“Photo essays”are a bit of an interesting genre, as they do not always feature text despite having essay in their name. Instead, photos become the main focus for the author to use to convey some kind of idea. In my five photo essays I’ve chosen, they all feature varying levels of text, but they all have photos.

Sources:

A Worldwide Day’s Worth of Food
This is what school lunches look like around the world
Photo Essay: Learning About Olive Oil With California Olive Ranch.
How Not to Live: A Photo Essay on State Fair Food.
Japan: A Food Photo Essay

Always:

Photos:
Photos are a must for the photo essay genre. They are featured in all 5 of the sources I have listed above. Their arrangement just might be different and may have the text formatted around it, such as the slideshows in “A Worldwide Day’s Worth of Food” and “This is what school lunches look like around the world,” or just have them in-body as the reader scrolls downwards on the website.

Have a theme:
Each of the texts I have picked have a general theme that the author has chosen to put them together as a collection. It could be daily eating habits, school lunches, olive oil, State Fair food, or just Japan, which the authors have chosen to do in the above sources. There is not just a senseless arrangement of pictures.

Convey an idea or illicit emotion:
The reason for this arrangement is that the author is trying to give a sense of what is going on with their theme. For example, TIME’s “A Worldwide Day’s Worth of Food” (USA) shows some levels of disparity between cultures, and similarly, Independent’s “This is what school lunches look like around the world” (UK) shows how people should be concerned how their children or eating compared to other countries. Some may just be purely comedic, like “How Not to Live: A Photo Essay on State Fair Food.”

Sometimes:

Text:
The amount of text may vary for each photo essay, to the point that a photo might not even have a caption, leaving the interpretation up to the viewer. This is the case with “Photo Essay: Learning About Olive Oil With California Olive Ranch,” but not the case for the rest of the texts which always have text with the photo. “Japan: A Food Photo Essay” notably features no introduction and has very short captions.

Slideshow:
Of the sources, 3/5 of them actually show the photos in a slideshow with captions alongside the photo. Thinking about it, I feel as though I’ve treated the work I’ve done for Jpop Dallas to be like photo essays, but I wonder if anyone else would think of it as being like a photo essay according to my list of characteristics?

Online or in print:
“A Worldwide Day’s Worth of Food” is actually only an excerpt of “What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets,” showing that photo essays can be in print too.