What is a 'Photo Essay'?

A 'photo essay' is a narration of a story in photographic form. Using visual language, a set or series of photographs tell a story and opens the viewer to imagination and emotions. This makes it a powerful way to expressing vision. These days, with electronic media becoming more prominent, photo essays are getting more powerful with ambient sound, interviews, video clips and music in the form of multimedia slideshows. In photo essays, there are usually these 6 types of shots, especially the first three.:

1. The Establishing Shot
2. The Medium Shot
3. The Detail Shot
4. The Portrait
5. The Moment
6. The Closer

• Establishing: This is a wide shot. These types of shots tell us where the story will take place, establishing context, setting and often mood.
• Medium: These images get closer to the action, showing what the story is about and who the characters are. However, these stories are not always about people; the characters could be horses, or weather, or boats, for example.
• Detail: This is a closer, tighter image of details relevant to the story. If the story was about horses, it might be the detail of the horse's saddle.
• Portrait: A tighter portrait or headshot - often an environmental portrait.
• Moment: A photograph that captures a gesture, an exchange, or the peak of the action. This is the "wow" shot.
• Closer: This one wraps it up, provides some resolution, or just provides a natural place to put the story to bed.