Assignment 1
Worth 1000 Words Photo Essay
Introduction
For this assignment, you will create a photo essay that works to accomplish a particular
rhetorical goal for a specific audience. You may choose to compose an argumentative
or informative photo essay, or perhaps you want to create a narrative photo essay. The
topic and perspective are up to you; what matters most is that there is a coherent,
unifying statement throughout the photo essay that is clear to your intended audience.
Objective
Upon completion of this assignment, students will be able to:
• Use compelling visuals in order to make a clear claim
• Utilize rhetorical concepts such as audience, the rhetorical appeals,
arrangement, and delivery in order to design a rhetorically effective visual essay
• Utilize design principles such as the rule of thirds, emphasis, repetition for
rhetorical purpose
• Use photo editing programs such as Gimp or Photoshop to effectively edit and
manipulate source material resulting in rhetorically effective, polished images
• Articulate rhetorical, technological, methodological, and design choices made
throughout the composing process
Production Details
This assignment has two parts: The Photo Essay and the Artist Statement
Photo Essay: The photo essay will be on a topic of your choosing. The photo essay will
begin with a 100-250 word introduction; a chance for you as the creator to “frame”
how the audience views the photo essay. This will also be the only place in the photo
essay where alphabetic text is allowed (if the text is part of the image like in a street
sign that is allowable). The purpose is to make the visual the primary mode through
which meaning is expressed.
The photo essay will include at least 10 images. The images may be original photos or
attributed images. If you use images from other artists, you must attribute the original
image to its creator, and the image must be manipulated in some way (for example,
applying a filter, cropping, overlay with another image, etc.)
Artist Statement: A 500-750 word artist statement will accompany your photo essay.
This artist statement is a chance for you to share your rhetorical vision for the photo
essay as well as to explain any design, technological, and methodological choices you
made during the composing process. See the separate Artist Statement Assignment
sheet for more details.
Production Deadlines
Friday September 12th: In-class peer review of rough draft
Sunday September 21st: Photo Essay due by 11:59p.m. You will upload to Issuu.com
and post the introduction, your link, and your artist statement in your blog.
Assessment
This assignment is worth 15% of your course final grade. I will evaluate the assignment
based on the following criteria:
• The cohesion and clarity of the photo essay’s topic (Is the claim/statement clear?
How do the images make a claim/statement?)
• The effective use of images and design to meet the rhetorical purposes (Do the
images make sense within the overall photo essay? Are photo composition and
design elements rhetorically effective?)
• The quality of the images and editing (Do the images show ? Are images
attributed to their original creators? Are the images/editing polished?)
• The clear articulation of the rhetorical and design decisions in the artist
statement (Does the artist statement address the rhetorical, methodological,
technological, and process choices in the project? Does the artist statement
offer specific examples to illustrate these choices?)
Resources
Sample photo essays from class
Where Children Sleep http://jamesmollison.com/books/where-children-sleep/
Ruins of Detroit http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html
Sample student photo essays on Carmen
Photo composition readings:
Five Elements of Composition in Photography
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-elements-of-composition-in-photography/
Top 10 Photo Composition Rules
http://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/10-top-photography-composition-rules
Photography Composition- Your Photo as a Story
http://www.colorpilot.com/comp_rules.html
Gimp Tutorials (including those on Carmen):
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/
https://www.youtube.com/user/GIMPtricks