example of reportage essay

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What does the word 'reportage' remind you of? That's right - it sounds a lot like reporting! But is reportage a segment of journalism or fiction, or both? Let us look at the meaning, synonyms, conventions and examples of literary reportage to find out! 

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Reportage meaning

Literary reportage is a genre within creative non-fiction that presents factual real-life stories but with the storytelling techniques and stylistic conventions of fictional works. Therefore, it is a blend between journalism and fiction.

The literary journalists are marvelous observers whose meticulous attention to detail is wedded to the tools and techniques of the fiction writer. Like reporters, they are fact gatherers whose material is the real world... Like fiction writers, they are consummate storytellers who endow their stories with a narrative structure and a distinctive voice. 1

Creative non-fiction: A literary genre that uses literary styles and techniques to narrate factual real-life events.

Reportage includes aspects of journalism such as eyewitness accounts of real-life events, facts, research, historical backgrounds, photojournalism, sources, quotes and interviews.

However, traditional journalism is usually objective, constrictive, straightforward distant and detached, which can make it dry and uninteresting. Hence, writers of reportage blend aspects of fiction to make reporting factual events more lively and engaging. Writers of reportage use the first-person narratives to immerse themselves in the story and do not shy away from drama, dialogue, human emotions, personal opinions, character development, vivid imagery and experimentation with plot structure and chronology. Unlike traditional journalism, they focus more on the lives of their individual subjects and how they have been affected by events rather than institutions.

The popularity of reportage came about as a part of the New Journalism movement in America in the 1960s and the 1970s. This movement advocated for pushing past the restrictive boundaries of traditional journalism. Instead, it encouraged using creative storytelling techniques used in fiction to report on real-life events and people.

The primary purpose of reportage is to elicit an emotional response from its readers. By immersing themselves in the experiences of their subjects, writers of reportage comment on the bigger picture of current affairs about culture, politics, and society.

Reportage has been described as

the creative treatment of actuality. 2

Reportage synonym

The genre literary reportage has several synonyms. The most common ones are:

• Literary journalism
• Narrative journalism
• Immersion journalism

Types of reportage

Literary reportage often overlaps with other forms of creative non-fiction in the sense that these types also narrate factual events using fictional storytelling techniques and devices.

While reportage often focuses on political and social situations, it pays special attention towards describing the lives, experiences and personalities of the people involved in these situations. Hence, autobiographies, biographies and group biographies have often been described as written reportage, as they also describe real-life people but with creative storytelling techniques. 2

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold (1966) is a written reportage by Gay Talese (1932-present) profiling the singer Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) . In the reportage, Talese interviewed everyone in and around Sinatra's life, except Sinatra, whose excuse for not coming for the interview was that he had a cold.

• Travel writing

Travel writing describes the places the writer has visited and the experiences they have had along the way in a manner that is factual, accurate and truthful but also infiltrated by vivid imagery, personal commentary and experimentation with plot structure. Hence, it can be considered a form of literary reportage.

Freed from strictly chronological, fact-driven narratives, nearly all contemporary travel writers include their own dreams and memories of childhood as well as chunks of historical data and synopses of other travel books. 3

Annals of the Former World (1998) by John McPhee (1931-present) charts the geological history of North America done by two decades of research and road trips done by the writer alongside geologists.

• Personal essay

Personal essays are similar to autobiographies wherein the writer informs the reader of an important lesson they learnt from a real-life experience. Hence, while personal essays are factual, they represent the writer's version of the truth. This leaves room for the writer's thoughts, feelings and interpretation of the event to allow a degree of subjectivity that is often seen in written reportages.

The White Album (1979) is a book of personal essays by Joan Didion (1934-2021) where she details her mental health struggles alongside other interactions with prominent figures involved in the murder trial of California's Tate murders in 1969.

• Historical writing

Similar to travel writing, historical writing requires much in-depth research into historical events, figures and contexts. However, the way in which these historically true facts are often presented - the tone, mood and storytelling style - is dependent on the writer.

• Long-form journalism

Long-form journalism and features are news articles that are longer in length compared to 'hard' news articles. As such, they usually take a deep dive into their subject matter and have more breathing space for description, commentary and character sketches. They usually have a human-interest angle to them and hence deal with the lives and experiences of real-life people.

Hiroshima (1946) narrates the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (1945) through the eyes of six survivors who were interviewed by American author John Hersey (1914-1993) .

Reportage example

Here are a few notable examples of literary reportage.

• In Cold Blood (1966) by Truman Capote

In Cold Blood is a true crime reportage where Capote (1924-1984) spent six years researching the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. Capote conducted several interviews and did extensive research into the murderers, victims, investigators and other parties involved in the case.

Capote uses sophisticated language, imagery and a deep dive into the complex emotions and relationships surrounding the case, presenting it through the eyes of the murders, victims and community members.

In Cold Blood is one of the earliest examples of the reportage genre.

The Executioner’s Song (1979) by Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

The Executioner's Song is a Pulitzer Prize-winning true crime reportage that details the events surrounding the conviction of Gary Gilmore in 1997 , the first person to be executed in the US following the ban on capital punishment being lifted in 1976.

The book provides a look into the mind of a murderer and the guilt, anguish and fear experienced by Gilmore prior to his execution.

The People of the Abyss (1903) by Jack London

The People of the Abyss is a reportage that provides autobiographical accounts of Jack London 's (1876-1916) experiences whilst he was living in the Whitechapel district of London in 1902. London 's reportage sheds light on the conditions faced by the urban working classes, who often slept on the streets or in workhouses.

London disguised himself as one of the working-class poor and therefore is the author of the reportage as well as an active participant in its contents.

Reportage - Key takeaways

• Literary reportage is a genre that presents factual real-life stories but with the storytelling techniques and stylistic conventions of fictional works.
• Reportage includes aspects of journalism such as eyewitness accounts of real-life events, facts, research, historical backgrounds, sources, quotes and interviews.
• The Executioner’s Song (1979) by Norman Mailer
• Norman Sims. The Literary Journalists. 1962
• Jerome Boyd Maunsell. 'The Writer as Reporter'. 2020
• Casey Blanton. Travel Writing: The Self and the World. 2002
• Fig. 1 - Public Domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Sinatra_by_Gottlieb_c1947-_2.jpg
• Fig. 2 - Public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atomic_cloud_over_Hiroshima_-_NARA_542192_-_Edit.jpg
• Fig. 3 - Public domain:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jack_London_young.jpg

Flashcards inReportage 10

What does reportage mean?

Literary reportage is a genre that presents factual real-life stories but with the storytelling techniques and stylistic conventions of fictional works. 

What is an example of a reportage?

Some examples of reportage include:

• The Executioner’s Song (1979) by Norman Mailer
•  The People of the Abyss (1903) by Jack London

What is the difference between journalism and reportage?

 Traditional journalism is usually objective, factual, straightforward, distant and detached. Reportage is also factual but uses fictional storytelling techniques like drama, dialogue, human emotions, personal opinions, character development, vivid imagery and experimentation with plot structure and chronology.

What are the types of reportage?

Some types of reportage are:

Which novel is considered one of the earliest examples of written reportage?

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote   is one of the earliest examples of the reportage genre. 

What is The People of the Abyss   (1903) about?

The People of the Abyss   is a reportage that provides autobiographical accounts of Jack   London 's experiences whilst he was living in the Whitechapel district of London in 1902. London's reportage sheds light on the conditions faced by the urban working classes, who often slept on the streets or in workhouses. 

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Frequently Asked Questions about Reportage

Literary reportage is a genre that presents factual real-life stories but with the storytelling techniques and stylistic conventions of fictional works. 

• In Cold Blood  (1966) by Truman Capote

 The People of the Abyss  (1903) by Jack London

What is the purpose of reportage?

The primary purpose of reportage is to elicit an emotional response from its readers. By immersing themselves in the experiences of their subjects, writers of reportage comment on the bigger picture of current affairs about culture, politics, and society. 

Traditional journalism is usually objective, factual, straightforward, distant and detached. Reportage is also factual but uses fictional storytelling techniques like drama, dialogue, human emotions, personal opinions, character development, vivid imagery and experimentation with plot structure and chronology.

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Literary Reportage

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• How to Apply

A letter to applicants from Prof. Robert Boynton, director of Literary Reportage. Read more

Train as a Journalist, Earn an MFA

Students in the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Literary Reportage program learn the art of journalism in an intensive writing program that places equal emphasis on elegant writing and rigorous reporting. They are the storytellers of the world, and, here, they follow their curiosity to craft compelling, deeply researched, stylish work that comes to life on the page. They graduate fully formed journalists with an MFA degree to reflect the richness and depth of their writing training.

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Foundational Training

Literary Reportage students take on a robust curriculum of writing, reporting, and audio reportage courses, and they graduate fully capable of writing articles and books and producing podcasts.

Our Curriculum

Robert S. Boynton

Professor | Associate Director, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute | Lit Rep, Director

Robert S. Boynton is the director of NYU’s Literary Reportage concentration. He was graduated with honors in philosophy and religion from Haverford College, and received an MA in political science from Yale University. His book, The New New Journalism was published by Vintage Books in 2005, and he has written about culture and ideas for The New Yorker (where he has been a contributing editor) and Harper’s (where he has been a senior editor). His byline has also appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Lingua Franca, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, The New Republic, The Nation, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone and many other publications. The Invitation Only Zone, his forthcoming book about North Korea’s Japanese abduction project, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. For a selection of his work, go to robertboynton.com. Information about The New New Journalism can be found at newnewjournalism.com.

Watch Boynton’s video on Literary Reportage.

Ted Conover

Watch Conover’s video on Literary Reportage.

Eliza Griswold

Distinguished Journalist in Residence

Eliza Griswold is a contributing writer to the New Yorker and the author of 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning  Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America,  a 2018 New York Times Notable Book and a New York Times Critics’ Pick, and The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, which won the 2011 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. Her translations of Afghan women’s folk poems, I Am the Beggar of the World , was awarded the 2015 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and her original poetry won the 2010 Rome Prize from the American Academy of Art and Letters in Rome. She has held fellowships from the New America Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, Harvard University and the Harvard Divinity School. Her second book of poems,  If Men, Then , will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, in 2020. Griswold is a contributing writer at the New Yorker and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

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Perri Klass

Professor | NYU Florence, Co-Director

Perri Klass, M.D. has been writing as a medical journalist dating back to her years as a student at Harvard Medical School in the 1980s, when she published a series of essays, reflections on medical training, in the Hers column of The New York Times. Since that time she has published her medical journalism in many newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times Science Section, The New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Harpers, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, The New England Journal of Medicine, Esquire, Parenting, and Vogue. She has written regular columns about medicine for Discover Magazine, American Health, Massachusetts Medicine, and Diversion. Her most recent books are A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future (2020), and the revised edition of Quirky Kids: Understanding and Supporting Your Child With Developmental Differences (coauthored with Eileen Costello, MD, 2003; revised 2021).  Her essays about medicine and medical training have been collected in the books A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student (1987), Baby Doctor: A Pediatrician’s Training (1992), and Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters To a Young Doctor (2007). At NYU, Dr. Klass is a professor both in Journalism and in Pediatrics.

Suketu Mehta

Associate Professor

Author, Journalist, Full Time Faculty

Suketu Mehta is the New York-based author of ‘Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found,’ which won the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award, and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, the Lettre Ulysses Prize, the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize, and the Guardian First Book Award. He has won the Whiting Writers’ Award, the O. Henry Prize, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for his fiction. Mehta’s work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Granta, Harper’s Magazine, Time, and Newsweek, and has been featured on NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ and ‘All Things Considered.’

Mehta is an Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University. He is currently working on a nonfiction book about immigrants in contemporary New York, for which he was awarded a 2007 Guggenheim fellowship. He has also written original screenplays for films, including ‘New York, I Love You.’ Mehta was born in Calcutta and raised in Bombay and New York. He is a graduate of New York University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

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Program News

Yucheng Tang (Literary Reportage 2024) is Awarded Two Scholarships

Tang is a 2022 Scholarship awardee from the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the United States. He was also awarded the Richard Pyle Scholarship from the Overseas Press Club Foundation, in recognition of his work covering current events in China.

Pooja Salhotra, Literary Reportage 2022, wins Zenith and Sidney Gross Memorial Prize in Journalism

The NYU Journalism award is presented for the best investigative reporting by undergraduate and graduate students.

Adjunct professor Audrey Quinn is part of the podcast team that won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize

The Literary Reportage professor served as the story editor on “Suave,” a series about the criminal justice system.

Noran Morsi (Literary Reportage 2023) receives AFPC-USA scholarship

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Ten examples of immersive photo essays

By Marissa Sapega — Contributing Writer

Photo essays are one of the most powerful forms of storytelling in the last century. From the great depression photographer W. Eugene Smith to the photojournalism of National Geographic or Life Magazine , the best photo essays entertain, educate, and move readers more than words alone ever could. 

But photo essays have changed. Over the last decade, web publishing technologies — including web browsers and file formats — have improved by leaps and bounds. A good photo essays today is more than a collection of images. It’s a truly interactive, immersive, and multimedia experiences.

In this guide, we introduce 10 stunning examples of visually arresting interactive photo essays to fuel your creative juices.

Now, let's set the scene with a short introduction to immersive, interactive photo essays on the web.

What do the BBC, Tripadvisor, and Penguin have in common? They craft stunning, interactive web content with Shorthand. And so can you! Publish your first story for free — no code or web design skills required. Sign up now.

The rise of immersive, interactive photo essays

What is an immersive, interactive photo essay? Let's take these terms one at a time. 

An immersive photo essay uses rich media and story design to capture and keep the reader's attention. Immersive content is typically free of the most distracting elements of the web, such as pop-ups, skyscrapers, and other intrusions on the reading experience.

As a basic rule of thumb, immersive content respects the reader's attention. 

An interactive photo essay is one that allows the reader to control how the content appears. It may include interactive elements, like maps and embedded applications.

More commonly, modern interactive photo stories use a technique known as scrollytelling . Scrollytelling stories allow the reader to trigger animations and other visual effects as they scroll. Many of the examples in this guide use scrollytelling techniques. Read more scrollytelling examples .

Until relatively recently, immersive, interactive photo essays could only be created with the help of a designer or web developer. But with the rise of digital storytelling platforms , anyone can create compelling, dynamic stories without writing a single line of code.

If you're looking to learn more about how to create a photo essay — or are looking for more photo essay ideas  — check out our introduction to photo essays . 

Photo essay topics

If you’re looking for photo essay examples, chances are you’re looking to create a photo essay for yourself. If you’re just getting started, you might want some guidance on exactly what kinds of topics make for great photo essays.

More experienced photographers — feel free to skip this section. But for those who are just starting out, here’s a quick list of classic photo essay subject matter, for all types of photo essays.

• Local events. A great way to start out is photograph local events in your community, such as a high school fundraiser. A bonus is that you’ll have a ready
• Historic sites. Another classic photo essay topic is an exploration of a historic site. This could be a building, a monument, or even just a specific location that has significance.
• Profile of a person. A great way to get to know someone is to profile them in a photo essay. This could be a family member, friend, or even just someone you’ve met.
• Animals in captivity. Another popular subject matter for photo essays is animals in captivity, whether that’s at a zoo or elsewhere.
• A day in the life. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live someone else’s life for a day? Why not find out and document it in a photo essay?
• Street photography. Another great way to practice your photography skills is to head out into the streets and photograph the everyday lives of people around you. The world has plenty of photo essays of cities like New York and London. But what about street photography in your own backyard?
• Still life photography. Still life photography is all about capturing inanimate objects on film. This could be anything from flowers to furniture to food. It’s a great way to practice your photography skills and learn about composition
• Landscapes . Landscape photography is one of the most popular genres, and for good reason. There are endless possibilities when it comes to finding interesting subjects to shoot. So get out there and start exploring!
• Abandoned buildings. There’s something fascinating about abandoned buildings. They offer a glimpse into the past, and can be eerily beautiful. If you have any in your area, they make for great photo essay subjects.
• Lifestyles. Document someone who lives a lifestyle that’s different from your own. This could be a portrayal of an everyday person, or it could be someone with an unusual job or hobby.
• Social issues. Take photos depicting significant social issues in your community, remembering to respect your subjects.

Ten inspiring photo essay examples

Pink lagoon and peculiar galaxies — July’s best science images

In Pink lagoon and peculiar galaxies , Nature present a mesmerising series of images from the natural world. Highlights include:

• a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it photo of rare albino orcas performing feats of synchronized swimming;
• an arresting aerial view of the aftermath of the flash floods in Germany; and,
• a scarlet gawping Venus flytrap sea anemone. 

The best part? Nature publishes similarly powerful photo essays every month, showcasing some of the best and most creative photography of the natural world anywhere on the web.

Vanishing Lands

Vanishing lands — an ominously interesting photo essay from media company Stuff — opens with a bucolic visual featuring meandering sheep flanked by breathtaking mountains that blur into obscurity.

Soon, more awe-inspiring photos of breathtaking New Zealand farmland appear, accompanied by expressive prose whose tone matches the visuals’ stark beauty.

In this unflinchingly honest photographic essay, Stuff takes the viewer behind the scenes with a day in the life of a high country sheep farmer facing an uncertain future. One stunning photo fades into the next as you scroll through, broken only by the occasional noteworthy quote and accompanying narrative.

Olympic photos: Emotion runs high

This emotionally wrought sports story from NBC begins with a close-up of an anxious Simone Biles, her expression exemplifying the tension and frustration echoed on so many of her fellow athletes’ faces.

The subtitle puts it perfectly: “The agony—and thrill—of competition at the Olympics is written all over their faces.”

Devastation, disappointment, and defeat take centre stage in this piece — but not all the subjects of the photos in this compelling photography essay depict misery. Some of the images, like that taken of the gold medal-winning Russian artistic gymnasts, manage to project the athletes’ joy almost beyond the edges of the screen.

The NBC editors who created this visual story chose to display the series of photos using the entire screen width and limit the copy to simple captions, letting the visuals speak for themselves. The result is a riveting montage of photographs that manage to capture the overarching sentiment of the 2020 Olympic Games.

James Epp: A Twist of the Hand

In A Twist of the Hand , the Museum of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge have produced a gorgeous photo essay. This online art show showcases artist James Epp’s installation, combining photographs of the exhibit with images of museum prints and authentic artefacts.

As you scroll down, close-up shots of the installation make you feel like you’re physically wandering among the ancient sculptures, able to examine hairline spider cracks and tiny divots marking the surface of every antiquated figure. In between the photos—and often flanked by museum prints—are James Epp's musings about what inspired him to create the pieces. It’s an absorbing virtual gallery that will no doubt inspire real life visits to the exhibition.

The Café Racer Revolution

Though it’s a cleverly built piece of interactive content marketing , Honda’s “ Café Racer Revolution ” is also a great photo essay. Alongside information about the latest and greatest motorcycles Honda has to offer, it details the history of the bikers who sought to employ motorcycles (specifically “café racers”) as a way to forge an identity for themselves and project a “statement of individuality.”

Scroll down, and nostalgic black-and-white photos give way to contemporary action shots featuring fully decked-out motorcyclists on various Honda models.

Dynamic photos of bikes rotate them 360 degrees when you mouse over them, and text superimposed over flashy shots rolls smoothly down the screen as you scroll. This photo essay will stir a longing to hit the open road for anyone who has ever dreamed of owning one of Honda’s zippy bikes.

Built to keep Black from white

In Built to keep Black from white , NBC News and BridgeDetroit have built a stunning narrative photo essay that encapsulates the history of Detroit’s Birwood Wall — a literal dividing line intended to separate neighborhoods inhabited by people of different races. 

The piece begins with a brief history of the concrete barrier. Between paragraphs of text, it weaves in quotes from residents who grew up as the wall was erected and a short video. Animated maps highlighting the affected neighborhoods unspool across the screen as you scroll down, accompanied by brief explanations of what the maps represent.

In the series of photographs that follow, contemporary images transition into decades-old shots of the wall when it was newly constructed. This is followed by images of original real estate documents, resident portraits, and additional animated maps — each considering the issue from different angles.

The piece ends with an interactive display of how Detroit’s racial makeup has changed over the past several decades, from majority white to black, and how the wall has impacted the lives of its residents who lived (and died) within its borders.

The story of Black Lives Matter in sport

The BBC pairs illustrations and bold imagery in this photo essay on how athletes participated in the Black Lives Matter movement . At the start, a narrow column of text leads into an iconic image of American football players kneeling during the pre-game national anthem in a solemn protest against police brutality. 

The first excerpt, a summary of Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, draws you in with piercing prose capped off with photographs that bleed into one another. Every account in the photo essay follows this layout.

WaterAid Climate Stories

Climate change affects everyone on the planet, but some people are feeling the effects more than others. WaterAid’s scrollytelling photo essay illuminates the plight of individuals living in areas where extreme weather conditions — caused by climate change — have drastically impacted the water supply and environment, endangering their livelihoods and ability to survive.

This climate change story starts with an engrossing video that provides an up-close and personal look at the devastation that climate change-induced droughts have wreaked on people and the environment. As you scroll down, images of massively depleted bodies of water with superimposed text and quotes unfold before your eyes. It’s an efficient way to drive home the critical message WaterAid wants to convey: climate change is real, and it’s harming real people.

Each extreme weather story focuses on an individual to help viewers empathise and understand that climate change has real, drastic consequences for millions of people worldwide. The piece ends with a call to action to learn more about and financially support WaterAid’s fight to assist people living in the desperate situations depicted in the essay.

28 Days in Afghanistan

In this piece, Australian photo-journalist Andrew Quilty tells the story of the four weeks he spent in Afghanistan . He captures daily events ranging from the mundane—like a casual visit to his barber—to jarring. More than one photo documents blood-spattered victims of violence.

Viewers must scroll through the piece to follow Andrew’s daily musings and the striking photos that accompany them. His photo essay is a powerful example of how scrollytelling is transforming the art of long-form journalism .

La carrera lunática de Musk y Bezos (Musk and Bezos' lunatic careers)

Billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are angling to conquer the final frontier: space.

El Periódico captures their story via a whimsically illustrated photo essay, filled with neon line drawings and bold photos of the massive spaceships, the hangars that house them, and footprints on the moon. La carrera lunática de Musk y Bezos describes the battle between the two titans’ space companies (Blue Origin and SpaceX) for the honor of partially funding NASA’s next mission to the moon.

As you scroll down, white and fluorescent yellow words on a black background roll smoothly over images. The team at El Periódico slips in stylistic animations to break up the text—such as rocket ships with shimmering “vapour trails”—then ups the ante with a series of moon images that transition into portraits of the 12 U.S. astronauts who visited the celestial body.

The photo essay ends with the question: “Who will be the next to leave their footprints on the dusty lunar soil?” At the time of publishing, NASA had not yet decided between the two companies. (Spoiler alert: SpaceX won .)

Marissa Sapega is a seasoned writer, editor, and digital marketer with a background in web and graphic design.

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What is Literary Journalism: a Guide with Examples

Literary journalism is a genre created with the help of a reporter’s inner voice and employing a writing style based on literary techniques. The journalists working in the genre of literary journalism must be able to use the whole literary arsenal: epithets, impersonations, comparisons, allegories, etc. Thus, literary journalism is similar to fiction. At the same time, it remains journalism , which is the opposite of fiction as it tells a true story. The journalist’s task here is not only to inform us about specific events but also to affect our feelings (mainly aesthetic ones) and explore the details that ordinary journalism overlooks.

Characteristics of literary journalism

Modern journalism is constantly changing, but not all changes are good for it (take fake news proliferating thanks to social media , for instance). Contemporary literary journalism differs from its historic predecessor in the following:

• Literary journalism almost completely lost its unity with literature
• Journalists have stopped relying on the literary features of the language and style
• There are fewer and fewer articles in the genre of literary journalism in modern editions
• Contemporary media has lost the need in literary journalism
• The habits of media consumers today are not sophisticated enough for a revival of literary journalism

The most prominent works of literary journalism

With all this, it’s no surprise that we need to go back in time to find worthy examples of literary journalism. Fortunately, it wasn’t until the 1970-s that literary journalism came to an end, so here are 4 great works of the genre that are worth every minute of your attention.

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

Mark Twain studied journalism from the age of 12 and until the end of his life. It brought him his first glory and a pseudonym and made him a writer. In 1867, Twain (as a correspondent of the newspaper Daily Alta California , San Francisco) went on a sea voyage to Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt. His reports and travel records turned into the book The Innocents Abroad , which made him famous all over the world.

In some sense, American journalism came out of letters that served as an important source of information about life in the colonies. The newspaper has long been characterized by an epistolary subjectivity, and Twain’s book recalls the times when no one thought that neutrality would one day become one of the hallmarks of the “right” journalism.

Of course, Twain’s travel around the Old World was a journey not only through geography but also through the history that Twain resolutely refused to worship. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes not too much, but the more valuable are the lyrical and sublime notes that sound when Twain-the-narrator is truly captivated by something.

John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946)

John Hersey was a war correspondent and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his debut story A Bell for Adano . As a reporter of The New Yorker , he was one of the first journalists from the USA who came to Hiroshima to describe the consequences of the atomic bombing.

Starting with where two doctors, two priests, a seamstress, and a plant employee were and what they were doing at exactly 08:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima, Hersey describes the year they lived after that. Hersey’s uniform and detached tone seems to be the only appropriate medium in relation to what one would call indescribable and inexpressible. Without allowing himself sentimentality, admiring horrors, or obvious partiality, he doesn’t miss any of the details that add up to a horrible and magnificent picture.

Hiroshima became a sensation due to the formidable brevity of the author’s prose, which tried to give the reader the most explicit (and the most complete) idea of what happened for the first time in mankind’s history

Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood” (1965)

Truman Capote turned to journalism as a young writer looking for a new form of self-expression. He read an article about the murder of the family of a farmer Herbert Clutter in Holcomb City (Kansas) in the newspaper and went there to collect the material. His original idea was to write about how a brutal murder influenced the life of the quiet backwoods. The killers were caught, and Capote decided to use their confessions in his book. He finished it only after the killers were hanged. This way, the six-year story got the finale.

In Cold Blood was published in “The New Yorker” in 1965. Next year it was released as a book that became the benchmark of true crime and a super bestseller. “In Cold Blood” includes:

• A stylistic brilliance.
• Inexorable footsteps of doom destroying both innocent and guilty.
• The horror hidden in a person and waiting for a chance to break out.

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

Tomas Wolfe is one of the key figures of literary journalism. Mainly due to his creative and, so to speak, production efforts, “the new journalism” became an essential part of American culture and drew close attention (both critical and academic).

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test became one of the hallmarks of this type of journalism with its focus on aesthetic expressiveness (along with documentary authenticity). This is a story about the writer Ken Kesey and his friends and associates’ community, “Merry Pranksters”, who spread the idea of the benefits of expanding consciousness.

Wolfe decided to plunge into the “subjective reality” of the characters and their adventures. To convey them to the reader, he had to “squeeze” the English language: Wolfe changes prose to poetry , dives into the stream of consciousness, and mocks the traditional punctuation. In general, he does just about everything to make a crazy carnival come to life on the pages of his book (without actually participating in it). Compare that with gonzo journalism by Hunter S. Thompson , the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which draws upon some similar themes.

The book’s main part is devoted to the journey of the “pranksters” on a psychedelic propaganda bus and the “acid tests” themselves, which were actually parties where a lot of people took LSD. Wolfe had to use different sources of information to reconstruct these events, and it’s hard to believe that he didn’t experience any of them himself. Yet, no matter how bright his book shines and how much freedom it shows, Wolfe makes it clear that he’s talking about a doomed project and an ending era.

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The 9 Types of Journalism Explained

Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Covering World News, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

At the newsstand, on our smartphones and while watching the evening news, we learn about faraway people and places from the journalists, stringers and correspondents who work for news agencies and other media outlets around the globe. Global news is everywhere — from the front page news read by a New Yorker on Madison Avenue to the government radio station broadcasting in Pyongyang.

However, it would be a mistake to consider this a completely new phenomenon or to overstate its pervasiveness. Many people tend to think that global news is both a recent phenomenon and one that we can credit to advances in technology. If we think of 'news' in terms of newspaper articles or television reporting, then news is only as old as the technologies of press and video, and dates back to the first newsletters that circulated in Europe in the 17th century.

But in reality, humans have shared information about current affairs within and across borders for thousands of years, starting with the news networks of the ancient Phoenicians. The historical record also describes merchants sharing political news along ancient trade routes, minstrels and other traveling artists whose fictional performances also carried information about social change, and criers in medieval town squares.

If news is not a product of modern technologies, it's nevertheless true that technological change has had a dramatic impact on how news is made and consumed: where once we had printed newsletters distributed twice a day, now we have Twitter feeds refreshed twice a minute, and carrying information from an ever-widening array of sources. We live, as media critics like Marshall McLuhan have argued, in a global village.

The trouble with this vision of 'global news' is that it's not nearly as complete as we imagine it to be. According to the World Bank, of the world's seven billion people, only 80% have access to electricity (or the gadgets like computer and televisions that depend on it), 75% have access to mobile phones, and a meager 35% to the Internet. Most people on the planet aren't connected to what we think of as the 'global media' at all. As Global Voices founder Ethan Zuckerman points out in his TED Talk, "There are parts of the world that are very, very well connected, [but] the world isn't even close to flat. It's extremely lumpy."

Just as critically, the content that makes up the 'global media' is still heavily focused on a few key centers of power. In her TED Talk, Public Radio International's Alisa Miller shares a powerful map of the news consumed by American audiences in 2008: most of it focused on the U.S., and to a lesser extent, on countries with which the U.S. has military ties. Ethan Zuckerman points out that this lack of global coverage is pervasive, whether it's at elite news outlets like The New York Times or on crowdsourced digital information platforms like Wikipedia.

Moreover, Zuckerman argues, it's not just about the stories that get made — it's about what stories we choose to listen to. Thirty years ago, Benedict Anderson made waves when he argued that political structures (like states) depend upon a set of shared values, the 'imagined community,' and that the media plays a key role in creating those values. Zuckerman, however, argues that in today's world the disconnect between what we imagine to be our community, and the community we actually live in, is a major source of global media inequality. We connect to the Internet, with its technological capacity to link up the whole world, and imagine that we live in a global village. But in practice, we spend most of our time reading news shared by our Facebook friends, whose lives and interests are close to our own. Zuckerman calls this 'imagined cosmopolitanism.'

Compounding the problem, the stories we do attend to can be heavily distorted, reducing whole countries or societies to a single stereotype or image. As author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains in her TED Talk about the 'single story,' when all the tales we hear about a country follow the same pattern, we begin to imagine that this pattern is all there is know. The 'single story' can affect all of us, rich and poor: Adichie talks of her own misconceptions about Nigeria's rural poor, of her surprise at encountering the diversity of life in Mexico, and of her college roommate's reductive vision of Africa as poor and underdeveloped. The difference, she argues, is that there are simply more stories out there about powerful countries than about less powerful ones, and that makes it harder for us to reduce those societies to 'single stories' in our minds.

What can we do?

First, we can tell different stories about the places that are prone to reduction. In her TED Talk, Yemeni newspaper editor Nadia Al-Sakkaf takes us to the Yemen she lives in — where terrorism and political upheaval are real problems, but far from the whole picture. Moreover, in her account, each image can tell many stories. A woman with a veiled face can represent the role of fundamentalist Islam in Yemeni society, but she argues that a look behind the veil shows us that many of these women are holding down jobs and earning income, and in so doing, changing their role within their own families and in Yemeni society more broadly.

Second, we can find ways to invest in journalism. As Alisa Miller argues, a major obstacle to a truly global news media is the cost of production, of keeping bureaus in every country and paying for journalists to produce deep, investigative stories. The great paradox of media economics in the digital age is that the Internet makes it possible for us to consume more content, but falling advertising revenues means that each piece of content must cost a little less to produce. That pushes news outlets, even wealthy ones, in the direction of gossip and regurgitated press releases that can be produced by a reporter who hasn't left her desk.

One way to break this cycle, Ethan Zuckerman argues, is to make small and targeted investments in local journalists in the developing world. He describes a blogger training program in Madagascar that became a newsroom overnight when world media outlets needed verified content from a country undergoing revolution. He highlights the critical work of professional curators like Amira Al Hussaini at Global Voices or Andy Carvin at the Associated Press.

At the heart of these recommendations is a shift in the way we understand the mission of journalists — or rather, a return to an old way of thinking about news.

Right up until the early 20th century, all journalists were assumed to be opinion writers. Reporters went places to report, made up their own minds about a topic, and wrote an account that included not only facts, but an argument for what position readers at home should take and what political actions might follow. George Orwell's colorful and opinionated essays from South East Asia, for example, were published as reportage.

Then the Cold War started, and in the democratic West, journalists began to strive for objective impartiality, to distinguish their work from the obvious, state-sponsored propaganda of the Soviet bloc. Many critics at the time questioned whether 'true' objectivity was possible, but no major western news organization disputed that it was the ideal.

Today, we're seeing a return to the older understanding of journalism, towards an acceptance that even independent reporting carries a viewpoint, shaped by the people who produce it. Moreover, contemporary journalists are increasingly coming to see this viewpoint as a strength rather than as a weakness, and using social media to be more transparent to readers about the values they bring to stories. New York University's Jay Rosen, for example, has argued powerfully that the 'view from nowhere' advocated by 20th century western reporters is dangerous because it can lead journalists to treat 'both sides' of a story equally even when one side is telling objective falsehoods or committing crimes.

Many of the speakers in Covering World News describe their journalism — whether it is Global Voices or the Yemen Times — as having an explicit moral and political mission to change our perceptions of under-covered regions of the world.

But no speaker is more passionate on this subject than TED speaker and photojournalist James Nachtwey, who credits the activist context of the 1960s for inspiring him to enter journalism, using photography to "channel anger" into a force for social change. Nachtwey's work has brought him, at times, into partnership with non-profit aid organizations, an alliance that is increasingly common in today's media world but would surely not have fit within the 'objective' media of a half-century ago. Nachtwey sees himself as a 'witness' whose place in the story is not to be invisible, but to channel his own humane outrage at war or social deprivation in order to drive social and political change: in one case, a story he produced prompted the creation of a non-profit organization to collect donations from readers.

This kind of work is a form of 'bridge building,' a theme that emerges in many of our talks. For while there may not be one 'global media' that includes all communities equally and reaches all parts of the globe, there are many individuals whose skills and backgrounds enable them to go between the connected and less connected pockets of the world, bridging gaps and contributing to mutual understanding. That, perhaps, is the way forward for international journalism.

Let's begin our study with Public Radio International CEO Alisa Miller, an ardent advocate for a global perspective in news programming. In her TEDTalk "The news about the news," Miller shares some eye-opening statistics about the quantity and quality of recent foreign reporting by American mainstream media organizations.

Alisa Miller

How the news distorts our worldview, relevant talks.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The danger of a single story.

James Nachtwey

My wish: let my photographs bear witness.

Nadia Al-Sakkaf

See yemen through my eyes.

Ethan Zuckerman

Listening to global voices.

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What Is Literary Journalism?

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• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting with narrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction. This form of writing can also be called  narrative journalism or new journalism . The term literary journalism is sometimes used interchangeably with creative nonfiction ; more often, however, it is regarded as one type of creative nonfiction.

In his ground-breaking anthology The Literary Journalists , Norman Sims observed that literary journalism "demands immersion in complex, difficult subjects. The voice of the writer surfaces to show that an author is at work."

Highly regarded literary journalists in the U.S. today include John McPhee , Jane Kramer, Mark Singer, and Richard Rhodes. Some notable literary journalists of the past include Stephen Crane, Henry Mayhew , Jack London , George Orwell , and Tom Wolfe.

Characteristics of Literary Journalism

There is not exactly a concrete formula that writers use to craft literary journalism, as there is for other genres, but according to Sims, a few somewhat flexible rules and common features define literary journalism. "Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion reporting, complicated structures, character development, symbolism , voice , a focus on ordinary people ... and accuracy.

"Literary journalists recognize the need for a consciousness on the page through which the objects in view are filtered. A list of characteristics can be an easier way to define literary journalism than a formal definition or a set of rules. Well, there are some rules, but Mark Kramer used the term 'breakable rules' in an anthology we edited. Among those rules, Kramer included:

• Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects' worlds...
• Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor...
• Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.
• Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers' sequential reactions.

... Journalism ties itself to the actual, the confirmed, that which is not simply imagined. ... Literary journalists have adhered to the rules of accuracy—or mostly so—precisely because their work cannot be labeled as journalism if details and characters are imaginary." 

Why Literary Journalism Is Not Fiction or Journalism

The term "literary journalism" suggests ties to fiction and journalism, but according to Jan Whitt, literary journalism does not fit neatly into any other category of writing. "Literary journalism is not fiction—the people are real and the events occurred—nor is it journalism in a traditional sense.

"There is interpretation, a personal point of view, and (often) experimentation with structure and chronology. Another essential element of literary journalism is its focus. Rather than emphasizing institutions, literary journalism explores the lives of those who are affected by those institutions."

The Role of the Reader

Because creative nonfiction is so nuanced, the burden of interpreting literary journalism falls on readers. John McPhee, quoted by Sims in "The Art of Literary Journalism," elaborates: "Through dialogue , words, the presentation of the scene, you can turn over the material to the reader. The reader is ninety-some percent of what's creative in creative writing. A writer simply gets things started."

Literary Journalism and the Truth

Literary journalists face a complicated challenge. They must deliver facts and comment on current events in ways that speak to much larger big picture truths about culture, politics, and other major facets of life; literary journalists are, if anything, more tied to authenticity than other journalists. Literary journalism exists for a reason: to start conversations.

Literary Journalism as Nonfiction Prose

Rose Wilder talks about literary journalism as nonfiction prose—informational writing that flows and develops organically like a story—and the strategies that effective writers of this genre employ in The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary journalist. "As defined by Thomas B. Connery, literary journalism is 'nonfiction printed prose whose verifiable content is shaped and transformed into a story or sketch by use of narrative and rhetorical  techniques generally associated with fiction.'

"Through these stories and sketches, authors 'make a statement, or provide an interpretation, about the people and culture depicted.' Norman Sims adds to this definition by suggesting the genre  itself allows readers to 'behold others' lives, often set within far clearer contexts than we can bring to our own.'

"He goes on to suggest, 'There is something intrinsically political—and strongly democratic—about literary journalism—something pluralistic, pro-individual, anti-cant, and anti-elite.' Further, as John E. Hartsock points out, the bulk of work that has been considered literary journalism is composed 'largely by professional journalists or those writers whose industrial means of production is to be found in the newspaper and magazine press, thus making them at least for the interim de facto journalists.'"

She concludes, "Common to many definitions of literary journalism is that the work itself should contain some kind of higher truth; the stories themselves may be said to be emblematic of a larger truth."

Background of Literary Journalism

This distinct version of journalism owes its beginnings to the likes of Benjamin Franklin, William Hazlitt, Joseph Pulitzer, and others. "[Benjamin] Franklin's Silence Dogood essays marked his entrance into literary journalism," begins Carla Mulford. "Silence, the persona Franklin adopted, speaks to the form that literary journalism should take—that it should be situated in the ordinary world—even though her background was not typically found in newspaper writing." 

Literary journalism as it is now was decades in the making, and it is very much intertwined with the New Journalism movement of the late 20th century. Arthur Krystal speaks to the critical role that essayist William Hazlitt played in refining the genre: "A hundred and fifty years before the New Journalists of the 1960s rubbed our noses in their egos, [William] Hazlitt put himself into his work with a candor that would have been unthinkable a few generations earlier."

Robert Boynton clarifies the relationship between literary journalism and new journalism, two terms that were once separate but are now often used interchangeably. "The phrase 'New Journalism' first appeared in an American context in the 1880s when it was used to describe the blend of sensationalism and crusading journalism—muckraking on behalf of immigrants and the poor—one found in the New York World and other papers... Although it was historically unrelated to [Joseph] Pulitzer's New Journalism, the genre of writing that Lincoln Steffens called 'literary journalism' shared many of its goals."

Boynton goes on to compare literary journalism with editorial policy. "As the city editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser in the 1890s, Steffens made literary journalism—artfully told narrative stories about subjects of concern to the masses—into editorial policy, insisting that the basic goals of the artist and the journalist (subjectivity, honesty, empathy) were the same."

• Boynton, Robert S. The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007.
• Krystal, Arthur. "Slang-Whanger." The New Yorker, 11 May 2009.
• Lane, Rose Wilder.  The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Journalist . Edited by Amy Mattson Lauters, University of Missouri Press, 2007.
• Mulford, Carla. “Benjamin Franklin and Transatlantic Literary Journalism.”  Transatlantic Literary Studies, 1660-1830 , edited by Eve Tavor Bannet and Susan Manning, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 75–90.
• Sims, Norman. True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism . 1st ed., Northwestern University Press, 2008.
• Sims, Norman. “The Art of Literary Journalism.”  Literary Journalism , edited by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer, Ballantine Books, 1995.
• Sims, Norman. The Literary Journalists . Ballantine Books, 1984.
• Whitt, Jan. Women in American Journalism: A New History . University of Illinois Press, 2008.
• An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction
• Creative Nonfiction
• John McPhee: His Life and Work
• Defining Nonfiction Writing
• Genres in Literature
• literary present (verbs)
• Tips on Great Writing: Setting the Scene
• A Guide to All Types of Narration, With Examples
• Interior Monologues
• Third-Person Point of View
• What Is a Synopsis and How Do You Write One?
• The Essay: History and Definition
• A Look at the Roles Characters Play in Literature
• What Is a Novel? Definition and Characteristics

Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography

How to create a photo series – ideas, themes and examples.

A well-crafted photo series can be powerful and emotionally moving. In this article you will find valuable tips from photography professors.

Looking for photo story ideas? Any photo always has a stronger impact when it’s embedded in a larger project. That’s why it makes sense to think photographically in terms of more than just individual images. You can also work on a whole photo series instead: You can touch people with a captivating photo series. It can be powerful and emotionally moving. It can also tell an entire story through a visual sequence, making complicated topics understandable. You can find exciting photo series in various fields – in newspapers and magazines, but also in PR and even in science.

If you want to work on a photography project, it requires careful planning, creativity, and solid execution. In this article, professors of the study program Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography creative advice for a meaningful approach. Whether you need to photograph a series for art class, are working on your application portfolio, or are researching for the school newspaper, this post will give you valuable tips and tricks for your photo story!

1. finding a topic. What actually makes a good story? Tips for preliminary research and finding photo ideas.

2. taking photos. With the camera on site – and now? Dealing with light and shadow, color and how to avoid tunnel vision.

3. image selection and image editing. Where to put all the photos? Recommendations for editing and manipulating your photo series.

4. conclusion: The implementation from the idea to the finished photo project – here you will find all steps summarized once again.

1. finding a subject for a photo series

You should start by gathering ideas. You may find a topic that speaks to you personally or that offers an interesting angle. It is useful to research what other photographers have done in the past; look at photo books or successful photo websites and study how the images were composed. But it’s also a good idea to look beyond photography: Art, music, film and literature can also be a good inspiration for your photo series. Professor Michael Hauri recalls, “I used to go to a used bookstore when I was a student and look at old magazines and journals.” You can do this by looking for old issues of photography-heavy media such as National Geographic, mare or Life, for example. They are often a good starting point.

Deepening: What is the difference between photo series, photo essay and photo reportage?

The term “photo series” is often used as a synonym for “photo spread,” including in this post. A photo series in the narrower sense is understood as a series of images that are similar in structure (for example, in terms of perspective, distance, light, colors). Other photographic narrative forms include the photo essay and photo reportage. The difference is that these two forms are more about a change of rhythm and distance. A reportage has a beginning and an end (an example is the photo reportage by Shirin Abedi on this page). With a photo essay, on the other hand, each photo often tells its own story, in line with an overarching theme (as an example, you can find Nanna Heitmann’s photo essay on this page).

Photo stories by students in the Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography programme are also an ideal starting point. Students have created numerous award-winning photography projects that capture unique moments, cultures and stories through visual storytelling. The projects have won the World Press Photo Award and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, among others. Professor Christoph Bangert, who used to travel all over the world as a photographer for the New York Times, gives the following tip: “ It’s important to find a topic that doesn’t just interest you. Topics need some social or societal relevance. “ If you have an idea, you can discuss it with your circle of friends, for example. Perhaps there is a particular aspect that is especially exciting? But it’s still often difficult to find a subject for a photo project that feels relevant. Dr. Karen Fromm , professor and art scholar, thinks about this: “ To find out whether a topic has social relevance, there is certainly no one ideal evaluation procedure. The relevance of a topic can also change depending on context and time. Journalism has developed its own decision-making routines for determining relevance, often referred to as newsworthiness.” Prof. Karen Fromm has therefore designed a checklist of questions you can ask yourself when brainstorming ideas for your photo series.

Checklist: Relevance of a photo series

1. does your topic have significance for the public? For a specific target group? For a larger group of people?

2. do the events or topic you want to tell about have a larger impact, e.g. on a region, many people, etc.?

3. does the topic have a current reference? Does it have a novelty connection?

4. does the topic generate attention for a grievance?

5. does the topic provide orientation knowledge? Does it clarify about a context? Does it convey background?

Furthermore, Prof. Karen Fromm recommends that you always ask yourself the classic W-questions for your topic idea: Who? What? When. Where. Why? How? What for? Basically, however, it is always true for them that you should base the idea for your photo series on facts and data that can be experienced and verified. Be guided by the criteria of accuracy, impartiality and independence! A vivid example of a photo story with social relevance is the work “ May I have this dance? “ by Shirin Abedi . For this she accompanied ballet dancers in Iran. The project is important because it’s not just about ballet. Shirin’s photo series tells of the situation of young women who want to develop themselves in a system that despises women.

It’s important to find a topic that interests more than just yourself. Topics need a certain social or societal relevance.

Of course, such research trips abroad are costly and require a lot of experience. That’s why it’s advisable to find a subject at your location for your photo series. It’s best if you don’t have to go far from home. Christoph Bangert advises: “ It is always better to go from the big to the small. It’s best to start by finding just one protagonist. “ For example, Nora Börding accompanied the former forester Gerd Klamer for the Leipziger Volkszeitung. He walked 6000 kilometers through Germany to draw attention to the unfortunate situation of the local forests. Nora Börding tells an impressive story about the fight for nature conservation with this photo series on a small scale. But a special place can also be an interesting subject. Former student Helena Lea Manhartsberger reports on a Viennese boxing club in her work “Fight Club” . This functions as an intercultural meeting place between hostile people from Afghanistan and Chechnya. This photo series also visualizes a larger theme in a simple frame. Often, however, the biggest challenge is to find not only a topic, but also a protagonist. Christoph Bangert recounts from his own experience: “ It always helps to have a large circle of acquaintances. There’s always that friend, a friend who can help you along. “ Otherwise, Christoph Bangert thinks it’s important to explain honestly to people what you’re up to. “ Take your responsibility seriously,” he advises. And, “ Be nice. That’s the most important thing. “

2. photographing a series of photos

The important part when creating a photo series is, of course, taking pictures. For Prof. Karen Fromm, this involves, on the one hand, developing a suitable visual language bracket for a topic. For her, that means, “ It’s not just about developing a visual signature that people recognize you with. “ For her, it’s much more essential that the stylistic means fit the respective theme. Karen Fromm points out, “ The imagery becomes part of the meaning of your work. “ From experience, dealing with your own photographic equipment on location is usually more difficult than you might expect. In practice, it can quickly happen that you set the wrong settings on your camera in your excitement. If you’re unlucky, you end up using the wrong exposure, for example, or can’t focus. For Professor Michael Trippel , who used to be a staff photographer at Stern, one thing is clear: “ It’s very important that you master your camera blindly. You have to know how to change to f/4 on the dial even in the dark. “ It makes similar sense for Professor Trippel to be on site beforehand and look around a bit. He says, “ I always look at the light. Is there any incident light or back light outside that I can use somehow? Or is there only subdued light? “ Because light is essential in photography. You can use it to highlight certain aspects of each image. By doing this, you’ll help the viewer focus on what’s important. For example, Agata Szymanska-Medina documented a group of charcoal burners making charcoal the old-fashioned way in the Polish Carpathian Mountains. The skillful use of light gives her picture of the coal furnaces a special drama.

The visual language becomes part of the meaning of your work.

Light often looks best when it doesn’t come directly from above. Faces in particular look more interesting when lit from the side. Therefore, one of the best sources of light are windows. Through them you often have a soft light from the side even during the day. This provides good lighting, especially for portraits. Ceiling light, on the other hand, often looks much more unattractive and boring. Especially when you visit your protagonists at home, you can work well with window light. A great example is a portrait from François Klein’s “ Isaya’s Dream “ series. The image is characterized by a soft, gentle light from the side. For Michael Trippel, from a journalistic point of view, it is perfectly okay to switch off the ceiling lamp indoors if in doubt. He remembers: “ I always photographed with available light and without flash if possible – as long as the picture was still sharp. That goes up to a handheld exposure time of 1/30 of a second. “ You can also influence the lighting mood of your images by selecting the time of day. For example, student Jonas Kako photographed a piece on the drying up of the Colorado River . To do this, he frequently traveled through desert areas in the USA. The light there during the day is excessively bright and harsh – for photography this is usually quite unfavorable. Jonas Kako therefore decided to shoot mainly in the morning and evening. Due to the lower position of the sun, the light then comes from a flatter angle and has a warm color temperature. This provides atmospheric lighting. The two photographers Volker Crone and Rafael Heygster traveled through Germany together for DER SPIEGEL magazine in the summer of 2021. In the process, they documented the mood before the federal election. Through the use of flash, her images seem like scenes from a play.

It is essential that you control your camera blindly.

Another important factor in building a photo series is perspective. This is all about where you stand when you take each picture and the angles you choose for the shots. By playing with different perspectives within a series, you can create variety: try not to always shoot everything at eye level. Maybe there is another perspective that is more exciting? By alternating, you keep the viewer engaged, while also being able to highlight different aspects of your work. Photographer Daniel Chatard used sometimes extreme panoramic shots in his work on coal mining in North Rhine-Westphalia. This makes the dimensions of the lignite excavators clear. He shows the people concerned and their respective homes in more detail. An interesting contrast is created. For Professor Michael Trippel, however, it’s also important not to overdo it when it comes to looking for interesting perspectives: “ Sometimes I’ve noticed that I’m just constantly bending my knees or climbing up somewhere. Then it was actually always clear to me that I was just lost. “ In such situations, he advises taking a break and breathing deeply to get out of the tunnel. For example, you can pay attention to what you currently hear or smell. All of this can help you refocus on what’s important. Finally, when creating a photo series, don’t overlook the color palette: Consistent color tones across all images will help tie them together better. Of course, it is often difficult to control the colors of a location in a reportage. Nevertheless, there are numerous photographers who deal with colors in their work in an impressive way. The student Emile Ducke , for example, is a master at using colors skilfully: In his multi-award-winning reportage “ Diagnosis, “ he relied primarily on soft blues and pastel tones. Andy Happel , on the other hand, used very intense color tones in his portrait series on the lives of young people in China. His images are thus reminiscent of the lighting of famous neo-noir films.

3. image selection and image editing for a photo series

If after photographing you back home, the next step is to select and edit the images . Professor Lars Bauernschmitt , who was managing director of the VISUM photo agency in Hamburg from 1993 to 2008, advises image editing: “ Less is more. Avoid effects. Work with the automatic editing options at the beginning. Trust your image. “ If you’re shooting in RAW, though, be sure to adjust the white balance. This makes the images look more uniform. Lars Bauernschmitt recommends picking out the ten to twenty best photos afterwards and printing them out: “ You can arrange the pictures according to the chronological order in which something happened. “ For Lars Bauernschmitt, this is the easiest way to bring order to your pictures. For example, Patrick Junker’s touching work follows Gerd Kuck, who suffered from an incurable heart muscle inflammation. He had to wait more than ten years for a donor heart. In his final selection of images, Patrick addresses the time before the operation, the operation itself and also the time afterwards.

You should ask yourself: do my photos really convey information to people who weren’t there?

But Lars Bauernschmitt also points out: “ You yourself know what you have photographed. When you look at your pictures, all the memories of taking them come flooding back. You also remember sounds or smells when you look at your pictures. But you have to ask yourself: Do my photos really convey information to people who weren’t there? “ He therefore gives the tip to talk to your friends about your pictures: “ Don’t give them any explanations about the pictures at first, if possible, but let them formulate their impressions. Do they recognize what you wanted to show? Or do they not see important details – because they are perhaps not well visible in the picture? “ In that case, he advises photographing the situation again – perhaps from a different perspective and distance. Finally, Lars Bauernschmitt gives the tip to tell your story in as few pictures as possible. Does an image really provide a new aspect or is it just a repeat of something you’ve already shown? “ You can also check this by describing the images in words – talk to yourself, “ recommends Lars Bauernschmitt. When you’ve finished everything, share it online! By posting on social media platforms, others can easily access and engage with your work. There are numerous such social networks such as Fotocommunity, Flickr or Instagram, which explicitly deal with photography. You can post your pictures individually or create a gallery as you wish. Use hashtags that relate to the topics at hand to get better exposure online. By doing so, you’ll also increase the chances of potential collaborations with other creatives from similar genres. Find friends this way and exchange ideas with them! (But always be careful on the Internet, of course). This exchange is also important for professional photographers: they often have a photo community in real life. This helps them if they ever have a question about technology or preparing for a trip. This can also be a promising way to find new project ideas.

4. conclusion: the implementation from the idea to the finished photo project

In conclusion, when you’re looking for a photo idea, it’s always wise to get inspiration from other media, art and literature. Ideally, you’re looking for an idea for a larger project, preferably one with a social relevance. Don’t make it too complicated in the process, sometimes the best stories can be found right outside your home! Maybe there is someone in your circle of friends with an interesting hobby or profession? This often lends itself to a good story. So you can easily find creative photo ideas. After that comes the photography itself. Pay attention to light and shadow, color and image composition. But it’s important that you don’t overdo it either: while it’s important to showcase what’s happening well in your photos. At the same time, you should always stay true to real-life circumstances in your images and not over-dramatize things. Finally, you need to select and edit your photos. This process is as important as the image making itself. Because even a strong photograph looks weak in a boring sequence. The same goes for image editing: try not to overdo it. The best image editing is often the one you don’t recognize as such. If you follow all these steps, your photo ideas can quickly become entire photo series. It will also allow you to see a whole new evolution in your photography. We wish you a lot of fun!

We created this post with the support of SE Ranking , as well as tools from Jasper AI and OpenAI.

Journey along the Yenisei River.

For her work “Hiding from Baba Yaga” Nanna Heitmann crosses Siberia, as her grandmother once did.

From trying to photograph the wind.

Lithuania has the highest suicide rate in Europe. Hannes Jung examines the background in his work.

“For a long time, parents in Iran believed that good girls would not dance in public.”

Shirin Abedi returns to her native Tehran for a report on ballerinas.

Hospital on wheels.

In “Diagnosis”, Emile Ducke photographs the unusual health care in the Russian hinterland.

Pictures That Tell Stories: Photo Essay Examples

Like any other type of artist, a photographer’s job is to tell a story through their pictures. While some of the most creative among us can invoke emotion or convey a thought with one single photo, the rest of us will rely on a photo essay.

In the following article, we’ll go into detail about what a photo essay is and how to craft one while providing some detailed photo essay examples.

What is a Photo Essay? 

A photo essay is a series of photographs that, when assembled in a particular order, tell a unique and compelling story. While some photographers choose only to use pictures in their presentations, others will incorporate captions, comments, or even full paragraphs of text to provide more exposition for the scene they are unfolding.

A photo essay is a well-established part of photojournalism and have been used for decades to present a variety of information to the reader. Some of the most famous photo essayists include Ansel Adams , W. Eugene Smith, and James Nachtwey. Of course, there are thousands of photo essay examples out there from which you can draw inspiration.

Why Consider Creating a Photo Essay?

As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth 1000 words.” This adage is, for many photographers, reason enough to hold a photo essay in particularly high regard.

For others, a photo essay allow them to take pictures that are already interesting and construct intricate, emotionally-charged tales out of them. For all photographers, it is yet another skill they can master to become better at their craft.

As you might expect, the photo essay have had a long history of being associated with photojournalism. From the Great Depression to Civil Rights Marches and beyond, many compelling stories have been told through a combination of images and text, or photos alone. A photo essay often evokes an intense reaction, whether artistic in nature or designed to prove a socio-political point.

Below, we’ll list some famous photo essay samples to further illustrate the subject.

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Famous Photo Essays

“The Great Depression” by Dorothea Lange – Shot and arranged in the 1930s, this famous photo essay still serves as a stark reminder of The Great Depression and Dust Bowl America . Beautifully photographed, the black and white images offer a bleak insight to one of the country’s most difficult times.

“The Vietnam War” by Philip Jones Griffiths – Many artists consider the Griffiths’ photo essay works to be some of the most important records of the war in Vietnam. His photographs and great photo essays are particularly well-remembered for going against public opinion and showing the suffering of the “other side,” a novel concept when it came to war photography.

Various American Natural Sites by Ansel Adams – Adams bought the beauty of nature home to millions, photographing the American Southwest and places like Yosemite National Park in a way that made the photos seem huge, imposing, and beautiful.

“Everyday” by Noah Kalina – Is a series of photographs arranged into a video. This photo essay features daily photographs of the artist himself, who began taking capturing the images when he was 19 and continued to do so for six years.

“Signed, X” by Kate Ryan – This is a powerful photo essay put together to show the long-term effects of sexual violence and assault. This photo essay is special in that it remains ongoing, with more subjects being added every year.

Common Types of Photo Essays

While a photo essay do not have to conform to any specific format or design, there are two “umbrella terms” under which almost all genres of photo essays tend to fall. A photo essay is thematic and narrative. In the following section, we’ll give some details about the differences between the two types, and then cover some common genres used by many artists.

⬥ Thematic 

A thematic photo essay speak on a specific subject. For instance, numerous photo essays were put together in the 1930s to capture the ruin of The Great Depression. Though some of these presentations followed specific people or families, they mostly told the “story” of the entire event. There is much more freedom with a thematic photo essay, and you can utilize numerous locations and subjects. Text is less common with these types of presentations.

⬥ Narrative 

A narrative photo essay is much more specific than thematic essays, and they tend to tell a much more direct story. For instance, rather than show a number of scenes from a Great Depression Era town, the photographer might show the daily life of a person living in Dust Bowl America. There are few rules about how broad or narrow the scope needs to be, so photographers have endless creative freedom. These types of works frequently utilize text.

Common Photo Essay Genres

Walk a City – This photo essay is when you schedule a time to walk around a city, neighborhood, or natural site with the sole goal of taking photos. Usually thematic in nature, this type of photo essay allows you to capture a specific place, it’s energy, and its moods and then pass them along to others.

The Relationship Photo Essay – The interaction between families and loved ones if often a fascinating topic for a photo essay. This photo essay genre, in particular, gives photographers an excellent opportunity to capture complex emotions like love and abstract concepts like friendship. When paired with introspective text, the results can be quite stunning. 

The Timelapse Transformation Photo Essay – The goal of a transformation photo essay is to capture the way a subject changes over time. Some people take years or even decades putting together a transformation photo essay, with subjects ranging from people to buildings to trees to particular areas of a city.

Going Behind The Scenes Photo Essay – Many people are fascinated by what goes on behind the scenes of big events. Providing the photographer can get access; to an education photo essay can tell a very unique and compelling story to their viewers with this photo essay.

Photo Essay of a Special Event – There are always events and occasions going on that would make an interesting subject for a photo essay. Ideas for this photo essay include concerts, block parties, graduations, marches, and protests. Images from some of the latter were integral to the popularity of great photo essays.

The Daily Life Photo Essay – This type of photo essay often focus on a single subject and attempt to show “a day in the life” of that person or object through the photographs. This type of photo essay can be quite powerful depending on the subject matter and invoke many feelings in the people who view them.

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Photo Essay Ideas and Examples

One of the best ways to gain a better understanding of photo essays is to view some photo essay samples. If you take the time to study these executions in detail, you’ll see just how photo essays can make you a better photographer and offer you a better “voice” with which to speak to your audience.

Some of these photo essay ideas we’ve already touched on briefly, while others will be completely new to you. 

Cover a Protest or March  

Some of the best photo essay examples come from marches, protests, and other events associated with movements or socio-political statements. Such events allow you to take pictures of angry, happy, or otherwise empowered individuals in high-energy settings. The photo essay narrative can also be further enhanced by arriving early or staying long after the protest has ended to catch contrasting images. 

Photograph a Local Event  

Whether you know it or not, countless unique and interesting events are happening in and around your town this year. Such events provide photographers new opportunities to put together a compelling photo essay. From ethnic festivals to historical events to food and beverage celebrations, there are many different ways to capture and celebrate local life.

Visit an Abandoned Site or Building  

Old homes and historical sites are rich with detail and can sometimes appear dilapidated, overgrown by weeds, or broken down by time. These qualities make them a dynamic and exciting subject. Many great photo essay works of abandoned homes use a mix of far-away shots, close-ups, weird angles, and unique lighting. Such techniques help set a mood that the audience can feel through the photographic essay.

Chronicle a Pregnancy

Few photo essay topics could be more personal than telling the story of a pregnancy. Though this photo essay example can require some preparation and will take a lot of time, the results of a photographic essay like this are usually extremely emotionally-charged and touching. In some cases, photographers will continue the photo essay project as the child grows as well.

Photograph Unique Lifestyles  

People all over the world are embracing society’s changes in different ways. People live in vans or in “tiny houses,” living in the woods miles away from everyone else, and others are growing food on self-sustaining farms. Some of the best photo essay works have been born out of these new, inspiring movements.

Photograph Animals or Pets  

If you have a favorite animal (or one that you know very little about), you might want to arrange a way to see it up close and tell its story through images. You can take photos like this in a zoo or the animal’s natural habitat, depending on the type of animal you choose. Pets are another great topic for a photo essay and are among the most popular subjects for many photographers.

Show Body Positive Themes  

So much of modern photography is about showing the best looking, prettiest, or sexiest people at all times. Choosing a photo essay theme like body positivity, however, allows you to film a wide range of interesting-looking people from all walks of life.

Such a photo essay theme doesn’t just apply to women, as beauty can be found everywhere. As a photo essay photographer, it’s your job to find it!

Bring Social Issues to Life  

Some of the most impactful social photo essay examples are those where the photographer focuses on social issues. From discrimination to domestic violence to the injustices of the prison system, there are many ways that a creative photographer can highlight what’s wrong with the world. This type of photo essay can be incredibly powerful when paired with compelling subjects and some basic text.

Photograph Style and Fashion

If you live in or know of a particularly stylish locale or area, you can put together an excellent thematic photo essay by capturing impromptu shots of well-dressed people as they pass by. As with culture, style is easily identifiable and is as unifying as it is divisive. Great photo essay examples include people who’ve covered fashion sub-genres from all over the world, like urban hip hop or Japanese Visual Kei. 

Photograph Native Cultures and Traditions  

If you’ve ever opened up a copy of National Geographic, you’ve probably seen photo essay photos that fit this category. To many, the traditions, dress, religious ceremonies, and celebrations of native peoples and foreign cultures can be utterly captivating. For travel photographers, this photo essay is considered one of the best ways to tell a story with or without text.

Capture Seasonal Or Time Changes In A Landmark Photo Essay

Time-lapse photography is very compelling to most viewers. What they do in a few hours, however, others are doing over months, years, and even decades. If you know of an exciting landscape or scene, you can try to capture the same image in Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall, and put that all together into one landmark photo essay.

Alternatively, you can photograph something being lost or ravaged by time or weather. The subject of your landmark photo essay can be as simple as the wall of an old building or as complex as an old house in the woods being taken over by nature. As always, there are countless transformation-based landmark photo essay works from which you can draw inspiration.

Photograph Humanitarian Efforts or Charity  

Humanitarian efforts by groups like Habitat for Humanity, the Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders can invoke a powerful response through even the simplest of photos. While it can be hard to put yourself in a position to get the images, there are countless photo essay examples to serve as inspiration for your photo essay project.

How to Create a Photo Essay

There is no singular way to create a photo essay. As it is, ultimately, and artistic expression of the photographer, there is no right, wrong, good, or bad. However, like all stories, some tell them well and those who do not. Luckily, as with all things, practice does make perfect. Below, we’ve listed some basic steps outlining how to create a photo essay

Steps To Create A Photo Essay

Choose Your Topic – While some photo essayists will be able to “happen upon” a photo story and turn it into something compelling, most will want to choose their photo essay topics ahead of time. While the genres listed above should provide a great starting place, it’s essential to understand that photo essay topics can cover any event or occasion and any span of time

Do Some Research – The next step to creating a photo essay is to do some basic research. Examples could include learning the history of the area you’re shooting or the background of the person you photograph. If you’re photographing a new event, consider learning the story behind it. Doing so will give you ideas on what to look for when you’re shooting.  

Make a Storyboard – Storyboards are incredibly useful tools when you’re still in the process of deciding what photo story you want to tell. By laying out your ideas shot by shot, or even doing rough illustrations of what you’re trying to capture, you can prepare your photo story before you head out to take your photos.

This process is especially important if you have little to no control over your chosen subject. People who are participating in a march or protest, for instance, aren’t going to wait for you to get in position before offering up the perfect shot. You need to know what you’re looking for and be prepared to get it.

Get the Right Images – If you have a shot list or storyboard, you’ll be well-prepared to take on your photo essay. Make sure you give yourself enough time (where applicable) and take plenty of photos, so you have a lot from which to choose. It would also be a good idea to explore the area, show up early, and stay late. You never know when an idea might strike you.

Assemble Your Story – Once you develop or organize your photos on your computer, you need to choose the pictures that tell the most compelling photo story or stories. You might also find some great images that don’t fit your photo story These can still find a place in your portfolio, however, or perhaps a completely different photo essay you create later.

Depending on the type of photographer you are, you might choose to crop or digitally edit some of your photos to enhance the emotions they invoke. Doing so is completely at your discretion, but worth considering if you feel you can improve upon the naked image.

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Best Photo Essays Tips And Tricks

Before you approach the art of photo essaying for the first time, you might want to consider with these photo essay examples some techniques, tips, and tricks that can make your session more fun and your final results more interesting. Below, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best advice we could find on the subject of photo essays. 

⬥ Experiment All You Want 

You can, and should, plan your topic and your theme with as much attention to detail as possible. That said, some of the best photo essay examples come to us from photographers that got caught up in the moment and decided to experiment in different ways. Ideas for experimentation include the following: 

Angles – Citizen Kane is still revered today for the unique, dramatic angles used in the film. Though that was a motion picture and not photography, the same basic principles still apply. Don’t be afraid to photograph some different angles to see how they bring your subject to life in different ways.

Color – Some images have more gravitas in black in white or sepia tone. You can say the same for images that use color in an engaging, dynamic way. You always have room to experiment with color, both before and after the shoot.

Contrast – Dark and light, happy and sad, rich and poor – contrast is an instantly recognizable form of tension that you can easily include in your photo essay. In some cases, you can plan for dramatic contrasts. In other cases, you simply need to keep your eyes open.

Exposure Settings – You can play with light in terms of exposure as well, setting a number of different moods in the resulting photos. Some photographers even do random double exposures to create a photo essay that’s original.

Filters – There are endless post-production options available to photographers, particularly if they use digital cameras. Using different programs and apps, you can completely alter the look and feel of your image, changing it from warm to cool or altering dozens of different settings.

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If you’re using traditional film instead of a digital camera, you’re going to want to stock up. Getting the right shots for a photo essay usually involves taking hundreds of images that will end up in the rubbish bin. Taking extra pictures you won’t use is just the nature of the photography process. Luckily, there’s nothing better than coming home to realize that you managed to capture that one, perfect photograph. 

⬥ Set the Scene 

You’re not just telling a story to your audience – you’re writing it as well. If the scene you want to capture doesn’t have the look you want, don’t be afraid to move things around until it does. While this doesn’t often apply to photographing events that you have no control over, you shouldn’t be afraid to take a second to make an OK shot a great shot. 

⬥ Capture Now, Edit Later 

Editing, cropping, and digital effects can add a lot of drama and artistic flair to your photos. That said, you shouldn’t waste time on a shoot, thinking about how you can edit it later. Instead, make sure you’re capturing everything that you want and not missing out on any unique pictures. If you need to make changes later, you’ll have plenty of time! 

⬥ Make It Fun 

As photographers, we know that taking pictures is part art, part skill, and part performance. If you want to take the best photo essays, you need to loosen up and have fun. Again, you’ll want to plan for your topic as best as you can, but don’t be afraid to lose yourself in the experience. Once you let yourself relax, both the ideas and the opportunities will manifest.

⬥ It’s All in The Details 

When someone puts out a photographic essay for an audience, that work usually gets analyzed with great attention to detail. You need to apply this same level of scrutiny to the shots you choose to include in your photo essay. If something is out of place or (in the case of historical work) out of time, you can bet the audience will notice.

⬥ Consider Adding Text

While it isn’t necessary, a photographic essay can be more powerful by the addition of text. This is especially true of images with an interesting background story that can’t be conveyed through the image alone. If you don’t feel up to the task of writing content, consider partnering with another artist and allowing them tor bring your work to life.

Final Thoughts 

The world is waiting to tell us story after story. Through the best photo essays, we can capture the elements of those stories and create a photo essay that can invoke a variety of emotions in our audience.

No matter the type of cameras we choose, the techniques we embrace, or the topics we select, what really matters is that the photos say something about the people, objects, and events that make our world wonderful.

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Essays on Reportage

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