For this essay you will put together a sequence of from six to eight photographs (or other sorts of images) that tie in some way to your argument paper (Essay 4). The photos may work with the argument in a variety of ways: to give a historical context, to provide background material useful for understanding your argument, to illustrate the causes or effects related to your arguable issue, to generalize a local issue you’ve tackled in the argument or to localize some more widespread issue, or some other connection of your own devising. You may find these photos online, or I’d love to see at least a few of you take and upload your own photographs (or you may use some combination of found and personally shot photos).
In writing the captions for this essay, you may want to incorporate research, or you may write from draw from another genre if appropriate (for example, memoir, instructions, or visual analysis).
Deciding on a topic. See the argument assignment for suggestions of places to look for arguable issues. Make sure that you’ve come up with a topic that can lend itself both to argument and to some sort of visual representation. Your photo essay need not be argumentative in itself, however; it may be expository (explanatory) or illustrative.
Finding pictures. Decide whether you will take your own pictures or search for them online. Here is a link to a good list of sites of photographic archives that are in the public domain (and thus can be ethically used); if you use a google image search or a social networking site such as flickr, make sure to pay attention to the permissions required for image use.
Researching relevant info for captions. If you have chosen an approach that requires research, look for useful sources; you may re-use some of the sources you used for your argument.
Writing captions and putting everything together. For each photo, write a paragraph-sized caption, remembering to use in-text citations for any information taken from your sources (summary, paraphrase, or quotation). You may use MS Word to put your essay together (one picture per page, or you may use Powerpoint. (Other options are possible, but check with me to make sure I’ll be able to open the file formats.)
Don’t forget to include a Works Cited page, which lists your research sources as well as any photos that you didn’t take yourself.
INFO ON CITING PHOTOGRAPHS
In-text citation for photos. To indicate the sources for your photographs within your essay itself, please use italic font, 10 pt text, below the photo itself, to give this information:
Title of the photograph/image (photographer’s name or artist)
or if this info is not available
Title of photograph/image (Source–e.g., Library of Congress, National Archives, or web site title)
Info on citing photos retrieved from online (from Purdue OWL):
An Image (Including a Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph)
Provide the artist’s name, the work of art italicized, the date of creation, the institution and city where the work is housed. Follow this initial entry with the name of the Website in italics, the medium of publication, and the date of access.
Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Museo National del Prado. Web. 22 May 2006.
Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine. 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Artchive. Web. 22 May 2006.
If the work cited is available on the web only, then provide the name of the artist, the title of the work, and then follow the citation format for a website. If the work is posted via a username, use that username for the author.
Adams, Clifton R. “People Relax Beside a Swimming Pool at a Country Estate Near Phoenix, Arizona, 1928.” Found, National Geographic Creative, 2 June 2016, natgeofound.tumblr.com/.
This is really useful. Thanks so much. I’m part of UC Berkeley’s On the Same Page project this year. The project involves with working with Fiat Lux, a collection of photographs Ansel Adams took of UC campuses at the behest of Clark Kerr in the 1960s. In my class students write photograph essays, and this will help me make the assignment clearer.