Personally, I have never written a photo essay before and other than dabbling in a photography class my freshman year of high school, taking pictures was never really my thing. Never the less, I guess there will have to be plenty of research done in order to create an effective piece that accurately targets and the audience and conveys the true purpose, which by the way… we should probably determine now.
Audience and Purpose
For this photo essay we are specifically targeting the WPI students in order to encourage them to be more water-sustainable. Seems pretty simple… except when you get into the nuances. Especially, using photography to convey a message is a new concept and therefore plenty of research will have to be done, but for now lets go back to the audience. For students at WPI, their school is their home and where they spend most of their time and for this reason it will be important to use mainly pathos and truly hit the heart of the students. How can this be done? Targeting areas of WPI specifically in order to get students to realize that wasting water is effecting them and their home. This could mean exposing some unsustainable habits at WPI and showing how those habits ruin the school.
Research on Sustainability
After looking up how to be more sustainable, according to https://www.culligannation.com/10-ways-to-conserve-water-sustainable-living/ a lot of the methods revolve around “at home” life. This means saving water on long showers, not leaving the faucet running, and soaking dishes in warm water before washing them. This is not very applicable to the students at WPI because most of them live off campus and for this reason their “at home” water sustainability does not really effect the WPI community. For this reason, we thought that we should target the WPI students by showing larger unsustainable problems with the school, so they then go to faculty. This would be very effective because the WPI faculty listen to their students so hopefully the upset students will lead to changes around campus.
The photo essay part
How do you even write a photo essay? That is a good question that should be able to be answered with the reading we did in class and maybe some additional research. First of all, the photographs themselves. As Errol Morris mentions, posing a photograph does not get rid of its value. What are we gonna do? Sit and wait until the perfect photograph falls into our hands? If that method does not work for professional photographers,then it certainly will not work for us. This does not mean we will present any inaccurate information, more that we will just accentuate some truths. A good inspiration for an effective image is below.
Citations
Morris, E. (2014). Believing is seeing: observations on the mysteries of photography. New York: Penguin Press.
Freeman, D. (2018, October 11). New climate report shows efforts to end global warming are falling short. Here’s how we can get on track. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/new-climate-report-shows-efforts-end-global-warming-are-falling-ncna918121
Alena and Francesco's typography blog 
I think you guys have the right mindset to address large issues on campus that students can be aware of and request a change from faculty and administration. This is a great method in bringing awareness to issues and providing students with a voice. Additionally, I think that adding elements to provide a good photograph is completely valid and does not make a photo any less monumental or valuable. I think that photographers have a job to provide the means of a good photo, and how they obtain it is not necessarily important as long as it does not disrupt ethical means. Your drive and eagerness for tackling this problem on campus is inspiring and I can’t wait to see how you guys continue your photo essay!
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I think it is great that you did some good research before starting to take any pictures. I also like that you brought in sources that we have read in class as a guide to what a photo essay is. This post has inspired me a lot to how I should start this project. I am excited to see what your next step is in your photo essay!
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I like the research you guys found and how you were able to tie it into the readings we did. Sustainability is a big topic with many different facets so I like how you focus on the WPI campus to make it more applicable. I’m intrested to see how it turns out!
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