On 1st December, we shared our monthly digest for November'2013. This exposed us to a surprise that many of our followers and friends were not aware that we also host guest posts on Travellingcamera.com. Many of you approached us and few requested to share some guidelines to share your Photo Essays here. So far, we never restricted anyone from sharing in the way someone wants to share. 
Essentially a Photo Journey is simply a collection of photographs which are placed in a specific order to share the progression of a particular event, Travel, experience or any other type of concepts.
Whether you are an amateur or a professional, the photo essay is a brilliant way to bring your photographs to life and touch your family, friends, and coworkers. It's a great learning experience as well. During the process of creating a Photo Journey we learn small gaps between the ideation and the real stuff, which helps in maturing the planning/execution of photography subjects/situations.
Here is a typical process of creating your Photo Journey -
1. Identify a topic: Photo Journeys are most interesting when you as a photographer care about the subject or any specific aspect of the topic you choose. Whether you choose to document your travel to Himalayas or a new exploration in streets around your house or any other topic which interests you the most. At this point of time, you may also want to ensure that the topic is also interesting for viewers, as it should not be very personal. If not very interesting, at least it should be informational.
2. Do appropriate research: It's very important to understand different facets of the topic you choose and be as close as you can to various elements of that subject. For examples, if it's a travel experience, it's important to know about the culture of that place, people, commercial activities and some of the important facts which may be helpful folk who are planning to visit the same place. If you cover the process of a festival, talk with people around you and know their emotions about the festivities, investigate the general interest of public during the festival day. All of these factors will help you in planning out the type of shots you set up for your story. Better understanding of different elements around your chosen topic helps in creating a rocking photo essay.
3. Keep it REAL : After your research, you can decide on the flow you want to choose to take your story further. Keeping things real and highlighting some special elements makes an essay more interesting. Though each story idea is the same, the main factors of each story create an incredibly unique story.
4. Every Photo Journey is built on a set of core values and emotions that touch the heart of its audience. Adventure, thrill, Joy, Fear, Excitement. The best way you can connect your photo essay with its audience is to draw out the emotions within the story and utilize them in your photographs. More than words, here we emphasize on the way photographs are shot and presented in a series. This does not mean that you manipulate your audience’s emotions. You merely use emotion as a connecting point.
5.Plan your photographs: Whether you decide to sit down and extensively visualize each shot of the story, or simply walk through the venue in your mind, you will want to think about the type of shots that will work best to tell your story. I recommend beginners first start out by creating a list of photographs for the story. Each shot will work like a sentence in a one-paragraph story. You can start with 10 photographs. Each photographs must emphasize a different concept or emotion that can be connected together with the other images for the final draft of the story.
Remember that story telling takes practice and it's a continuous learning process. But the special part is that learning only comes, when we come down on ground and start playing the game, rather than just observing from the stadium as spectator. You don’t have to be an incredible writer to pull off a powerful photo essay. All you need is a bit of photographic technique, some creativity, and willingness to share with the world. And once you begin taking pictures in stories, your images will never be the same.
Quick Check-list :
1. Original: Original work and not published elsewhere. CopyScape is used before publishing.
2. Length: Minimum of 500 words. Don’t exceed 1300 words, unless and until you are writing a tutorial or instructional blog post. User experience is most important :)
There should be atleast 2 hyperlinks pointing to most relevant posts of PHOTO JOURNEY.
3. Images : 8-15 good quality photographs. Each photograph should have descriptive names. E.g.- 'Christ Church on Mall Road in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India'.
4. Finishing : Avoid grammatical mistakes and typos. Please write your article in a natural way.
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We like Photo Journeys having original content. We are seeking information and experiences that would help the viewers/readers to learn and exchange memories that are inspiring.
Photos need to be original. In case of borrowed images, we request you to add the due credit to the source, after seeking their approval to publish.
We always look for feedback to improve everyday. So keep helping each other constructive feedback. Thanks !
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