Exercise

Create a photo-driven story of your most-frequent commute (it could be to school, work, another person’s home — whatever journey you most frequently take). Use only photography and text (how much of each is up to you). Consider how to best use the elements of narrative and storytelling. Scenes. Characters. Action.

Don’t be afraid to interview people. Get close. Linger. Focus on details. Essentially, “investigate” your commute and craft a compelling story to share with the world.

The MVP (minimum viable product) should be a story on Medium — but you can use any tools to build pieces of the story (e.g. Photoshop, Illustrator, Snapchat, Instagram). You can layer information on top of the photographs (like annotations or text) but don’t manipulate or alter the scenes you capture. Reference NPPA’s Code of Ethics for best practices. If you’d like to push your technical skills, build the page yourself using HTML and CSS.

Deadline: You must submit a URL to your story on Canvas by midnight, February 8, and be ready to present it in class on February 9.

Weekly Critique Assignments

Select one of the stories below to critique:

  1. ‘They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals’
  2. Bill Cosby’s Accusers
  3. Walking in War’s Path
  4. Mississippi Blues
  5. Illuminating North Korea
  6. ISIS Sent Four Car Bombs. The Last One Hit Me.

Before next class, submit a critique that generally answers the following questions about each piece (fewer than 300 words).

  • Substance: What, if anything, did you learn? What surprised you or caused confusion?
  • Structure: Analyze the use of photos and text. Which elements were most powerful? Did the two mediums work well together, or was one distracting? What could you learn from the photos that you couldn’t from the text, and vice versa?

Deadline: Submit your critiques on Canvas by midnight on Wednesday, February 8.