51-219 The Photo Essay

3 units, Carnegie Mellon University

Whether traveling for fun or service-learning, be it a short distance to downtown or a flight to a new land, students will learn how to tell a story about place. They will work to make a cohesive narrative and photo essay around location. The photo-essay, in all its varied levels of polish, is often a mainstay of daily life. Photo-essays appear in printed magazines, newspapers, blogs, Instagram feeds, books, catalogs, and even in the context of explaining research in academia. Though the basic structure and components of photo-essay date back as early as 1936 issues of Life Magazine, the style and look of photography has changed over time. Students will learn the historic methodology around creating rich, complex story around place; how images work together to inform one another; and how contemporary images build beauty, poetics and metaphor.

Prerequisites: none listed

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