Essential Shots in Photo-Essays: A Guide

1. The Hook Shot

This shot is sometimes called a leading shot. It’s the shot that grabs you or ‘hooks’ your attention and draws you into the photo-essay. It’s often the first shot of the essay. It is an image of a thing or person that is often very creative and leaves the viewer wanting information about the topic.

2. The Establishing Shot

The establishing shot lays out the visual context for the story. It is often a wide shot that shows the setting or the environment where the story takes place or where the character lives/has been.

3. The Medium Shot

The medium shot serves to inform the viewer who the characters are, and what they are doing. The shot should include both the subject and its surrounding. If your story has people in it, the shot will have two or three people all interacting in some way - or you might have an individual working with some equipment or doing some job. But it’s not a detail shot.

4. The Detail Shot

As the name implies the shot has to do with the details. These shots add flavor to the story – they put the sauce on the meat. It is the detail shot that creates intimacy with the viewer.

5. The Portrait Shot

Often a tight portrait or head shot, but it can sometimes include the environment. This shot gives a face to your characters. It makes the story personal to someone.

6. The Gesture

This can be someone shooting basketballs or running. But it is often an interaction between two subjects in the story. There’s usually movement involved in some sort of action or dialogue between the subjects. By having this shot in the essay we stop the essay from becoming a series of too many portraits.

7. The Closure

The hook and the establishing shot usually come in the first section of the photo-essay. The only other shot that has a definite place within the essay is the one called ‘the closure’. The closure, as the name implies, it is the parting shot. It draws things to an end. This shot provides a resolution for the story.

The word ‘journalism’ comes from the French word ‘jour’ which means day

A ‘journal’ is a genre of writing in which people record their daily activities

The first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received permission to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

Newspapers for theNow, newspapers and the media in general present masses of information, so that they are called ‘the general public became possible after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in Mainz, in 1450.

Newspapers are now often called ‘the press. This word originated from the ‘printing press’ which was the machine that produced the printed papers.

Now, newspapers and the media in general present masses of information, so that they are called ‘the mass media.

Most democratic countries now have a law called ‘The Right to information.

Many different information sources (private and public) are necessary so that the general public is kept informed about what his/her government is doing.