Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Photo Essay

Photo Essay Design Plan
Purpose: I want my photo essay to illustrate that healthy food does not have to taste bad.  I want to show pictures of healthy food that looks like it tastes good.  The purpose of my essay is to combat the common belief that all healthy food tastes bad.  I want the focus of my essay to be on fruits and vegetables.  I want to also briefly touch on the fact that what a lot of people think may be healthy food is not as healthy as they think.  I want to create a spark for my audience to get them interested in eating healthier.
Medium & Production:  My medium will be photos that I will take myself.  I do not have a lot of experience on taking good photos, so I am a little concerned on how it will turn out.  For my photos I will take pictures of healthy food that looks like it tastes good.  I want to take pictures of food that has rich color, especially greens.  The color used in the pictures will send a message that the food is full of life, health, and vitality.
Ethos:  I want my pictures to have an inviting tone.  I do not want my essay to look down on the way the average American eats.  I just want it to convey an emotion that inspires, and shows how easy it can be to have a healthy diet.
Pathos:  I want my audience to agree with my essay.  I do not want it to be too serious so that it does not shut the audience out.  I know my audience would rather see interesting photos than pictures of nutritional facts.
Logos:  My argument is based on appeal.  I have to take pictures that make the food look really good.  I will include the ingredients of the food in captions below the photos.  I may also take a photo of unhealthy food to show the comparison and the relation to how the food looks and how it makes us feel. 
Arrangement:  While preparing the arrangement for my essay it is important to consider the requirements set in place by the professor.  The essay has to be 8 to 10 slides.  My essay will probably be 8 or 9 slides composed of two photos per slide.  I will use about 16-20 photos in my essay.  It is important to take a lot of good pictures so that I have many options to choose from.  The photos on some slides will be side by side, and in opposite corners on other slides.
Testing:  My testing will take place during the peer review in class on March 20th.  I will ask my classmates what they think and see what they would have done differently.












Closing Comments

     I believe that I accomplished the overall goal that I set in my design plan.  I wanted to inspire others to have a healthy diet, by showing pictures that looked appealing.  In my design plan I had originally planned on showing different types of healthy foods, however once I started on the project I thought that it would be better if I focused on the benefits of juicing.  I chose to put the captions at the top because of the template that I picked.  I thought that the template was a good color to express health and vitality and would serve as a great background for my photos.  My overall purpose stayed the same, I just changed my means in order to more effectively accomplish my purpose.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Photo Essay Experience

     Throughout this class I have changed topics for my assignments many times.  I changed topics once again when it was time to start my photo essay.  I chose to cover healthy food for my essay, and wanted to show my audience that all healthy food does not have to taste bad.  The purpose of my essay is to show that there are a lot of healthy food choices that taste good.

     Taking the pictures requires a lot of work, because you have to prepare the food in a way that makes it appealing for the photo.  I have not been home for the past week during the day, so all of my meals have been out.  I could take photos of the food that I am eating, however it is not the exact message that I want to get across in my essay.  As a result, getting a lot of photos to choose from has been a difficult task.  I know the pictures that I want to take, however I have not had the opportunity to take all of them yet.  I plan to take some more photos today and throughout the weekend.  Getting quality pictures is the most difficult part and requires the most amount of time.  I believe that once I have a good amount of photos the majority of the essay will be complete and I will just have to put it together.

     I think that this assignment is a good change of pace from your standard writing assignments.   Using different contexts keep the class interesting. However, it is sometimes difficult to do new assignments when you have never done any assignment like it.