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How To Craft the Perfect Travel Photo Essay (from the Pros)

Published/Updated: Nov 16, 2021 · Laura Kiniry · 4 minute read

A picture is worth a thousand words, so imagine what a series of images can convey.

Photographic storytelling—or what we know as photo essays—can say so much about a subject. It might be the visual narrative of a Berlin neighborhood undergoing gentrification through a minimalist café or capturing the delight of a Midwest summer carnival through a couple riding the carousel (or the close-up decadence of deep-fried Oreos).

There’s no need to be a professional photographer to lay out a captivating tale. Whether it’s using an iPhone camera to snap pics or exploring drone imagery , these tips from award-winning, renowned travel National Geographic and New York Times photographers will help you capture great photos and the story behind them.

It’s not only about telling a story that’s eye-catching, but also buzz-worthy. Mark Edward Harris , a photographer who has led workshops for Nikon and B&H, points out, “Look for stories that you relate to or have some personal interest in before looking outwards. Many of the best stories are in our own backyards.”

Remember, a location is not a story.

(Courtesy of Mark Edward Harris)

“There’s no real equation or instruction manual for photographic storytelling,” says editorial photographer James Wasserman , whose work has graced The New York Times, Forbes and Fortune.

He does say, don’t be afraid to let loose.

Think about the story you’re interested in sharing. Perhaps it is about documenting the history of a place like Philadelphia's Old City, or telling the story of a popular Parisian restaurant from start-to-finish on a busy night.

Remember, a location is not necessarily a story. This is the mantra that travel and documentary photographer Mark Edward Harris , author of The Travel Photo Essay Describing a Journey Through Images  and whose work has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler and National Geographic, follows.

Its meaning: Dig deeper into a place for a story rather simply skimming the surface.

For instance, Harris recently visited Lubbock, Texas, and while there, discovered it was the birthplace of rock and roll legend Buddy Holly. So, in tandem, he created a photo essay on how the city was memorializing Holly. In doing so, Harris captured the spirit of Lubbock (click to see contact sheet).

For other examples, see below.

Choosing and establishing a sense of place.

When it comes to connecting with a subject, Wasserman is a pro.

Take Old City, Philadelphia , a neighborhood where he’s lived on and off for years. “I was walking past the buildings here multiple times a day,” he says, “and watching them change. I developed a relationship to them.”

Start getting to know the places and people around you. Pay attention. Ask questions.

Take note of things, like the way a local bodega owner might leave a bowl of water out for the neighborhood cat each evening. Or how a parking lot transforms into an impromptu concert venue on Thursday nights.

Windows of time. (James Wasserman / Old City)

Businesses come and go; places change, notes Wasserman. “But often, the most compelling images are ones that become windows into another time.”

They also capture a sense of place. A good example is Wasserman's Chengdu Eats , which features the story of Chengdu, China, recently designated as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy.

To do this, Wasserman looked at what makes Chengdu’s culinary scene so great. He visited a local cooking school, explored the energy of its farmers’ markets, and familiarized himself with the dishes themselves. Like everywhere from Mexico to Morocco, Chengdu's food and its culture are undeniably linked.

Conveying this kind of connection will make your images that much more powerful.

Other examples could be kimchi-making parties in South Korea, or a typical workday of Japanese Ama, the female deep-sea divers who search for sea cucumbers and abalone. Telling these stories through different viewpoints will help them become more whole.

It's always helpful to have a shot list so that you know beforehand what types of images you'd like to include. But leave room for spontaneity: Some photos can occur spur-of-the-moment. Other photos might be arranged shots.

It's OK to include both.

Harris tries to go into new situations with what he calls an “empty cup,” filling it up with interesting ideas and asides as he goes. “That said, I do some basic research before I head out to a location,” he says.

Contemplating the range of images.

Cooking school. (James Wasserman / Chengdu Eats)

Once you have an idea in your mind of the overall theme, start looking at it from a range of different angles.

For example, says Wasserman, “If it's a person whose story you want to convey, ask yourself: Where does that person reside? Where do they work? What are the environments that are important to them?”

If something interests you, snap a pic. Snap more than several pictures, and do so from multiple angles and distances. Shoot wide angles from above (this is a time where that drone could come in handy), and zoom in close.

Take action shots and portraits. In particular, Harris loves the camera’s ability to freeze a moment in time, using a fast-enough shutter speed “to capture a bear catching a salmon at Brooks Falls, Alaska, ” he says, “or an officer directing traffic in Pyongyang, North Korea .”

Basic images should include a strong establishing shot , some detail shots , and a closing shot , says Harris.

If it’s a story about food, this might mean capturing images of chefs cooking it, people eating it, and close-ups of the dishes themselves.

Chicken feet. A great example of a close-up shot. (James Wasserman / Chengdu Eats)

In the case of the Buddy Holly story, one of Harris’s detail shots is a photo of Holly’s famous eyeglasses. “[It was also the same] pair of glasses Holly was wearing when his plane crashed on that freezing, wintery night in 1959,” he says. (Holly died in the plane crash.)

Environmental portraits, or a portrait of a person in a place they’re connected with [ like this image of Bruce Springsteen in Asbury Park, NJ ], are also a key element to photographic storytelling.

Curating, and presenting, the story.

Though it’s both expected and encouraged that different angles, varying subjects, and a range of foci will be included in the story’s universal theme, fight the urge to include everything .

Seriously. As much as you might be dying to feature all 150 photos from a visit to Alcatraz Island, don’t. An onslaught of images is boring, and the story gets lost within them.

“The viewers are always creating their own stories,” says Wasserman. Allow them the chance.

“If you study the classic LIFE magazine photo essays by photographers such as W. Gene Smith, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Gordon Parks,” Harris points out, “a strong story should be able to be told in a dozen photos or so.”

Once you decide on the images you’re going to use, arrange them in an order that makes sense. Begin with a strong establishing shot, such as the cooking school from Wasserman’s Chengdu Eats story.

Then end with a closing shot: One like the pile of rubble in Harris’s Vanity Fair photo essay on the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal Earthquake. Use the in-between to fill in the blanks.

After all, that is where the magic happens.

(Backroads / Mark Edward Harris)

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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

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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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The How and Why of Making a Travel Photo Essay

Instagram, in particular, is full of high-quality travel photography — there's no end to it. But if you want to tell a personal story from your adventuring or pique the interest of a commercial entity with the hope of landing a new photography client, then you need to be able to produce a cohesive set of images.  

In this video, travel and adventure photographer, Brian Lackey, explains the how and why of making a travel photo essay. He neatly condenses his tips for how to go about this process into six steps. As for the why; he alludes to it at the start of the video by explaining how taking an epic golden-hour shot of a landscape doesn't really tell the viewer anything about the place other than the fact that there might be some great views there. One could say that it isn't really travel photography, it's just landscape photography. 

Most of the time, locations or destinations are more than just their landscapes — it's about people, culture, food, etc. There's nothing wrong with going to locations to explicitly take landscape photos but if you want to tell the story of a place you need to factor in all these different elements. Lackey's six tips are a great guide for getting started and you don't even need to hop on a plane or go on a big road trip. You can practice using your own local area or the next nearest point of interest.

Have you considered creating a series of photos to tell a story instead of shooting single, stand-alone images?

Mike is a landscape and commercial photographer from, Co. Kerry, Ireland. In his photographic work, Mike tries to avoid conveying his sense of existential dread, while at the same time writing about his sense of existential dread. The last time he was in New York he was mugged, and he insists on telling that to every person he meets.

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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.

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How to Make a Photo Essay: 5 Tips for Impactful Results

A Post By: Christina N Dickson

Want to tell meaningful stories with your photos? That’s what a photo essay is all about: conveying concepts and narratives through a series of carefully chosen images.

While telling a story with photos can be a daunting task, there are several easy tips and techniques you can use in your photo essays to create striking, stunning, eye-opening results.

And that’s what I’m going to share in this article: five photo essay tips that you can immediately apply to your photography. You’ll leave as a better photo essayist than when you arrived!

Let’s get started.

What is a photo essay?

A photo essay is a collection of images placed in a specific order to convey certain emotions , specific concepts, or a progression of events.

In other words:

The photo essay tells stories just like a normal piece of writing , except with images instead of words. (Here, I’m using the term “story” loosely; as mentioned above, photo essays can encapsulate emotions or concepts in addition to traditional, time-based narratives.)

Plenty of world-class photojournalists use photo essays, including Lauren Greenfield, James Nachtwey, and Joachim Ladefoged. But the photo essay format isn’t exclusive to professionals, and photo essays don’t need to cover dramatic events such as wars, natural disasters, and social issues. Whether you are a complete beginner, a hobbyist, or a professional, the photo essay is a great way to bring your images to life, tell relevant stories about your own surroundings, and touch your family, friends, and coworkers.

So without further ado, let’s look at five easy tips to take your photo essays to the next level, starting with:

1. Find a topic you care about

Every good photo essay should start with an idea .

Otherwise, you’ll be shooting without a purpose – and while such an approach may eventually lead to an interesting series of photos, it’s far, far easier to begin with a topic and only then take out your camera.

As I emphasized above, a photo essay can be about anything. You don’t need to fixate on “classic” photo essay themes, such as war and poverty. Instead, you might focus on local issues that matter to you (think of problems plaguing your community). You can also think about interesting stories worth telling, even if they don’t have an activism angle.

For instance, is there an area undergoing major development? Try documenting the work from start to finish. Is there a particular park or nature area you love? Create a series of images that communicate its beauty.

One key item to remember:

Photo essays are most powerful when you, as the photographer, care about the subject. Whether you choose to document something major and public, like an environmental crisis, or whether you choose to document something small and intimate, like the first month of a newborn in the family, make sure you focus on a topic that matters to you .

Otherwise, you’ll struggle to finish the essay – and even if you do successfully complete it, viewers will likely notice your lack of passion.

2. Do your research

The best photo essays involve some real work. Don’t just walk around and shoot with abandon; instead, try to understand your subject.

That way, you can capture a more authentic series of photos.

For instance, if you document a newborn’s first month , spend time with the family. Discover who the parents are, what culture they are from, and their parenting philosophy.

If you cover the process of a school’s drama production, talk with the teachers, actors, and stagehands; investigate the general interest of the student body; find out how the school is financing the production and keeping costs down.

If you photograph a birthday party, check out the theme, the decorations they plan on using, what the birthday kid hopes to get for their gifts.

If you’re passionate about your topic, the research should come easy. You should enjoy learning the backstory.

And then, when it comes time to actually shoot, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of the topic. You’ll know the key players in the story, the key ideas, and the key locations. You’ll be able to hone in on what matters and block out the flashy distractions.

Make sense?

3. Find the right angle

Once you’ve done your research, you’ll know your topic inside and out.

At which point you’ll need to ask yourself:

What is the real, authentic story I want to tell?

Every story has a hundred different angles and perspectives. And trying to share the story from every perspective is a recipe for failure.

Instead, pick a single angle and focus on it. If you’re documenting a local issue, do you want to focus on how it affects children? The physical area? The economy? If you’re documenting a newborn’s first month, do you want to focus on the interaction between the newborn and the parents? The growth of the newborn? The newborn’s emotions?

As you’ll find out during your research, even stories that seem to be completely one-sided have plenty of hidden perspectives to draw on.

So think about your story carefully. In general, I recommend you approach it from the angle you’re most passionate about (consider the previous tip!), but you’re always free to explore different perspectives.

4. Convey emotion

Not all photo essays must convey emotion. But the most powerful ones do.

After all, think of the stories that you know and love. Your favorite books, movies, and TV shows. Do they touch you on an emotional level?

Don’t get me wrong: Every photo essay shouldn’t cover a sappy, heartstring-tugging tale. You can always focus on conveying other emotions: anger, joy, fear, hurt, excitement.

(Of course, if your story is sappy and heartstring-tugging, that’s fine, too – just don’t force it!)

How do you convey emotions, though? There’s no one set way, but you can include photos of meaningful scenes – human interactions generally work well here! – or you can simply show emotion on the faces of your photographic subjects . Really, the best way to communicate emotions through your photos is to feel the emotions yourself; they’ll bleed over into your work for a unique result.

5. Plan your shots

Once you’ve done the research and determined the angle and emotions you’d like to convey, I recommend you sit down, take out a pen and paper, and plan your photo essay .

Should you extensively visualize each photo? Should you walk through the venue, imagining possible compositions ?

Honestly, that’s up to you, and it’ll depend on how you like to work. I do recommend that beginners start out by creating a “shot list” for the essay. Here, you should describe the main subject, the narrative purpose of the image, plus any lighting or composition notes. Once you become more experienced, you can be looser in your planning, though I still recommend you at least think about the different shots you want to capture.

You can start by planning 10 shots. Each one should emphasize a different concept or emotion, but make sure to keep a consistent thread running through every composition; after all, the end goal is to create a powerful series of images that tell a story.

One final tip:

While you should stick to your plan pretty closely, at least at first, don’t ignore the potential for spontaneity. If you see a possible shot, take it! You can later evaluate whether it’s a worthwhile addition to your essay.

Photo essay tips: final words

Now that you’ve finished this article, you know all about what photo essays are, and – hopefully! – how to create a beautiful essay of your own.

Just remember: storytelling takes practice, but you don’t have to be an incredible writer to pull off a powerful photo essay. All you need is a bit of photographic technique, some creativity, and a lot of heart.

Once you start to tell stories with your photos, your portfolio will never be the same!

Now over to you:

Do you have any tips for doing photo essays? Do you have any essays you’re proud of? Share them in the comments below!

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is a visionary artist and philanthropist in Portland Oregon. Her work includes wedding photography www.BrideInspired.com and leadership with www.RevMediaBlog.com .

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Storytelling Through Images: Creating Memorable Travel Photo Essays

In today’s social media and digital storytelling world, photos have become essential for conveying emotions, experiences, and memories. An image can speak a thousand words, and when it comes to travel photography , it has the power to transport the viewer to new places and inspire wanderlust.

But what sets apart a good photo from a great one? How does one create a narrative through images that capture a place’s essence and the moment’s emotions? The answer lies in mastering the art of visual storytelling.

Visual storytelling is all about using images as a medium to tell stories. It involves selecting relevant visuals that support your message or theme while being mindful of composition, lighting, perspective, and other technical details. When done right, visual storytelling can create memorable narratives that engage viewers emotionally.

In this article, we’ll explore how you can use visual storytelling techniques to create compelling travel photo essays that capture your adventures in a way that resonates with your audience. Whether you’re an amateur photographer or a seasoned pro looking for inspiration, this guide will provide practical tips on how to craft memorable stories through images.

Page Contents

Choose a Theme or Focus

Selecting a unifying subject matter or focal point is a crucial early step in crafting effective and cohesive visual narratives.

Destination inspiration can come from many sources, such as a personal connection to the location, cultural significance, or natural beauty.

Once you have chosen your destination, finding your angle is key to creating a unique and compelling story. This could be focusing on a particular aspect of the place, such as food or architecture, or exploring its history or local customs.

Having a clear theme helps guide your photography and ensures that each image contributes to telling the larger story.

By choosing an interesting focus and staying true to it throughout the photo essay, you can create memorable travel stories that engage your audience’s sense of adventure and curiosity.

Capture the Moment

Capturing authentic moments during travel can enhance the visual narrative of a photo essay and provide a deeper sense of immersion for the viewer.

It is important to pay attention to composition techniques such as framing, rule of thirds, and leading lines to create visually compelling images.

However, it is equally important to be open to finding inspiration in unexpected places and being spontaneous in capturing the moment.

This can mean patience when waiting for the perfect shot or taking advantage of serendipitous opportunities.

Ultimately, creating a memorable travel photo essay involves balancing careful planning and being open to spontaneity to capture genuine moments that tell a unique story.

Edit and Select Your Photos

To create a compelling travel photo essay, it is important to edit and select your images carefully. Utilizing editing tools can enhance the visual impact of your photographs while choosing the best photos for your story ensures that every image contributes meaningfully to your narrative.

Additionally, arranging your photos in a cohesive order allows for a smooth and engaging flow throughout your essay. By following these key points, you can effectively communicate the essence of your travels through captivating imagery.

Use Editing Tools to Enhance Your Images

Employing editing tools can significantly amplify the visual appeal of your photographs, enabling you to create a more engaging and aesthetically pleasing narrative that will captivate your audience and leave an indelible impression on their minds.

Various editing tools can help enhance your images, including using filters to adjust the colors and contrast, cropping to remove unwanted elements or focus on a specific subject, and retouching to remove blemishes or distractions.

Personalizing your style is also important in creating a memorable photo essay; this can be achieved by experimenting with different editing techniques until you find a style that aligns with your creative vision.

Lastly, adding text and graphics can further enhance the storytelling aspect of your images by providing context or emphasizing certain elements within the frame.

Overall, editing tools are essential in creating impactful travel photo essays that resonate with your audience long after viewing them.

Choose the Best Photos for Your Story

Selecting the most effective photographs for a travel narrative necessitates careful consideration of various factors, such as visual impact, compositional elements, and relevance to the overall theme. Composition tips are crucial in creating visually appealing images that engage viewers and convey an immersive experience.

Visual storytelling conveys emotions, atmosphere, and context through carefully curated imagery that transports audiences to far-off lands or distant memories. When choosing photos for a travel photo essay, it is essential to pick those that capture the essence of the place you visited while staying true to your style as a photographer.

A helpful way to determine which pictures are best suited for your story is by creating a table with three columns: “Visual Impact,” “Composition Elements,” and “Relevance to Theme.” In each row, assess each image according to these criteria and select only those that meet all three standards.

This way, you can ensure that every picture in your photo essay contributes meaningfully to your overall narrative and creates a lasting impression on your audience.

Arrange Your Photos in a Cohesive Order

Organizing photographs in a logical and cohesive sequence is crucial for creating an engaging and immersive visual experience that transports the audience to different places and times, allowing them to experience the narrative as if they were there.

When arranging photos, it’s essential to consider whether you want to follow a chronological or thematic order. A chronological order can help tell a story through time, while a thematic order focuses on specific themes or motifs that tie the images together.

Balancing visual appeal with storytelling flow is also important, as you want your photo essay to be visually appealing without sacrificing clarity in the narrative.

A well-arranged sequence of photographs can take your audience on a journey, leading them from one image to another seamlessly, ultimately enhancing the impact of your overall story.

Write Captions and Text

Crafting effective written accompaniments that complement visual elements is crucial in conveying the essence of a travel experience. Crafting compelling narratives and evoking emotions through words and visuals are important factors when creating memorable travel photo essays.

Captions and text should enhance the visual story, providing the viewer context, information, and emotion. It is essential to keep captions concise while delivering relevant information about the image.

Text can provide further insight into the location or culture depicted in the photo essay. Descriptive language and storytelling techniques can help transport readers to the destination and create a more immersive experience.

In summary, well-crafted captions and text can elevate an already beautiful photo essay into a truly unforgettable one by adding depth, meaning, and emotion for viewers to connect.

Share Your Story

Documenting and presenting personal experiences clearly and engagingly can enhance the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of different cultures, destinations, and travel experiences.

Reflective storytelling allows the photographer to connect with their audience emotionally, creating a deeper connection beyond just showcasing beautiful images.

It is important to remember that sharing your story through photographs is not just about showing off your technical skills or capturing picturesque landscapes; it is about conveying a message or theme that resonates with your audience.

To achieve this, you must carefully curate your images to effectively communicate your story while providing context through accompanying text or captions.

Sharing your travel photo essay should be done thoughtfully and strategically to ensure maximum engagement and impact.

By embracing reflective storytelling techniques, photographers have the power to create unforgettable narratives that inspire meaningful conversations about culture, history, and the human experience.

Travel photo essays are a powerful medium for telling stories through images. Creating these essays involves choosing a theme or focus, capturing the moment, editing and selecting photos, writing captions and text, and sharing your story.

Whether you’re documenting a solo adventure or a family vacation, it’s important to plan and think about what message you want to convey. One key element of storytelling through images is capturing the moment.

This means being present at the moment and paying attention to your surroundings. Look for interesting angles, unique perspectives, and moments that tell a story.

Editing is also crucial; carefully select your best photos and use them to create a cohesive narrative. The art of storytelling through images requires thoughtful planning and execution.

Following these steps, you can create memorable travel photo essays that transport viewers to new places and inspire them to explore the world. So grab your camera and start telling your own travel stories today!

(+) Sources

• https://maphappy.org/photographic-storytelling-how-to-craft-the-perfect-travel-photo-essay/
• https://www.travelphotographyguru.com/travel-blogs/the-photo-essay-a-recipe-for-success
• https://www.worldnomads.com/create/learn/photography/how-to-build-a-photo-essay
• https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-create-a-photo-essay

A passionate solo traveler, embarking on thrilling adventures to explore the world's historical ruins. Fascinated by the intricate tales woven into ancient stones, she delves deep into the history of each site, unearthing the emotional stories that resonate through time. With every journey, Hayden strives to connect with the human experience of the past and share its profound significance with fellow explorers. Join her on a captivating expedition to unlock the secrets of bygone eras.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Photo Essays

Posted July 10th, 2020 by Lee Van Katwyk & filed under Travel Photography .

If you’re not so handy with a pen but have a good eye for photography, photo essays could be your best route into the world of online and print media.

Compared with written articles, photo essays can be a much easier way to get your foot in the door with new publications. If it’s true what they say, that pictures speak a thousand words, then you don’t have to worry as much about crafting a perfectly worded pitch. With a fairly good camera or smartphone and a little bit of knowledge in the realm of photo essays, you can quickly find yourself on the road to financial success. So, let’s dive right in.

What is a photo essay?

Put simply, it is one way of telling a story. Instead of using written or spoken word, this type of visual storytelling shows a small slice of the world through the lens of a camera. A photo essay can be short, starting with only three shots. They just have to portray the essence of any story: a start, middle, and end. 

Alternatively, photo essays can range into the double or even triple figures, such as professional photojournalist Tomas van Houtryve’s Blue Sky Days , an epic and often chilling 16-page photo journal.

Crafting a good story through photography

What makes a good story? Any writer will tell you it’s about creating within your reader the desire to know what happens. As with a good written story, great photo essays should drive an audience through your telling of events, keeping them engaged from start till end. You need to hook people with that very first image and keep them engaged with progressive steps that build toward an ending. You don’t always need to be telling a sequenced story. But, you do need to give a sense of building toward something. For instance, you wouldn’t want to have your best three photos at the get go and nothing to impress and reward the viewer at the end.

A few ideas to get you started

Perhaps one of the easiest stories to start telling through photography is that of transformation. Examples could include a new building being built in your city, a botanical garden moving through the seasons, or your niece going from belly to baby and beyond. What’s great about long-term transformation is it tends to give you plenty of time for planning. Event photography takes the difficulty up a notch but can still be planned out in advance. Let’s say there’s a music festival or running race coming to town, converse with the organizers, get yourself acquainted with the venue, and familiarize yourself with the schedule. Then, on the day, snap away from setup through to the actual event right along to the aftermath. Third, and more difficult, is to capture a journey. This can include yourself as the subject moving through different environments, someone you’re traveling with, local people you meet along the way, or primarily focusing on various locations/landmarks—to name but a few ideas. This one is trickier because you don’t have time to plan in advance what shots you want, nor do you have the luxury of knowing when/where something interesting will happen. You have to be primed and ready every step of the way.

The Complete Guide to Travel Photography

By Megan Spurrell

As travelers, our cameras can feel like a fifth limb—an essential tool with which to move through the world and absorb new experiences. They make it possible to document the people we meet. They provide tangible memories of the remarkable beauty we travel so far to see. Ultimately, they help us communicate what words cannot.

In the digital era, the tie between travel and photography feels more innate than ever. Photography has become more accessible and affordable to dabble in (who even needs a real camera with phones these days? ). On the flip side, it can feel as if documenting and sharing our travel experiences has become half of the seeing itself. In her essay on pushing herself to take a photo-free trip , Allie Jones asks a question we can all relate to: “If you visit a trendy upstate New York museum and don’t take any photos, were you ever really there?”

As the routine of snapping and sharing becomes as habitual as rinse and repeat, others urge us to become more thoughtful with our travel photography. Just because we can photograph and share everything, in a matter of seconds, doesn’t mean we need to. In his feature, Tyler Moss explores the #nogeotag movement , and looks at just how our photo sharing can drastically alter a destination—and decide who gets to experience it. For professional photographers Gray Malin and Alex Strohl , the “how” of nailing their iconic travel photographs has relied more on patience, and analog techniques like driving massive props cross-country, or waiting for the perfect shot in sub-zero temps, than on any new developments.

And, just in case you were starting to let your Instagram feed convince you that you’ve seen it all, we’ve pulled in photo studies from photographers whose work we can’t help but ogle. Jessica Sarkodie shares a refreshing look at the unspoiled beaches of her native Ghana. Cedric Angeles flew to Mongolia for a peek inside the lives of the country’s famous eagle hunters (and yes, there are photos of the eagles in their hunting caps ahead). For Sandy Noto , photographing harvest season in the Dolomites while off-duty yielded gorgeous slices of life.

Of course, if you’re ready to step up your own game, we’ve also got the gear you need—from underwater cameras to camera bags that don’t look like camera bags. And, we’ve rounded up our favorite photographers to follow right now, because as much as we want to cut the social media umbilical cord, there is so much to admire there. You just need to know where to look.

Through the lens

Think before you shoot

Behind the scenes

The gear you need

Everything else you need to know

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Photo Essays

Travel photo essays showcasing stunning travel images, travel photos and travel pictures from around the world capturing candid moments of beauty.

Top Reasons To Create Travel Photo Essays

• Capturing Memories: One of the top reasons to create great photo essays from around the world while traveling is to capture your memories. Your photos can serve as a visual diary of your travels, helping you to relive your experiences long after you’ve returned home.
• Storytelling: Photos can be a powerful tool for storytelling, conveying emotion and conveying the essence of a place or culture. A photo essay allows you to tell a story through a series of images, capturing the sights, sounds, and sensations of the places you visit.
• Sharing Your Experiences: By creating photo essays, you can share your experiences with others, giving them a glimpse into the cultures, landscapes, and people that you encounter on your travels. This can help to inspire others to explore the world and broaden their own horizons.
• Developing Your Photography Skills: Travel photography offers an excellent opportunity to develop your photography skills, from capturing the right lighting to composing the perfect shot. Creating photo essays can help you to refine your skills and challenge yourself to capture unique and compelling images.
• Building Your Portfolio: If you’re interested in pursuing a career in photography or journalism, creating photo essays from your travels can be an excellent way to build your portfolio. It can demonstrate your creativity, technical skills, and storytelling abilities to potential clients or employers.
• Encouraging Sustainable Tourism: By creating photo essays that showcase the beauty and importance of different places around the world, you can help to promote sustainable tourism. This can encourage travelers to be more mindful of their impact on the environment and local communities, and to appreciate the unique cultural heritage of each place they visit.
• Preserving Cultural Heritage: Creating photo essays can also help to preserve cultural heritage by capturing the traditions, customs, and landmarks of different communities around the world. This can serve as a valuable record for future generations, ensuring that these cultures are not forgotten or lost over time.

How Travel Photos Can Inspire

Travel photos have the power to inspire us in many ways. Here are a few ways how:

• Inspire Wanderlust: Travel photos can be an excellent source of inspiration for those who yearn to explore the world. Beautiful images of exotic destinations can inspire people to add new places to their travel bucket list and plan their next adventure.
• Showcase Different Cultures: Travel photos can offer a window into the lives and cultures of people from around the world. By capturing the unique traditions, customs, and practices of different communities, travel photos can inspire us to appreciate the diversity of the world.
• Encourage Personal Growth: Travel photos can also inspire personal growth and self-reflection. By showing us new perspectives and ways of life, they can challenge our assumptions and broaden our horizons, encouraging us to become more open-minded and empathetic.
• Highlight Natural Beauty: Travel photos can showcase the natural beauty of the world, from breathtaking landscapes to stunning wildlife. They can inspire us to appreciate the natural world and to take action to protect the environment.
• Capture Memories: Travel photos can serve as a powerful reminder of our own experiences and adventures. They can inspire us to cherish the moments we’ve had and to continue exploring the world.

Overall, travel photos can be a source of inspiration for both our personal growth and our connection to the world around us. They can inspire us to learn more about different cultures, to appreciate the beauty of nature, and to continue seeking new adventures.

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Book description

Successful travel photographers have to wear more hats than perhaps any other photographic genre. In a single travel photo essay they are at times architectural photographers, food photographers, music photographers, car photographers – the list encompassing every possible type of photography.

The Travel Photo Essay teaches the reader the necessary techniques to create cohesive professional travel stories, using images that go far beyond "I was here" photographs. From the establishing shots to the equipment list, this book discusses the techniques and concepts necessary to create professional looking images in various genres, including portrait photography, landscape photography, wildlife photography, food photography, documentary photography, sports photography and more. Covering issues such as lighting, writing, workflow and the travel photography market, award-winning photographer and writer Mark Edward Harris explains how to marry photos with words, telling a cohesive story through a series of photographs.

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• What Is a Travel Photo Essay?
• Developing the Idea
• Freelance Pitching
• Establishing Shots
• Portraiture
• Environmental Portraits
• Traditional Portraits
• Classic Cropping Points
• Detail Shots
• The Closing Shot
• Composition: Big Picture Thinking
• Rule of Thirds
• Natural Frames
• Silhouettes
• Time of Day
• Shooting Contre Jour
• Night Exposures
• The Extra Element
• Astral Projection
• Exposure Compensation
• Shake, Blur, or Out of Focus?
• Proper Tripod Use
• Longer Lens, More Shake
• Lowlight Without a Tripod
• Be Ready to Hit the Ground Running
• The Equipment Checklist
• Know Your Camera: Full-frame and Cropped Sensor DSLRs and Mirrorless Cameras
• Jpeg Versus Raw
• The Exposure Triangle
• Taking Control of Your Depth of Field
• Shutter Speed
• Motor Drive
• Filters for the Digital World
• Lenses: Wide Angle, Normal, Telephoto, Macro
• Wide Angles
• Normal Lenses
• Low Light: High ISOs Versus Flash
• Transporting Your Equipment: Camera Bags and Backpacks
• To Flash or Not to Flash, That is the Good Question
• Light Modifiers
• Getting Creative with Artificial Lighting
• Understanding Kelvin Color Temperatures: Why Proper Color Balance Matters
• Mixed Light Sources and Color Temperature
• Speedlights: Ultraportable Flash Units
• Separate Power Packs and Strobe Heads
• Continuous Lighting for Hybrid Video
• A Final Word on Artificial Lighting
• Felice Beato
• Edward Curtis
• W. Gene Smith
• Gordon Parks
• Mary Ellen Mark
• Sebastiao Salgado
• David Alan Harvey
• Cristina Garcia Rodero
• A Final Thought
• The Shot List
• Arizona Road Trip
• Los Angeles
• Los Angeles (Personal Project)
• Cheyenne, Wyoming
• Switzerland
• Brazil (Personal Project)
• The Two Koreas
• Portraits of Vietnam
• The Way of the Japanese Bath
• Alaska’s Call of the Wild
• North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom
• Portrait Photography
• Wildlife Photography
• Landscape Photography

Food Photography

• Automotive Photography
• Fashion and Beauty Photography
• Documentary Photography
• Street Photography
• Sports Photography
• Underwater Photography
• Tabletop Photography
• Architectural and Interior Photography
• Aerial Photography
• Music Photography
• The Marriage of the Pen and the Camera
• Giving a Story Context and Instilling a Sense of History
• The Magazine/Newspaper Travel Section Pitch
• Inspiration
• Camera Setup
• Every Bit Matters
• Color Space
• Picture Style
• Monitor Calibration
• Importing and Processing
• Converting to Black and White
• File Naming Protocols for Travel Imagery
• Storage: Your Personal Archive
• Outsourcing Storage
• Digital Darkroom Inspirations
• Further Reading
• Travel Photography Business Tools
• Getting Assignments: Pitching Travel Story Ideas
• Advertising Photography
• Stock Photography
• Presentation: Paginating a Travel Photo Essay in Book Form
• Exhibiting Your Work: Themed Shows
• Departing Thoughts on Our Journey

Product information

• Title: The Travel Photo Essay
• Author(s): Mark Edward Harris
• Release date: September 2017
• Publisher(s): Routledge
• ISBN: 9781315514994

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The World Through a Lens

Helping to Reveal a Still-Shuttered World

Our weekly photo essay series offered readers a glimpse of distant places and cultures that, for a second straight year, remained largely inaccessible.

Supported by

By Stephen Hiltner and Phaedra Brown

• Dec. 27, 2021

In March 2020, as lockdowns fell into place worldwide, The Times’s Travel desk launched a new visual series to help readers cope with their confinement. We called it The World Through a Lens — and, frankly, we didn’t expect it to last this long.

But as the weeks turned into months, and the months into years, we’ve continued publishing photo essays each Monday morning, carrying you — virtually — from the islands of Maine to the synagogues of Myanmar , and nearly 100 other places in between.

We hope the series has offered you a little solace and a little distraction throughout the pandemic — and perhaps a chance to immerse yourself, if momentarily, in a distant place or culture that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Below are some of our favorite World Through a Lens essays from the past year. (You can browse the full archive here .)

Touring Alaska in an R.V.

For Christopher Miller, a photographer based in Juneau, Alaska, two roads — the Glenn Highway and the Richardson Highway — formed the backbone of a stunning late-spring road trip. And instead of sacrificing comfort, he traveled in style: in an R.V., the quintessentially American automobile.

“I gazed out the window at the late-spring flora, which hemmed the Matanuska River Valley, until a jolt in the road brought me back to my reality: I was hurtling down the road, lurching and swaying with the equivalent of an efficiency apartment as a back-seat passenger.” Christopher Miller

Read more about R.V. life on the Alaskan highway →

The Stunning Grandeur of Soviet-Era Metros

Between 2014 and 2020, Frank Herfort visited more than 770 Soviet-era metro stations — including stations in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Uzbekistan. He also visited a handful of cities whose metro systems, while not formally attributed to the Soviet Union, were either built or substantially altered during the Soviet era, including the metro stations in Bucharest, Budapest and Prague.

His goal? To create as close to a full archive of the metros as he possibly could.

“Often the project felt like a game of cat and mouse. At certain moments I felt like a criminal, despite the fact that my only intentions were to capture the stations’ beauty.” Frank Herfort

Read more about metro stations across the former Soviet Union →

Intimate Portraits of Mexico’s Third-Gender Muxes

On the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico, the local Zapotec community has long accepted — and celebrated — a group of people known as muxes, who are born male but who adopt roles and identities associated with women.

The photographer Núria López Torres first learned about Mexico’s muxes, who are broadly considered a third gender, after working on a series of projects about gender identity in Cuba and Brazil.

“My first visit to Juchitán, in 2014, coincided with a series of festivities, during which seemingly everyone I encountered — young, old, men, women, muxes — danced, ate and drank in celebration. The days were long and intense, full of joy and euphoria.” Núria López Torres

Read more about gender nonconformity in the Mexican state of Oaxaca →

A Cyclist on the English Landscape

In 2020, Roff Smith, a travel photographer grounded by the pandemic, began to bring a camera and tripod with him on his morning bicycle rides, shooting them as though they were magazine assignments.

What began as simply something to do — a challenge to try to see his familiar surroundings through fresh eyes — soon blossomed into a celebration of traveling close to home.

“You don’t need to board a plane and jet off to the far side of the world to experience a sense of travel or the romance of difference. It lies waiting on your doorstep — if you look.” Roff Smith

Read more about Roff’s adventures in southeast England →

A Stunning Look at the Hidden Mysteries of Glacier Caves

For more than 15 years, the geologist and photographer Jason Gulley has explored and mapped glacier caves from Nepal to Greenland, venturing into vast, icy labyrinths to study their relationships with glacial melting and climate change.

Among his findings: Rising temperatures are forming caves inside glaciers in the Everest region of Nepal that are rotting the glaciers from the inside out.

“As my eyes adjusted to the lower light, I found myself staring down into a chasm that was far bigger than anything I thought we might find beneath the surface of the Greenland ice sheet.” Jason Gulley

Read more about glacier caves in Alaska, Greenland, Nepal and Svalbard →

Living on the Margins, ‘Surfing’ on the Buses

In the Brazilian city of Olinda, a group of thrill seekers took up an illegal and death-defying hobby: riding on the outside of public buses.

The photographer Victor Moriyama first learned of the pastime via a video posted to Facebook. Within an hour, he was exchanging messages with the surfers and planning his trip to Olinda.

“During my weeklong visit with the bus surfers in 2017, I felt happy and free. In a way, they allowed me to revisit my own roots: During my teenage years, growing up in São Paulo, I, too, engaged in certain risky and transgressive behavior.” Victor Moriyama

Read more about Brazilian bus surfers →

Exploring Greece’s Unseen Corners

After a chance encounter in Olympos piqued his interest in traditional Greek clothing, the photographer George Tatakis decided to make a project of exploring the unseen corners of his country — to meet the people, learn about their traditional practices and make images along the way.

“To me, photography is about much more than just the images themselves. I have a passion for rural Greece, and I enjoy exploring the concept of xenia, or hospitality — a central virtue that can be traced back to ancient Greece.” George Tatakis

Read more about Greece’s vibrant traditional culture →

Agony and Ecstasy on the Scottish Archipelago of St. Kilda

For centuries, the archipelago of St. Kilda, one of the most remote and unforgiving outposts in the British Isles, has electrified the imaginations of writers, historians, artists, scientists and adventurers. Its tantalizing history is replete with a rich cultural heritage, distinctive architecture and haunting isolation — not to mention disease, famine and exile.

When Stephen Hiltner, an editor on the Travel desk, visited the archipelago with his brother and sister, the 85-mile boat ride through rough seas left some passengers huddling in discomfort. But the windswept scenery was otherworldly.

“St. Kilda’s natural features are almost comical in their splendor. Jagged sea stacks rise like bundled knives from the opaque water; clamoring seabirds float nonchalantly above precipitous cliffs; swooping fields blanket an otherworldly landscape utterly devoid of trees.” Stephen Hiltner

Read more about the isolated archipelago in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides →

In Los Angeles, Glimpses of an Oasis With Deep Immigrant Roots

Emerging like a mirage from their surroundings, the San Pedro Community Gardens have for decades provided physical and spiritual nourishment to multiple generations of immigrant Angelenos.

When the photographer Stella Kalinina discovered the gardens in 2019, she instantly connected with the expressions of longing for ancestral lands.

“As a Russian-Ukrainian American who moved to the United States as a teenager and later married a second-generation Mexican American, I find myself drawn to stories of migration, severed connections, longing for one’s culture and the making of new homes.” Stella Kalinina

Read more about the San Pedro Community Gardens →

A Personal Pilgrimage to a Downed Warplane in Papua New Guinea

In 1986, when he was 12 years old, Joel Carillet — whose family had moved to Papua New Guinea to work with a Bible-translation organization — visited the site of a World War II plane that crashed in the jungle near the village of Likan.

His return, some 33 years later, prompted a series of reflections on the various ways that the site — and his experiences in Papua New Guinea as a child — shaped him, then and now.

“As the plane lined up for landing on the grass airstrip, I felt a deep joy — the sort you feel when, after a quarter century of wandering, you are returning to a central place in your life.” Joel Carillet

Read more about a World War II crash site in Papua New Guinea →

Portraits of Kolkata’s Rickshaw Pullers

The dense metropolis of Kolkata is among the only places in India — and one of the few left in the world — where fleets of hand-pulled rickshaws still ply the streets. The men who operate them are called rickshaw wallahs; some pull their rickshaws more than 10 miles a day while carrying several hundred pounds.

The photographer Emilienne Malfatto documented the men and their work while on a scholarship for a photography workshop.

“Rickshaw wallahs don’t earn a living serving tourists. Their clientele consists mainly of local Kolkatans: shoppers coming to and from markets, or residents transiting the city’s narrow side streets.” Emilienne Malfatto

Read more about Kolkata’s rickshaw wallahs →

The Searing Beauty, and Harsh Reality, of a Kentucky Tobacco Harvest

Driven by his interest in the cultures and traditions of his home state of Kentucky, Luke Sharrett photographed his first tobacco harvest eight years ago. Each year since then, he has eagerly returned.

At Tucker Farms in Shelby County, 25 men from Nicaragua and one from Mexico perform the grueling seasonal work that Americans largely avoid. The labor is physical, repetitive and exhausting. Long days are punctuated by a few short breaks and a lunch of home-cooked beans and rice.

“Documenting the tobacco harvests is a highlight of working as a photographer in Kentucky. Reuniting each year with the crew is a joy. I marvel at their skill, ingenuity and efficiency.” Luke Sharrett

Read more about the seasonal tobacco workers in Shelby County →

On Horseback Among the Eagle Hunters and Herders of the Mongolian Altai

Deep in the Altai Mountains, where Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia meet, Kazakh people have for centuries developed and nurtured a special bond with golden eagles.

In October 2019, after living and working in northern Iraq for almost three years, the photographer Claire Thomas began working on a personal photography project that drew on her background and affinity with horses.

To start, she flew to western Mongolia to meet and photograph the iconic Kazakh hunters, horsemen and animal herders.

“Outwardly, documenting the traditional ways of life in western Mongolia stands in stark contrast to my time spent photographing scenes of conflict and suffering in Iraq. But the two subjects share a common theme: the human struggle not just to survive, but to build a better future for oneself and one’s family.” Claire Thomas

Read more about Kazakh eagle hunter in western Mongolia →

Glimpses of Sudan’s Forgotten Pyramids

Throughout the 30-year dictatorship of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who led Sudan through a long series of wars and famines, the pyramids of Meroe saw few international visitors and remained relatively unknown.

But after the revolution that led to Mr. al-Bashir’s ouster in 2019 and the removal of Sudan from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism, the country’s archaeological sites were finally poised to receive broader attention and protections.

In early 2020, the photographer Alessio Mamo traveled to Sudan to visit the ancient city of Meroe, whose pyramids were built between 2,700 and 2,300 years ago.

“The Meroe pyramids — around 200 in total, many of them in ruins — seemed to be in perfect harmony with the surrounding landscape, as if the wind had smoothed their edges to accommodate them among the dunes.” Alessio Mamo

Read more about Sudan’s archaeological treasures →

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation.

Stephen Hiltner is an editor on the Travel desk. You can follow his work on Instagram and Twitter . More about Stephen Hiltner

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The Travel Photo Essay: Describing a Journey Through Images 1st Edition

Purchase options and add-ons.

Successful travel photographers have to wear more hats than perhaps any other photographic genre. In a single travel photo essay they are at times architectural photographers, food photographers, music photographers, car photographers – the list encompassing every possible type of photography.

The Travel Photo Essay teaches the reader the necessary techniques to create cohesive professional travel stories, using images that go far beyond "I was here" photographs. From the establishing shots to the equipment list, this book discusses the techniques and concepts necessary to create professional looking images in various genres, including portrait photography, landscape photography, wildlife photography, food photography, documentary photography, sports photography and more. Covering issues such as lighting, writing, workflow and the travel photography market, award-winning photographer and writer Mark Edward Harris explains how to marry photos with words, telling a cohesive story through a series of photographs.

• ISBN-10 1138200212
• ISBN-13 978-1138200210
• Edition 1st
• Publisher Routledge
• Publication date September 18, 2017
• Language English
• Dimensions 7 x 0.75 x 10 inches
• Print length 260 pages
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

About the author.

Mark Edward Harris started his professional photography career after graduating from California State University, Los Angeles with a Master of Arts degree in Pictorial/Documentary History. His assignments have taken him to 95 countries on six continents with his editorial work appearing in publications ranging from Vanity Fair, LIFE, and Time to GEO , Conde Nast Traveler and The London Sunday Times Travel Magazine as well as all the major photography and in-flight magazines . His award-winning books include Faces of the Twentieth Century: Master Photographers and Their Work , The Way of the Japanese Bath, Wanderlust , North Korea , South Korea, and Inside Iran.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (September 18, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 260 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1138200212
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1138200210
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.63 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.75 x 10 inches
• #267 in Photography (Books)
• #408 in Monument Photography
• #1,270 in Ecotourism Travel Guides

About the author

Mark edward harris.

After graduating from California State University, Los Angeles with a Master of Arts Degree in Pictorial/Documentary History, Mark Edward Harris started his professional photography career doing the stills for the Merv Griffin Show and various television and movie companies. When the show ended in 1986 he set off on a four-month trek across the Pacific and throughout Southeast Asia, China and Japan. The images created on that trip brought attention to his documentary photography. Assignments have since taken him to more than 100 countries on six continents. His editorial work has appeared in publications such as Vanity Fair, LIFE, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, GEO, Newsweek, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, AFAR, Wallpaper, Vogue, Architectural Digest, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The London Sunday Times Travel Magazine as well as all the major photography and in-flight magazines. Among his numerous accolades are CLIO, ACE, Impact DOCS Award of Excellence, Aurora Gold, and IPA awards. His books include Faces of the Twentieth Century: Master Photographers and Their Work, The Way of the Japanese Bath, Wanderlust, North Korea, South Korea, Inside Iran, The Travel Photo Essay: Describing A Journey Through Images and The People of the Forest, a book about orangutans.

Website: MarkEdwardHarris.com

Instagram: @MarkEdwardHarrisPhoto

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The Real Power of Travel Photography: A Photo Essay from Uganda

Matt Payne July 20th, 2019

By Matt Payne

VIDEO: Uganda Village Project

Photos, video and text by Matt Payne who traveled with James at MJ Safaris

Photographers and travel are synonymous. There is the garden variety “Eiffel Tower selfie snapper” and the waterfall chaser. The lead-line architecture photographer and the guy that skips the five-course dinner (me) and heads out with a tripod looking for that elusive last light that turns any exotic landscapes into digital paintings. Photography, though, can play a deeper and more lasting role in how you commune with the people in the environments you visit. Particularly when traveling in developing nations.

Perhaps you’ve seen it before. You stop in a small village and clock a handful of children watching you. At first, it is a dance. You feel compelled to take a photo of these charming little ones in their unique and unfamiliar environment- they kind of shy away, never losing eye contact. You don’t want to be intrusive. Perhaps their parents watch side-eyed with a hint of suspicion… To just whip out your camera- you feel- and take a photo, understandably might be little rude.

But here’s what you might not know.

Those kids, in many cases- especially if they are eyeing you and giggling- want you to take their picture! Depending where you are in the world, some of those kiddos might not have ever seen their photograph in their lives.

Let that sink in… In the age of selfies and self-obsession, there are millions across the world who have never seen their photo.

Each time I encounter this, I’m moved. I’m touched by their unbridled enthusiasm and troubled by my own ambivalence to the privilege in my own life. To these little ones- to quote a local guide I worked with recently in Uganda-  to see their photo on a screen is “magic.”

Recently, in the Busoga Kingdom of Uganda, I spent an afternoon taking thousands of pictures of wonderful children excited to have their photo taken. As always, I was slightly self-conscious of the stoic village elders watching from a distance. After a particularly severe woman attempted to speak to me in an equally severe tone gesturing towards my camera. Slowly, I began to put my camera away. Our guide stopped me. “Do not put away your camera!”

I stopped, not sure what to do.

He grinned.  “She wants to see her picture too.”

The thin woman with venerable eyes adjusted herself as I approached. I took the photo and then showed here the screen. A small crowd of adults gathered. A tiny smile in the corners of her mouth. She said something–

“She says it’s a miracle,” said my guide. Within moments, I was surrounded by adults and the photos continued.

After another half hour, it occurred to me that this experience could be improved upon.

What if I let the village kids take the pictures?

It might be even more remarkable to put the “magic” in their hands.

I gave them a point and shoot camera to play with and the word “magic” doesn’t really do justice to the outcome. The subsequent video- to me- is pure joy.

Continue with me on this brief journey into a world where a simple photo is still magic.

Please comment below and enjoy these related articles

2 responses to “ the real power of travel photography: a photo essay from uganda ”.

These photos are amazing! So much life and joy displayed! Thank you for sharing a bit of their world with ours!

Nice picture Collection. Love to read. Thanks For writing This Wonderful Blog. Vaihav

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