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Community Guide: Creating Your Own Visual Essay
Anna Leon-Guerrero, Pacific Lutheran University

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Visual essays have been presented throughout your text to capture the human experience of social problems. I hope that these essays have provided you with an opportunity to reflect about social problems, particularly those affecting your own community.

Instructions

This assignment offers you an opportunity to create your own visual essay, to capture social problems on your campus or in your community. For this exercise, you will need to select a series of photos, about 6 – 8 photos, that documents a particular social problem. Consider a problem that interests you or relates to your age group. Homelessness, poverty, sexual assault, binge drinking, or campus safety are some of the problems you might consider.

The photos can be collected several ways:

  • You could shoot your own photos for this project. If you are taking the photos in private settings, you must obtain written permission from your subject(s). Please refer to the sample permission form.

  • You can use photos through published sources (e.g., books).

  • You can also search websites for photos.

  • Photos may also be obtained from a stock art archive on the internet. You can go to www.corbis.com or www.ditto.com, where you can search by keyword(s).

Please note : You must document where you obtained the photos by providing source, ID number (if available), photographer (if known) and publisher/website address. If using personal photos, identify yourself as the photographer.

In instances where you decide to take your own photos, please remember that you should always protect the privacy and safety of your subjects. Many problems are controversial and often lead to negative stigmatization of those experiencing them. Remember, your visual essay should only include photos of subjects who agree to have their photo taken and used for your assignment.

Each photo should contain a caption with the following information:

[Title]; [date of photograph (or date unknown, or "circa")]; [name of photographer (if known)]; [complete source information if "borrowed" from Internet or published source]. Brief statement about the significance of the photo.

In addition to your photos, you should also include a short essay (1-2 pp.) that identifies the social problem you've selected and describes how the pictures relate to this problem.

The photos and text may be presented in a traditional photo album, on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper, a poster board, or any other way you think is appropriate.

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