Rethinking Photographic Essays

Why I read and write photographic essays

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Although I rarely use the word unexpectedly in my writing, the idea for this article really did arrive that way.

I already had another essay finished and ready to be published when a friend called me and suggested I have a look at the work of a well-known photographer. She spoke very highly of both his photographs and his essays, so naturally I became curious.

As soon as I opened his page, I understood what she meant. The photographs were outstanding. They were the kind of images I would happily hang on my wall, and although I had no idea how they had been made, I assumed there must have been techniques involved that I wasn’t familiar with, perhaps a great deal of editing, perhaps something else entirely.

I wanted to know more.

I opened one of the essays, pressed play and started listening while driving, expecting that sooner or later I would hear something about the making of those photographs. Instead, the story revolved around the place where they had been made and the author’s relationship with it. Several minutes passed, then several more, and the narrative was still unfolding around the same subject. Somewhere along the way, my attention wandered. I found myself replaying unrelated events from that day, thinking about things that had absolutely nothing to do with photography.

By the time the recording ended, I realised I had barely listened to the second half of it. I'm not saying the essay was poor. It simply wasn't about the things I was hoping to hear.

But that particular post is not important here.

It simply served as a catalyst for a question that immediately came to mind.

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What do I actually want to read—or write—in a photographic essay?

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It wasn't a new question at all. It turned out to be closely connected to similar dilemmas I had been wrestling with while editing an article I had finished the day before.

What do I really want to say?

What is this article actually about?

How many technical details should I include, if any at all?

Why is it worth somebody else’s time?

And perhaps the most difficult one of all—how should it be written?

When I started writing photographic essays a couple of years ago, I often accompanied my photographs with technical information and some sort of conclusion, or takeaway. The message was usually something along the lines of how beauty can be found everywhere, or how we should pay more attention to ordinary things.

Interestingly, I still believe those ideas.

The difference is that today they rarely feel like something I genuinely want to write.

I've become very careful with such claims for two reasons. First, they're so common these days that, even when they're true, they rarely add anything new.

Second, they suggest what the reader is supposed to take away from the experience.

I mean, doesn’t a photograph show that there’s beauty in small things?

If it does, great. If it doesn't, that's perfectly fine too. I try to be vigilant about not letting my sentences go farther than the photographs themselves. Sometimes they still do. I'd rather not, but they do. The difference is that I've learned to notice when it happens.

Lately I’ve found that in photographic essays I want to read and write about what actually happened.

What caught your attention?

What made you stop?

Was it cold?

Why this frame?

What happened between noticing the scene and pressing the shutter?

What was going through your mind while you were standing there with the camera in your hands?

Did it pay off? Honestly.

Would you photograph it differently today?

Tell me what happened, how it felt, and let me arrive at my own conclusion.

I’ve come to realise that the essays I return to most are written by people who can describe an experience engagingly while stopping just before crossing into explanation or moralising. They bring the reader right to the door of a conclusion, but they never open it on the reader’s behalf.

Ironically, I catch myself doing exactly the opposite from time to time.

I notice myself trying to wrap an experience into a lesson, trying to explain what the reader should take away from it. Whenever I notice that happening during editing, it has become a warning sign that I should probably return to the experience itself instead of the conclusion.

The same applies to captions.

I often find myself wondering whether I should explain what I saw in a photograph or simply leave the image alone. Sometimes a title or a caption adds another layer of meaning. Sometimes it only narrows the reader’s imagination. I still haven’t figured out where that balance lies, and perhaps I never will.

And there are many more questions.

Should a photographic essay include technical details?

Should it tell the personal history behind the work?

Should it explain the destination?

What about the process?

How much should I tell, and how much should I leave for the reader to discover?

Should it answer questions—or leave some of them open?

Should it be long or short?

I honestly don’t know.

Maybe what I've been looking for all along isn't polished writing or a noble takeaway, but the decisions that led to the photograph itself.

These questions occupied my mind today, and I suspect many people who write, regardless of whether they write about photography or anything else, have found themselves asking similar questions at some point.

If you have, I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts.

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