Introduction
It is important to note that using written or oral means of communication are highly useful when trying to deliver information, but they are rather weak when it comes to sharing an experience. Photos that tell a story are vital because they contain more depth on visual aspects of one’s narrative. When it comes to individuals and even society, photographic essays enable a richer understanding of the environment, setting, people, and experience of the story. A better medium could involve a video with sound to enrich the communication both in visual, oral, written, as well as acoustic aspects.
Importance of Photos
After researching photographic essays, one can learn the value of such a medium as photos. It is stated that “A photo essay is intended to tell a story or evoke emotion from the viewers through a series of photographs. They allow you to be creative and fully explore an idea” (Expert Photography, 2022, para. 1). In other words, the given format captures the most significant highlights of a story in order to deliver comprehensively and conveniently. Some experiences and stories cannot be fully communicated with the use of the word only. For example, my own personal photographic essay can be accessed in Photos 1 to 10 in the Appendix below. A hiking and travel experience I had with my friends when we traveled to British Columbia, Canada, was phenomenal and breathtaking. Many images presented in these photos cannot be described through oral or written forms of information delivery. The latter is especially true in regards to the scenery and the overall atmosphere of the surrounding environment. The main reason is that these elements contain a multitude of details, which would require a large amount of text, assuming that they are even remembered correctly.
Moreover, the process of making a photographic essay is naturally inclined to structure the narrative as accurately and deliberately as possible around the central message. Whenever a person engages in the act of creating the given format, he or she has to choose the most interesting, meaningful, and relevant photos from the general pool of images. In other words, producing a photographic essay is highly selective and precise to the entire purpose of its essence. It should be noted that “photo stories are not just a collection of cool photos. They must use their visual power to capture viewers’ attention and remain unforgettable” (O’Neil, 2022, para. 3). Thus, one is forced to be mindful of what each photo communicates, reflects, and signals to a viewer.
Value of Photos: Individuals and Society
Photographic essays provide individuals and society with a unique medium of communication with its own advantages incomparable to text, speech, or video. From a person’s perspective, such an essay is a powerful tool to tell one’s intricate and personal experience in a story format. People are inclined to generalize and assume that others live or ought to live in a similar fashion as them, and any deviation from the perceived norm leads to judgment and elements of tribalism. Whenever an individual decides to express his or her personal experience, many important elements will go through the listener’s or reader’s filter, which is based on one’s internal biases, assumptions, and knowledge. Therefore, providing a photo instead of a text or speech can reveal critical details of which the narrator was not aware if they were important to the receiver of the message. For example, a photo of an impoverished child in a developing nation can invoke a greater degree of emotional response and understanding of what horror extreme poverty and hunger bring. The latter is superior at communicating the message instead of simply stating a statistical number or weight to height ratio.
In the case of society, humanity is comprised of a diverse set of groups, which can be differentiated on the basis of race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, gender, religion, citizenship, occupation, age, and many other factors. One homogenous group will not understand what it is like to belong to another group. Therefore, a photographic essay can be a powerful tool to breach this gap of misunderstanding. For example, a mere image of police brutality against an African American will provide more emotional context rather than knowing this information conceptually. Many beautiful or ugly aspects of an experience can be disturbed by the noise of written or spoken words, which is why photos serve as a better medium to directly show what is important and what is irrelevant. Seeing the crying parents of school shooting victims cannot be filtered or argued upon, whereas merely speaking about it loses the core meaning in petty debates of why solving the gun violence problem is critical.
A Better Media
A better medium could be videos since they bring an additional layer of depth in the form of sound and visual dynamics. Video essays can also incorporate textual and oral information as well as a background narration. This is the reason why movies and films are the most popular storytelling formats. However, it is important to point out that the medium has its own weakness, which includes less viewer control and time. In other words, a person watching a video will be carried through the narrative, and he or she will not have control over the preferred pace. In the case of a photo, an individual can look, stare, and appreciate an image as long as one desires to, which makes the experience superior in this sense.
In addition, videos can be time-consuming without knowing which parts of the video could be considered highlights if the creator does not provide such information. With constant development in technology, videos can eliminate their drawbacks and become a superior form of media to photos without losing resolution and enabling far greater control to a viewer. For example, GIFs are usually used as photos with elements of movement. TikTok became more popular among youth than Instagram because the former focuses on short-duration video content while the latter is primarily designed for photos. Therefore, the trend of moving from text to photos and from photos to videos is indicative of video becoming a better medium for communicating information and experience.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a photographic essay is a powerful tool to deliver information in a succinct and comprehensive manner without any loss of depth of the context or narrative. Words are limited in their ability to transfer the visual message, and considering the fact that humans heavily rely on their eyesight, photos are undoubtedly effective. The given format is valuable for both individuals and society. Each person is unique and special when it comes to his or her personal life and personal hardships. Therefore, photos enable a greater understanding of one’s struggles and moments of happiness. On a societal level, many groups tend to live to consider their way of life as normal, while others might be viewed through a lens of bias, assumption, and judgment. Photographic essays can be highly useful at breaching these gaps of mutual misunderstanding and bias by showing the accurate message in the relevant context.
References
Expert Photography. (2022). What is a photo essay? 17 examples and ideas. Expert Photography. Web.
O’Neil, D. (2022). How to create a photo essay? Peta Pixel. Web.
Appendix
