Author: 5sobeidal

I decided to make my photo essay on my twin sisters and kind of due a “day in the life” of what they do. My sister’s names are Jeannette & Gisselle there 27 years old making them older than me but not in appearance hahaha. Their special needs so even though their 27, in their heads their actually about 5-7 years of age. I decided to do a day in the life of them because most people think that special need kids can’t do much so this is my attempt to change their minds. In the first picture I just took a simple picture to introduce them, so on the left that’s Gisselle she’s the nice one, on the right is Jeannette she’s the more sassy with an attitude one. The second picture is them at their baseball game, they play soccer, basketball, and obviously baseball. The third picture is Gisselle singing, both of them lovvvvve to sing, my bedroom is right next to hers so I get to hear her sing Let it Go from Frozen almost every single day, fun. The fourth photo is of movies, it’s a simple photo but has meaning to it, so my sisters leave there room a certain way, so the movies are just an example of how they organize their rooms, but let’s say I switch the Scooby doo movie with the high school musical movie, THEY’LL KNOW, if you move anything in their rooms they’ll know, idk it’s just crazy to me like they’re really smart. The last and final photo is of Jeannette crying, there obviously not real tires because I would just take a picture of her crying, but I just wanted to show this because it happens. Many days my sisters come home crying, so my mom asks why and they say people are staring at them all weird and they don’t like it, it’s really sad because you would think they don’t know why people are staring at them, but they do, and it breaks our hearts because if people were staring at you all the time I don’t think anyone would like that, their normal people like us and shouldn’t be treated differently.

1.Describe : In the first picture it shows a man laying on the floor who has just been murdered and a woman who can be his wife hugging him. The second photo is in a funeral, the man is in a casket and his wife is looking over him, she has her mouth open and I can imagine she’s talking to him. In the third picture she seems calmer, she’s sitting on a chair on her phone with her hand over the casket. In the fourth photo there’s many people around, and the wife is laying down on chairs. In the fifth picture the wife and her or his family are sitting around a table, she looks very upset.
2.Analye : In the first picture the angle can be birds eye view or high angle also the light is coming from the right side so it makes the shadows be on the left side. The second photo is eye level, also the lighting is all over not focusing on one specific spot. The third photo can be rule of thirds because she’s sitting on the right side and there’s nothing to balance her on the left side. The three other photos are all eye level and they all have outside lighting I don’t studio lighting was used.
3.Interpret : These photo’s obviously communicate that it’s about dead and about someone that passed away. The emotion it presents is sad, depressing, it’s a very emotional topic. Before I read what it was about just looking at the pictures I thought maybe the man on the floor got ran over or something like that because he’s in the middle of the street, but after reading everything it has to do with someone thinking that this guy was selling drugs even though he wasn’t, but I guess where they live people just have to think you’re doing it and they can kill you.
4.Evaluate/Judge : The author definitely expressed what he was trying to show in his photos. I like that he showed what happens to a family after someone they love dies, I think it’s very cool because if people are doing bad thinks they can see that it isn’t only going to affect them, it destroys there whole family and friends. They could of improved by incorporating more compositions into the photos, for me the only one that had a wow factor was the very first one because it was a very good picture on its own and then he edited it and it made it look even better.

5 photo essay tips
1. Find a Topic: Photo essays are much entertaining if you do it on a topic you’re actually interested in.
2. Do your Research: After you find out what you want the topic to be about make sure to have some knowledge about the subject.
3. Find the “real story”: When you research the subject, don’t just get the overall view on it make sure to get very small details to make it personal.
4. Every dynamic story is built on a set of core values and emotions that touch the heart of its audience: Make the story you’re telling make the audience feel some type of way, whether it’s angry, happy, or sad.
5. Plan your Shots: Make sure to plan how you’re going to take the shots, lighting and the equipment you’re going to use, also make sure to take a lot of pictures it’s better to have more than less.

5 Tips for Creating a Photo Essay with a Purpose
1.Let it evolve on its own: Planning out what kind of pictures you’re going to take is really good, but if something unexpected happens don’t be scared to take pictures of that also, just go with the flow.
2.If you think there’s something there, there’s likely something there: If you’re working on the photo essay but also see other things going on it might not go with the essay but who cares take picture of it and you might be able to use it on another project.
3.Shoot every single thing: When you’re taking a picture of something make sure you take the picture plenty of times & also get different angles of it to make sure you at least like one of them.
4.Ask for help with image selection: Make sure to ask for help picking out the photos you’re going to use, your bias because you took the pictures so if you ask for an opinion on the pictures you’ll have an unbiased opinion.
5.Tell your story, in fact shout it from the rooftops if you can: After your finished with the photo essay make sure to post it anywhere you can, if it sends a message it might help someone out so don’t be scared to talk about it.

For this project we got assigned to take pictures of the food that there going to serve next year to the teachers. My group got plate one which was a salad with raspberry’s with a side of bread. We took two different pictures, one with the salad in the container it comes in and the other on a plate. We took many pictures with different angles of the salad, we tried putting props on the sides to make it look more interesting also. Aside from that we used flashes and reflectors to make the food look more appetizing.

My experience taking pictures of food was really fun especially at the end when you get to eat it hahaha. I really enjoyed getting to learn different techniques to take the pictures especially because I choice to take pictures of food of the other assignment we got so when I get to do that project ill already know what I need to do.

When this project was first presented to me I didn’t have a strategy going into it. I over looked threw the photos that were in the post, and I was thinking of just recreating some of them. First I started to just take pictures of students that were on the wheel , I didn’t want to get in there way so I took them from a far, I wish I would of took them closer because of the texture in the photograph. I took all candid shots because again I didn’t want to get in there space while they were working. The top two pictures are both handwork that students made on the 2nd photo I tried to go in a bit closer to get texture but didn’t really achieve that. The third one at the top is a picture of the carving tools that are mostly used while hand building. The 3 pictures at the bottom are all wheel work pictures, I tried showing the 2 stages there is while on the wheel.