some of them were associated with the Photo League, an organization founded in 1936 when Sid Grossman ( 1990.1139.1 ) and Sol Libsohn broke away from the Film and Photo League to form an organization dedicated to documentary photography and social change. During the McCarthy era, the group increasingly distanced itself from politically sensitive subjects, moving from the model of Lewis Hine to that of Helen Levitt ( 1996.2.1 ) and Lisette Model ( 1988.1029 ), before its dissolution in 1951. Working outside the Photo League were photographers like Louis Faurer ( 1987.1055 )—whose focus on the outcasts and marginal elements of urban life became both a projection of his own complicated experience of the city and a dissenting voice in the increasingly conformist culture of postwar America—and William Klein ( 1989.1038.2 ), whose aggressive, hard-hitting photographic style mimicked New York’s defiant heterogeneity. The culmination of the period was Robert Frank’s photographs in The Americans (such as Rodeo [ 1992.5162.3 ]) and from the late 1950s (such as Fourth of July, Coney Island [ 2002.273 ]), which penetrated the country’s sunny facade to discover a newly powerful yet vulnerable nation overwhelmed by its own importance and struggling with internal strife.

Hostetler, Lisa. “Photography in Postwar America, 1945-60.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phev/hd_phev.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading

Livingston, Jane. The New York School: Photographs, 1936–1963 . New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1992.

Additional Essays by Lisa Hostetler

• Hostetler, Lisa. “ Photography in Europe, 1945–60 .” (October 2004)
• Hostetler, Lisa. “ The New Documentary Tradition in Photography .” (October 2004)
• Hostetler, Lisa. “ Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and American Photography .” (October 2004)
• Hostetler, Lisa. “ Group f/64 .” (October 2004)
• Hostetler, Lisa. “ International Pictorialism .” (October 2004)
• Hostetler, Lisa. “ Pictorialism in America .” (October 2004)
• Hostetler, Lisa. “ The Structure of Photographic Metaphors .” (October 2004)

Related Essays

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• The Structure of Photographic Metaphors
• Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and American Photography
• American Ingenuity: Sportswear, 1930s–1970s
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• Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004)
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Artist or Maker

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Is photography an Art? Essay (723 words)

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This might be the argument most people use to prove that photography can not be art. It is not so complex like drawing a beautiful painting and spending hours on that. A photographer just needs to use one button and here we go. But is this really the truth? How do people think about Art and Photography today and how did they before? In this essay i want to compare on main focus two totally different photographers: Jeff Wall, who is famous for his “drawn photographies” and Nan Goldin, who is famous for her trivial photography, so the opposite. And then, i might get a conclusion of what photography really is.

The first photographer got their inspiration from paintings. For 180 years now people have been asking the question whether photography can be art or not. They say that they’re unable to boost the imagination. Its just a mechanical process that handles most of the work. This thought of course decreased by time because of the increasing number of photographers and different creative styles and techniques they’re using. But unfortunately this conception of photography as a mechanical recording medium never fully died away.

In the 1960s / 1970s Nan Goldin provoked all people with taking trivial pictures with real hard moral discussed topics like homosexuality, transexuality, love, drugs and self-destruction. In that days people were very superficial and didn’t want to see such scandalizing pictures which were obviously the truth. Nan Goldin was born in the USA and early confronted with death and tabu-topics. Her elder sister commited suicide at the age of 18. Nan Goldin was only 14 years old and begin to photograph one year later. She sliped iinto the dark scenes and had many bi-sexual and transexual friends which she photographed as a snap-shot. First, she got famous because of publicating these pictures with the sex- and gaymotives the upper classes don’t want to see and realize.

Then she were discussed whether she is an artist because of just doing snapshots. Thanks to Nan Goldin trivial photography was born, nowadays we also see documentation-photography for example in wars or which is also a part of trivial photography. These photographers don’t draw their pictrues, they just show the reality. The beauty or maybe the horrible reality. This is also art. Art is being creative, being the first person with a extraordinary idea and to ‘make yourself’ as an artist in the mind of the others with provocation or new ideas, new pictures people haven’t seen before. So Nan Goldin is.

On the other side, the same time about 1960s, early 1970s, Jeff Wall was a photographer who staged his pictures. He spend a lot of time for his art-direction and knew exactly how his photo should look like at the end. He was just like drawing his photographies. Different from Nan Goldin, she never knew how her pictures would look like at the end. Jeff Wall wanted to photograph his own creative motives he had in mind, his own world and show it to people. Many people may say that this is art, because he was thinking about his motives like a stage director. But this may be discussed also as unreal-artificial photographies and not natural. Nan Goldin put her desperation, her deeper feelings in her trivial photographies. Jeff Wall just created them. In fact, there is no way to conclude wheather this or that is art or isn’t because all viewers have a subjective feeling and opinion to the photographies they see. They may remind them to something in their childhood and appell to their feelings or they don’t. Its always the viewer who decides what he sees and what he feels. So he is also the one who decides wheather he is regarding art or not.

“Photography is only a mechanical process that handles all the work. So how can photography be art?”

So, photography can be art if you uses a total different method, somethin creative to let the world feel something. Feel exhausted or feel good. Art is always something creating new. So photography can be art by doing something new. Or telling a story with inscenated photography like jeff wall f.e. did. Photography can be art, although using a mechanical process. But it’s not done only that way of course.

This essay was written by a fellow student. You may use it as a guide or sample for writing your own paper, but remember to cite it correctly . Don’t submit it as your own as it will be considered plagiarism.

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• PHOTOGRAPHY

7 extraordinary photographers share the stories behind their most iconic images

In their new documentary, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi show how far—or high—photographers will go to get for a picture.

What kind of person chases a tornado, or dives among sharks, or travels into a conflict zone, all for a photograph? Jimmy Chin—mountain climber, skier, photographer, filmmaker—wondered this as a child growing up in Minnesota, flipping through the pages of his family’s copies of National Geographic. When he picked up photography in his twenties, his goal was to shoot for the magazine.

Joining the ranks of National Geographic photographers in 2002, he has since shown how far—or high—he’ll go for a picture. As his friend and fellow climber Alex Honnold attempted a ropeless ascent of the El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park in 2017, Chin dangled from a safety line nearby, more than 2,000 feet above the valley floor. Honnold’s death-defying feat also became the Oscar-winning National Geographic documentary Free Solo, directed by Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, his wife and creative partner.

( How they filmed Alex Honnold’s death-defying Free Solo. )

For a new series, the two National Geographic Explorers turned the camera on photographers. In March they debuted Photographer, six episodes that embed viewers with “some of the world’s most extraordinary visual storytellers,” as Chin describes them. “We’ve always been interested in stories about people who are pushing the edges of the human experience.” Doing something that’s never been done, or capturing an image that’s never been seen, arises from the “same instinct,” he explains.

Dedication to craft unites the show’s featured photographers. From the tiniest animals to a final flight into space, the following images sample their work and the stories behind them.

( Other photographers take you behind the scenes of their favorite shots. )

Krystle Wright

Imperial, Nebraska

It’s a tough thing to see because you feel this contradiction.  On one hand it’s just like, Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m witnessing this absolute phenomenon. But then at the same time, particularly when it’s going through a town, you realize, Well, this is absolutely destroying lives.

Photographer Krystle Wright and fellow storm chasers arrived on the scene just as   a supercell storm spitting lightning threatened a farm with a UFO-like “mother ship” formation in May 2019. The team’s timing that day was “sheer luck,” Wright recalls. After retreating from a storm in Colorado that pounded their SUV with hail, they crossed into Nebraska and caught up to this system at the apex of its power.

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Anand Varma

Montréal, Quebec

National Geographic Explorer Anand Varma took thousands of frames of a ladybug clutching a braconid wasp’s cocoon for the cover of the November 2014 issue. The wasp larva developed inside the spotted lady beetle; just before the wasp emerged to spin a cocoon, it paralyzed its host. Something in the process made the ladybug twitch like a zombie. Readers wrote to Varma confessing that they used to dislike insects but his picture had opened their eyes. Or, as Varma puts it, “I used to think bugs were gross, but now I think they’re cool.”

( How to take photos of the world’s tiny creatures, according to Varma. )

Muhammed Muheisen  

Al Mafraq, Jordan

If you want to be able to capture the right emotion, to capture the image, you have to respect the  people and you have to gain their trust. It’s not something you buy or you sell. It’s something you invest. It’s a long-term investment. 

Zahra Mahmoud, photographed here at age seven in 2018, lives in a tent in Jordan. Muhammed Muheisen, a National Geographic Explorer who documents refugee crises, met Zahra and her family in 2015, soon after they fled the war in their native Syria. Every year he visits them at the encampment and photographs Zahra, now a teenager. Muheisen says he’ll continue telling the family’s story until they’re in a more permanent living situation.

( Muheisen tells the story of animals trapped in war zones finding a second chance. )

Campbell Addy

London, England/U.K.

This image represents a time in my career and life where I was truly questioning my purpose and direction. ... I felt that I had lost ‘me’ in the work. So, to reboot my creative mainframe, I went back to the beginning. I went back to me.

Campbell Addy’s fashion and portrait photography explores identity through boldly stylized depictions of diverse, often Black, faces and bodies. As part of an exhibition in 2023, Addy moved in front of the camera for a series of self-portraits, including this one, where he wears blackface—a motif in his work—and his hair intentionally evokes the strange rabbit in the cult classic film Donnie Darko . The photographer wanted to remind himself to stay artistically brave.

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[Photography is] a very challenging job, to be gone all the time, months on end, to be so engaged in something that’s pretty isolating. To be a photographer, you’re a lone wolf. So when Paul and I met and we started working together, it was almost like finding your life jacket in the middle of the ocean.

In 2021 photographer Cristina Mittermeier and her partner, Paul Nicklen—both National Geographic Explorers— were diving together in the Galápagos Islands to promote the expansion of a protected marine reserve. As an ocean current pulled Mittermeier toward a reef and a large shark patrolled the area, she focused on the scene above her: a school of brightly colored cardinalfish darting from the path of a Galápagos sea lion.

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Nunavut Territory, Northern Canada

As Arctic sea ice disappears, hungry polar bears are increasingly forced to hunt seals in open water. In 2004 Nicklen photographed a male swimming beneath a floating piece of ice, its image reflected on the water’s surface. To get the angle, Nicklen leaned far over the side of the small boat from which he was observing the bear and dunked his camera underwater .  

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Dan Winters

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My primary work is portrait work. But the other stuff is just really my passion. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with NASA in an official capacity, which is kind of amazing. I don’t think I would’ve imagined as a kid working with NASA. 

On May 16, 2011, the space shuttle Endeavour blasted through clouds for the final mission of its 19-year career. The day before the launch—the craft’s 25th— Dan Winters positioned sound-triggered cameras around the launchpad. He manually operated another camera, which he used to make this image, lowering its exposure level to create a darker, more dramatic scene. When the rocket boosters roared, the cameras clicked.

( Discover our top picks for pictures in 2023, including Winters's work. )

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Freemasons, rodeo riders and praise dancers: Black lives in the US south – in pictures

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From bull-riders to beauty queens, photographer Rahim Fortune’s Hardtack project chronicles Black families and communities in the post-emancipation American south

Thu 4 Apr 2024 07.00 BST Last modified on Thu 4 Apr 2024 11.32 BST

Windmill House, Hutto, Texas, 2022

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A New Way of Looking at the Nude

The artists redefining portraits of the human body for a more inclusive age.

By Julia Halperin

THE ARTIST PAUL Cadmus was flipping through Modern Maturity, the AARP’s official magazine, in 1991 when he saw something that made him angry. A disgruntled reader had written a letter to the editor slamming the publication for reproducing the Italian Renaissance artist Masaccio’s famous painting of Adam and Eve without including the fig leaves that church officials later added to cover their genitals.

In response, Cadmus , then 87, created a drawing, titled “Shame!,” which was recently on view at New York’s DC Moore Gallery as part of the first major solo exhibition of the artist, who died in 1999, in more than 20 years. It shows a lithe white man, woman and child standing tall and naked, arms intertwined. At their feet, a cluster of grotesque, clothed figures, including a hooknosed priest and a mother covering her child’s eyes, writhe in disgust. Cadmus, who is best known for homoerotic images that relish the male form, later wrote that the letter’s author had provided “a profound definition of the word ‘pornography’: a naked man and woman.” In an ironic twist that surely would have provoked the artist’s ire, it’s impossible to access a reproduction of “Shame” online today without clicking a “N.S.F.W.” button.

Nudes are one of the oldest and most stubbornly provocative tropes in Western art. Today, anyone with an internet connection can see a naked body at a moment’s notice (even if they have to press an extra button to do so). But the world in general, and the art world in particular, has remained largely conservative about what kinds of bodies it chooses to depict, celebrate and immortalize. In an age when Instagram polices nipples even as television shows like Euphoria traffic in erotic drama, a new generation of artists are mining this irony and working to broaden the aperture, breaking away from the idealized (usually white and thin) forms that have pervaded art for most of its documented existence. Instead, they are conjuring nudes that reflect a more fluid, more inclusive and fuller understanding of the body. At the same time, scholars and collectors are taking a new look at artists who were previously excluded from the canon because of the naturalistic, warts-and-all approach they took to the nude.

Fresh interpretations of the nude are front and center in a wave of exhibitions on view in New York this spring. At Bortolami gallery , there is Philip Pearlstein, whose dramatically cropped, unsentimental figures were profoundly unfashionable when he introduced them in the early 1960s. Gagosian is presenting its first exhibition of the photographer Francesca Woodman, who, before her death in 1981 at 22, created hundreds of strange, haunting photographs in which she used her naked body as a prop. Then there is Emily Coan, 32, at Dimin Gallery and Clarity Haynes, 52, at New Discretions , part of a group of contemporary artists who are using their own bodies and those of their friends to explore how femininity, gender identity and queerness can breathe new life into this often-vexing tradition.

The story of the nude in Western art begins in ancient Greece, where sculptors sought to pay tribute to the gods by capturing them in idealized human form. When Renaissance artists revived interest in classical antiquity, the nude came along for the ride, mostly as a vessel to idealize the figures of the Christian faith and the Roman Catholic Church, which dominated Renaissance Europe. Some of these works had the suggestion of sensuality or, in the case of Donatello’s sculpture of St. Jerome, deflated classical beauty by focusing on a body in decline. Such notions violated the conservative sensibilities of the church, but it wasn’t until the 19th century when the nude truly began to skirt the borders of taste and propriety. Edouard Manet’s “Olympia” was a sensation. The combination of subject (a prostitute in the classical pose of a reclining female nude) and style (brushwork so flat that it highlights the artificiality of the image) was so shocking that visitors to the Paris Salon of 1865 tried to stab the canvas with their umbrellas. The painting was recently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — only the third time it has ever left Paris, though it cast a wide influence on the next century or so of nudes, from the frankness of Gustave Courbet’s “Origin of the World” (painted the year after the debut of “Olympia”) to Picasso’s 1932 series about his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, which brought explicit nudity into the world of abstraction.

In his 1956 book “The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form,” the art historian Kenneth Clark wrote that “the nude is not the subject of art, but a form of art.” In other words, the nude, with all its art-historical baggage, is an efficient means for artists to telegraph how their own perspective is distinct from that of their peers and predecessors. The trope can be especially powerful for women, queer people and artists of color, who have historically been more likely to be seen painted nude in a gallery or museum, rather than have their paintings of nudes exhibited there. No other genre has the capacity to interrogate, in a single figure, how we see and how we are seen.

WOMEN WEREN’T PERMITTED to study life drawing in the traditional Western art academy until the late 19th century; no female artist was included in Clark’s authoritative 400-page tome. But more recent scholarship has recovered a number of female and queer artists, including Cadmus, whose nudes were dismissed as unseemly or unserious in their own time and feel considerably more forward thinking now. In 2018, the Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp staged an exhibition of the 17th-century Flemish artist Michaelina Wautier , who, the art historian Alison M. Gingeras notes, created the first known portrait of a nude man by a woman. Many of Wautier’s works had previously been misattributed to her brother. Last year, an ambitious exhibition organized by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia argued that the French artist Marie Laurencin’s paintings of stylized nude women and animals were not a quirky footnote but rather a significant contribution to the turn-of-the-century Parisian avant-garde.

Today’s artists embrace the nude for reasons ranging from the political to the personal to the practical (several mentioned that clothing automatically dates a painting).

When Sasha Gordon, 26, was assigned to sketch her own body in a college anatomy class, the teacher didn’t know what to make of her billowy form. “The professor had a hard time stepping away from the European way of thinking, with all the certain muscles and bones that you could normally see in a leaner body,” says Gordon, whose mother is Korean.

Today, Gordon places her own body — rendered in hyperrealistic detail — front and center in surreal scenes. (Her work was recently the subject of a solo show at the ICA Miami .) In “Trimmings” (2023), a nude Gordon uses garden shears to create a larger-than-life hedge version of herself. Looking out impishly at the viewer mid-snip, it’s as if she had broken into the pristine European-style garden to leave her mark. In a metaphor for her larger body of work, she makes herself into a monument without asking for permission.

Artists who seek to imbue the nude with new meaning still encounter some resistance. Doron Langberg , 38, whose lyrical portraits of queer lovers with their underwear around their ankles are rendered with the same gauzy reverential treatment as Claude Monet gave to the water lily, says that sexually explicit works still remain a hard sell to many institutions. (He is heartened, however, that the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Kunsthal Rotterdam are currently showing his erotic paintings.) Clarity Haynes, who is best known for painting the torsos of cancer survivors, queer and trans people, recalls a group of outraged museum donors walking out on her presentation of such works at the NADA art fair in Miami in 2018. And Emily Coan, whose witchy nude doppelgängers huddle around fires, drink and have sex with one another, notes that she and many of her contemporaries are unable to promote their work on Instagram because of the platform’s nudity policy.

Even within the feminist art community, disagreements remain over whether certain kinds of nudes are objectifying or empowering. An earlier generation of painters who dealt with explicit imagery, including Joan Semmel and Betty Tompkins, received similar pushback in the 1970s, criticized for appealing to the male gaze even as they tried to subvert it. What makes this moment different is both the wider spectrum of bodies taking up space on the canvas and the sheer delight, playfulness and weirdness with which they are represented. Many of the artists engaging with the nude today grew up taking photos of themselves and posting them on the internet. They are comfortable toying with images of the body because they know what it’s like to be looked at — not only by someone on the subway or at the grocery store but by everyone all at once online.

What artists playing with the unclothed human form today share in common is a fundamental lack of shame. For Haynes, the act of painting the nude is, more than anything else, an antidote to shame. Before she turned her focus on her community, she started out in 1997 depicting her own torso. It was a way, she recalls, to reacquaint herself with her body after getting sober, leaving her job as a stripper and recognizing how much of her existence had been informed by being sexually harassed on the street. “I thought I would see an exaggerated sexy person,” she says, “and what I saw was just a human being. I saw myself as a human being for the first time.”

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