narrative photo essay ideas

23 Photo Essay Ideas and Examples (to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing!)

A Post By: Kevin Landwer-Johan

Looking for inspiration? Our 23 photo essay ideas will take your photography skills to new heights!

A single, strong photograph can convey a lot of information about its subject – but sometimes we have topics that require more than one image to do the job. That’s when it’s time to make a photo essay: a collection of pictures that together tell the bigger story around a chosen theme.

In the following sections, we’ll explore various photo essay ideas and examples that cover a wide range of subjects and purposes. From capturing the growth of your children to documenting local festivals, each idea offers an exciting opportunity to tell a story through your lens, whether you’re a hobbyist or a veteran professional.

So grab your camera, unleash your creativity, and let’s delve into the wonderful world of photo essay examples!

What is a photo essay?

Simply put, a photo essay is a series of carefully selected images woven together to tell a story or convey a message. Think of it as a visual narrative that designed to capture attention and spark emotions.

Now, these images can revolve around a broad theme or focus on a specific storyline. For instance, you might create a photo essay celebrating the joy of companionship by capturing 10 heartwarming pictures of people sharing genuine laughter. On the other hand, you could have a photo essay delving into the everyday lives of fishermen in Wales by following a single fisherman’s journey for a day or even a week.

It’s important to note that photo essays don’t necessarily have to stick to absolute truth. While some documentary photographers prefer to keep it authentic, others may employ techniques like manipulation or staging to create a more artistic impact. So there is room for creativity and interpretation.

Why you should create a photo essay

Photo essays have a way of expressing ideas and stories that words sometimes struggle to capture. They offer a visual narrative that can be incredibly powerful and impactful.

Firstly, photo essays are perfect when you have an idea or a point you want to convey, but you find yourself at a loss for words. Sometimes, emotions and concepts are better conveyed through images rather than paragraphs. So if you’re struggling to articulate a message, you can let your photos do the talking for you.

Second, if you’re interested in subjects that are highly visual, like the mesmerizing forms of architecture within a single city, photo essays are the way to go. Trying to describe the intricate details of a building or the play of light and shadows with words alone can be challenging. But through a series of captivating images, you can immerse your audience in the architecture.

And finally, if you’re aiming to evoke emotions or make a powerful statement, photo essays are outstanding. Images have an incredible ability to shock, inspire, and move people in ways that words often struggle to achieve. So if you want to raise awareness about an environmental issue or ignite a sense of empathy, a compelling series of photographs can have a profound impact.

Photo essay examples and ideas

Looking to create a photo essay but don’t know where to start? Here are some handy essay ideas and examples for inspiration!

1. A day in the life

Your first photo essay idea is simple: Track a life over the course of one day. You might make an essay about someone else’s life. Or the life of a location, such as the sidewalk outside your house. 

The subject matter you choose is up to you. But start in the morning and create a series of images showing your subject over the course of a typical day.

(Alternatively, you can document your subject on a special day, like a birthday, a wedding, or some other celebration.)

2. Capture hands

Portraits focus on a subject’s face – but why not mix it up and make a photo essay that focuses on your subject’s hands?

(You can also focus on a collection of different people’s hands.)

Hands can tell you a lot about a person. And showing them in context is a great way to narrate a story.

3. Follow a sports team for a full season

Sports are all about emotions – both from the passionate players and the dedicated fans. While capturing the intensity of a single game can be exhilarating, imagine the power of telling the complete story of a team throughout an entire season.

For the best results, you’ll need to invest substantial time in sports photography. Choose a team that resonates with you and ensure their games are within a drivable distance. By photographing their highs and lows, celebrations and challenges, you’ll create a compelling photo essay that traces their journey from the first game to the last.

4. A child and their parent

Photographs that catch the interaction between parents and children are special. A parent-child connection is strong and unique, so making powerful images isn’t challenging. You just need to be ready to capture the special moments as they happen. 

You might concentrate on a parent teaching their child. Or the pair playing sports. Or working on a special project.

Use your imagination, and you’ll have a great time with this theme.

5. Tell a local artist’s story 

I’ve always enjoyed photographing artists as they work; studios have a creative vibe, so the energy is already there. Bring your camera into this environment and try to tell the artist’s story!

An artist’s studio offers plenty of opportunities for wonderful photo essays. Think about the most fascinating aspects of the artist’s process. What do they do that makes their art special? Aim to show this in your photos.

Many people appreciate fine art, but they’re often not aware of what happens behind the scenes. So documenting an artist can produce fascinating visual stories.

6. Show a tradesperson’s process

Do you have a plumber coming over to fix your kitchen sink? Is a builder making you a new deck?

Take photos while they work! Tell them what you want to do before you start, and don’t forget to share your photos with them.

They’ll probably appreciate seeing what they do from another perspective. They may even want to use your photos on their company website.

7. Photograph your kids as they grow

There’s something incredibly special about documenting the growth of our little ones. Kids grow up so quickly – before you know it, they’re moving out. Why not capture the beautiful moments along the way by creating a heartwarming photo essay that showcases their growth?

There are various approaches you can take, but one idea is to capture regular photos of your kids standing in front of a distinct point of reference, such as the refrigerator. Over a year or several years, you can gather these images and place them side by side to witness your childrens’ incredible transformations.

8. Cover a local community event

A school fundraiser, a tree-planting day at a park, or a parade; these are are all community events that make for good photo essay ideas.

Think like a photojournalist . What type of images would your editor want? Make sure to capture some wide-angle compositions , some medium shots, and some close-ups.

(Getting in close to show the details can often tell as much of a story as the wider pictures.)

9. Show fresh market life

Markets are great for photography because there’s always plenty of activity and lots of characters. Think of how you can best illustrate the flow of life at the market. What are the vendors doing that’s most interesting? What are the habits of the shoppers?

Look to capture the essence of the place. Try to portray the people who work and shop there.

10. Shoot the same location over time

What location do you visit regularly? Is there a way you can make an interesting photo essay about it?

Consider what you find most attractive and ugly about the place. Look for aspects that change over time. 

Any outdoor location will look different throughout the day. Also think about the changes that occur from season to season. Create an essay that tells the story of the place.

11. Document a local festival

Festivals infuse cities and towns with vibrant energy and unique cultural experiences. Even if your own town doesn’t have notable festivals, chances are a neighboring town does. Explore the magic of these celebrations by documenting a local festival through your lens.

Immerse yourself in the festivities, arriving early and staying late. Capture the colorful displays and the people who make the festival come alive. If the festival spans multiple days, consider focusing on different areas each time you visit to create a diverse and comprehensive photo essay that truly reflects the essence of the event.

12. Photograph a garden through the seasons

It might be your own garden . It could be the neighbor’s. It could even be the garden at your local park.

Think about how the plants change during the course of a year. Capture photos of the most significant visual differences, then present them as a photo essay.

13. Show your local town or city

After spending several years in a particular area, you likely possess an intimate knowledge of your local town or city. Why not utilize that familiarity to create a captivating photo essay that showcases the essence of your community?

Delve into what makes your town special, whether it’s the charming streets, unique landmarks, or the people who shape its character. Dedicate time to capturing the diverse aspects that define your locale. If you’re up for a more extensive project, consider photographing the town over the course of an entire year, capturing the changing seasons and the dynamic spirit of your community.

14. Pick a local cause to highlight

Photo essays can go beyond passive documentation; they can become a part of your activism, too!

So find a cause that matters to you. Tell the story of some aspect of community life that needs improvement. Is there an ongoing issue with litter in your area? How about traffic; is there a problematic intersection?

Document these issues, then make sure to show the photos to people responsible for taking action.

15. Making a meal

Photo essay ideas can be about simple, everyday things – like making a meal or a coffee.

How can you creatively illustrate something that seems so mundane? My guess is that, when you put your mind to it, you can come up with many unique perspectives, all of which will make great stories.

16. Capture the life of a flower

In our fast-paced lives, it’s easy to overlook the beauty that surrounds us. Flowers, with their mesmerizing colors and rapid life cycles, offer a captivating subject for a photo essay. Try to slow down and appreciate the intricate details of a flower’s existence.

With a macro lens in hand, document a single flower or a patch of flowers from their initial shoots to their inevitable wilting and decomposition. Experiment with different angles and perspectives to bring viewers into the enchanting world of the flower. By freezing these fleeting moments, you’ll create a visual narrative that celebrates the cycle of life and the exquisite beauty found in nature’s delicate creations.

17. Religious traditions

Religion is often rich with visual expression in one form or another. So capture it!

Of course, you may need to narrow down your ideas and choose a specific aspect of worship to photograph. Aim to show what people do when they visit a holy place, or how they pray on their own. Illustrate what makes their faith real and what’s special about it.

18. Historic sites

Historic sites are often iconic, and plenty of photographers take a snapshot or two.

But with a photo essay, you can illustrate the site’s history in greater depth.

Look for details of the location that many visitors miss. And use these to build an interesting story.

19. Show the construction of a building

Ever been away from a familiar place for a while only to return and find that things have changed? It happens all the time, especially in areas undergoing constant development. So why not grab your camera and document this transformation?

Here’s the idea: Find a building that’s currently under construction in your area. It could be a towering skyscraper, a modern office complex, or even a small-scale residential project. Whatever catches your eye! Then let the magic of photography unfold.

Make it a habit to take a photo every day or two. Watch as the building gradually takes shape and evolves. Capture the construction workers in action, the cranes reaching for the sky, and the scaffolding supporting the structure.

Once the building is complete, you’ll have a treasure trove of images that chronicle its construction from start to finish!

20. Document the changing skyline of the city

This photo essay example is like the previous one, except it works on a much larger scale. Instead of photographing a single building as it’s built, find a nice vantage point outside your nearest city, then photograph the changing skyline.

To create a remarkable photo essay showcasing the changing skyline, you’ll need to scout out the perfect vantage point. Seek high ground that offers a commanding view of the city, allowing you to frame the skyline against the horizon. Look for spots that give you an unobstructed perspective, whether a rooftop terrace, a hillside park, or even a nearby bridge.

As you set out on your photography expedition, be patient and observant. Cities don’t transform overnight; they change gradually over time. Embrace the passage of days, weeks, and months as you witness the slow evolution unfold.

Pro tip: To capture the essence of this transformation, experiment with various photographic techniques. Play with different angles, framing, and compositions to convey the grandeur and dynamism of the changing skyline. Plus, try shooting during the golden hours of sunrise and sunset , when the soft light bathes the city in a warm glow and accentuates the architectural details.

21. Photograph your pet

If you’re a pet owner, you already have the perfect subject for a photo essay!

All pets , with the possible exception of pet rocks, will provide you with a collection of interesting moments to photograph.

So collect these moments with your camera – then display them as a photo essay showing the nature and character of your pet.

22. Tell the story of a local nature preserve

Ah, the wonders of a local nature preserve! While it may not boast the grandeur of Yosemite National Park, these hidden gems hold their own beauty, just waiting to be discovered and captured through the lens of your camera.

To embark on this type of photo essay adventure, start by exploring all the nooks and crannies of your chosen nature preserve. Wander along its winding trails, keeping an eye out for unique and captivating subjects that convey the essence of the preserve.

As you go along, try to photograph the intricate details of delicate wildflowers, the interplay of light filtering through a dense forest canopy, and the lively activities of birds and other wildlife.

23. Show the same subject from multiple perspectives

It’s possible to create an entire photo essay in a single afternoon – or even in a handful of minutes. If you don’t love the idea of dedicating yourself to days of photographing for a single essay, this is a great option.

Simply find a subject you like, then endeavor to capture 10 unique images that include it. I’d recommend photographing from different angles: up above, down low, from the right and left. You can also try getting experimental with creative techniques, such as intentional camera movement and freelensing. If all goes well, you’ll have a very cool set of images featuring one of your favorite subjects!

By showcasing the same subject from multiple perspectives, you invite viewers on a visual journey. They get to see different facets, textures, and details that they might have overlooked in a single photograph. It adds depth and richness to your photo essay, making it both immersive and dynamic.

Photo essay ideas: final words

Remember: Photo essays are all about communicating a concept or a story through images rather than words. So embrace the process and use images to express yourself!

Whether you choose to follow a sports team through a thrilling season, document the growth of your little ones, or explore the hidden treasures of your local town, each photo essay has its own magic waiting to be unlocked. It’s a chance to explore your creativity and create images in your own style.

So look at the world around you. Grab your gear and venture out into the wild. Embrace the beauty of nature, the energy of a bustling city, or the quiet moments that make life special. Consider what you see every day. What aspects interest you the most? Photograph those things.

You’re bound to end up with some amazing photo essays!

Now over to you:

Do you have any photo essay examples you’re proud of? Do you have any more photo essay ideas? Share your thoughts and images in the comments below!

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Kevin Landwer-Johan is a photographer, photography teacher, and author with over 30 years of experience that he loves to share with others.

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18 Immersive Photo Essay Examples & Tips

By Tata Rossi 13 days ago, Professional photography

A photo essay tells a story or evokes emotion through a series of photographs. The essays allow you to be creative and fully explore an idea. Such essays exist in a variety of forms – from photos only to images with brief comments or written essays accompanied by shots. Choose a photo essay example that you can easily do based on your professional level and the equipment you use.

1. Protests

• View the “Resistance” photo essay by David Moore .

A great idea for photo essays for students is to shoot the protest to show its power. You can capture people with signs and banners to demonstrate what they are standing for. Besides, you can learn how to capture moving subjects. Use the best example of photo essay and don’t forget about angles, composition, and framing.

To create a photo essay , go up to the front and photograph the leader of the protesters walking forward. After that, go back to the end of the group to take pictures of families joining the protest. As a result, you will gain experience shooting big groups of people in motion.

2. Transformation

• View the “A Self-Portrait Every Day” photo essay by Noah Kalina .

This idea is all about capturing the way a person changes. You may take photos of a pregnant woman and then capture the same model with a child. By documenting the development of the child for several years, you can tell a great story in the form of a photo essay.

However, you can also create a photo essay about the transformation of different objects. For instance, you can create a time-lapse series to capture the history of a renovated building. While you will have to take a lot of similar photos to bring this idea to life, it will allow you to achieve an impressive result.

3. Local Event

• View the “Monday Marathon” photo essay by Quinn G. Perini .

Whether you are a resident of a large city or a small town, you can find an opportunity to visit a local event, like a marathon or a festival. This is a nice chance to follow modern photography trends and bring photo essay ideas to life.

You can capture the before-and-after stages of the event. Arrive earlier and take pictures of the preparation activities, then shoot the actual event starting with the official beginning.

Keep photographing even when the event is over and capture the cleaning up and disassembling processes.

4. Photowalk

• View the “Empty Campus” photo essay by Elise Trissel .

Explore the location where you live and find interesting objects to capture in the vicinity. Using the most interesting photo essay examples, you can decide how to make the best decisions. Don’t hurry and try to discover which angles you can use to capture the unique atmosphere of each place.

If you live in the city, you may capture architectural details, wide shots of busy streets, or just take photos of passersby and street signs. Think about the details that make every location unique. For instance, you can try capturing reflections to see how they allow you to see the city from an unusual angle. You can find reflections everywhere, so be sure to pay attention to mirrored buildings, puddles, and fountains.

5. Place Over Time

• View the “At Home in the Ozarks” photo essay by Kylee Cole .

If you want to document changes and show how the streets, buildings, and parks in your city change over time, select your favorite locations and start to visit them regularly to capture the way they look during different seasons.

• View the “Last Moments” photo essay by Ross Taylor .

You don’t necessarily have to focus on profound photo essay topics to evoke emotions. Capturing pets enjoying their worry-free and untroubled life seems like an easy but interesting activity.

Choose any animal – from a domestic bird to a dog, cat, or horse. For more emotional images, use such pet photography ideas when your pet is still a baby and recreate these shots when it is older or is in its final days.

7. Street Style

• View the Tribal Street Photography photo essay by Hans Eijkelboom .

People often express themselves with the help of clothes. The way passers-by on the streets are dressed may reflect the clothing style of a whole society. That’s why you can travel around the world and capture people’s outfits in various areas. When taking portrait photos in the streets, you can also include some of the surroundings to put them in the context.

You can ask people in the streets to pose for you or try to capture them in movement. Select a suitable location for taking photos and create a photo essay to document what kinds of people one can meet in this location. When doing urban photography , you should ask people for permission before taking photos of them. You can ask their contacts and send them your photos later.

8. Abandoned Building

• View the “Lost Collective” photo essay by Bret Pattman .

Old buildings are excellent architecture photography essay topics for students since you can capture a large number of elements. They allow you to imagine what a particular street looked like in the past. You may use a photo essay example for students as references.

Get approval before going in, but mind that such places are far from being totally safe. Bring various lenses: the macro lenses – for details and the wide-angle one – when you want to include many elements in one shot.

9. Alternative Lifestyles

• View the “Last Nomad Hippies” photo essay by Roberto Palomo .

Some people decide to lead a lifestyle that differs from the one generally accepted by society. Explore different areas and look for people with an unusual way of living. You can capture candid photos of regular people or take pictures of a person with an unusual hobby.

Take pictures of those, who reside in extraordinary conditions, representatives of various subcultures, or the LBGTQ community. These photo essay topics show other people that it is okay to go out of their comfort zone and run against the wind.

10. Social Issues

• View the “Juveniles in Prison” photo essay by Isadora Kosofsky .

The best photo essay examples for students are related to social issues, like unemployment, domestic violence, gender discrimination, and more. Address the topic carefully and look for a proper perspective.

Your shots may draw the people’s attention to a truly burning and relevant matter and have a stronger effect than any text.

11. Behind the Scenes

• View the “Follow Me” photo essay by Marius Masalar .

If you are going to visit an event, get ready to take some behind-the-scenes photos. For instance, you can document the preparations for a festival. Capture the work of the lead event planner and other professionals to tell the story of the festival from an unusual angle.

Alternatively, you can capture the events happening backstage during a drama production. Take pictures of actors and actresses when they are getting ready for the performance. Try capturing the emotions of the main lead and show how stage workers make final preparations. You can also document the work of designers and makeup professionals.

12. Landmarks

• View the “Volte-Face” photo essay by Oliver Curtis .

The pictures of landmarks are typically taken from a certain spot. One of the best photo essay ideas is to try shooting sights from various angles. You will also have an opportunity to improve your composition and your framing skills.

If you take a look at any pictorial essay example, you will see that the variety of perspectives is endless: through the streets, in the morning, afternoon, and evening, with a drone or including reflections.

    • View the “Family” photo essay by Olivia Moore .

You can capture the way family members interact with each other and demonstrate the strong connection they share. In some cases, it makes sense to focus on capturing candid photos when doing family photography .

However, you may also opt for a different approach and focus on more difficult social topics. For instance, if you want to examine the issue of immigration, you can take pictures of a family from another country. In addition, you may show how families cope with other social issues, including poverty or unequal access to healthcare.

14. A Day in the Life

• View the “A Day in the Life of Carlos Gaytan” photo essay by Sandy Noto .

One of the best photo essays concepts is related to a day in a person’s life. The main character can be any person – a relative, family member, teacher, writer, or policeman.

People are generally interested in finding out facts about the lives and daily routines of others. The life of every human is incredible, especially if you learn it in more detail. This idea is especially suitable for taking documentary photos. For instance, you can select any photo essay sample you like and then capture a portrait of a person with the tools they use for their work.

15. Education

• View the “School Day” photo essay by Nancy Borowick .

You can also take great photos in the classroom capturing the interactions of teachers and their students. Avoid distracting them, as it will be easier for you to take natural shots. Using a variety of settings, you can make your photo essay more engaging. For instance, you may visit chemistry labs, capture teachers during a break, and take photos in other locations.

• View the “Meals From the Motherland” photo essay by James Tran .

You can also focus on specific meals to create a professional photo essay about food. To make it more attention-grabbing, try using different food photography ideas .

For instance, you can take photos of popular meals, capture the meals made by a specific person, or document cooking traditions in different countries. When taking photos in a restaurant, pay attention to the surroundings as well to capture the unique atmosphere of a place.

17. Capture the Neighbors

• View the “Our Neighbors” photo essay by Jeanne Martin .

Regardless of the place where you live, you have to establish good relationships with your neighbors. People who live nearby can also be great models for professionals who specialize in portrait photography. To implement this idea, make sure to capture people at home or in front of their houses to include some of the surroundings in your photo essay.

You will discover many interesting facts about people who live nearby. Shooting a photo essay will allow you to learn them better and establish a strong connection with them. This way, you can create a sense of community and discover what holds its members together.

18. Climate Change

• View the “Effects of Climate Change” photo essay by Sanya Gupta .

It is possible to a variety of photo story ideas bring to life examining the impact of climate change. Travel to places most affected by climate change, for instance, glaciers or famous resorts.

Capture the way the continuous drought has influenced the environment, animals, and the inhabitants. As an alternative, take pictures of environmentalist protests or inexhaustible energy sources.

Photo Essay Tips for Students

Explore your topic . An in-depth exploration of the main topic of your photo essay will help you find the best ideas for conveying your message. You can also find some sources for inspiration and useful materials. This stage allows you to learn more about your subject and select the best way of organizing your photo essay.

Create a storyboard . Using a storyboard, you can better understand what shots you need to take and what order can help you to tell a story in the best way. It will also allow you to create the right mood.

Take as many pictures as you can . To create a compelling story, make sure to take a lot of photos. It will allow you to choose the best pictures for your photo essay. Besides, you will always have backup photos if some of your pictures get damaged.

Experiment with different techniques . By changing the angle and using a variety of editing techniques, you can transform the way your photos look. When taking photos, try using different angles to capture the subject in the best way. You can also try changing the distance from the model, using black-and-white film, or employing a range of developing methods.

Add text . While some photographers create photo essays without text, it can still help you bring your point across more clearly and make it easier for a viewer to understand what you imply. By providing extra information, such as some facts, you can change the perception of your image. If you don’t know how to write descriptions, you can hire a professional writer to perform this task.

Enhance your photos . To edit your pictures, make sure to use professional photo editing software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop. Using the available tools, you can improve and change your photos. They allow you to fix issues with lighting, adjust WB, make colors richer, crop your pics to improve the composition, and perform other tasks. In case you need to edit your photos in a consistent style, you can use Photoshop Actions or Lightroom Presets.

In some cases, your pictures may require more advanced editing. If you see that your skills are insufficient or if you don’t have enough time, you can outsource the task of enhancing your photos to the FixThePhoto team. They will professionally enhance your pictures for a budget price. Their prices start from $1.50 per photo.

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Advice for an Unforgettable Photo Essay

Six steps for turning your images into a memorable photo essay, from curating your best work to crafting a title.

A man sits alone on a chair on the side of the road. We see him from above, surrounded by grey cobblestones neatly placed, a broken plastic chair, and some pylons scattered along the curb. A street cat wanders out of the frame and away from the man. He appears lonely, the only person inhabiting the place in which he seems so comfortably seated. As the eye wanders throughout the frame, however, the viewer discovers more: a vast city cast beyond the street and behind the man’s chair. This image closes Sarah Pannell’s photo essay Sehir , a quiet study of urban life.

Possibilities, discovery, and stories: these are some of the most effective elements of a photo essay. Collections of images can help produce a narrative, evoke emotion, and guide the viewer through one or more perspectives. A well-executed photo essay doesn’t rely on a title or any prior knowledge of its creator; it narrates on its own, moving viewers through sensations, lessons, and reactions.

Famous photo essays like Country Doctor by W. Eugene Smith or Gordon Parks’ The Harlem Family are acclaimed for showing a glimpse into the lives of the sick and impoverished. Other well-made photo essays offer a new way to look at the everyday, such as Peter Funch’s much-reposted photo series 42nd and Vanderbilt , for which Funch photographed the same street corner for nine years. As shown by these photographers’ experiences with the medium, a collection of photos can enliven spaces and attitudes. Strong photo essays can give voice to marginalized individuals and shine a spotlight on previously overlooked experiences.

You don’t necessarily need to be a documentary photographer to create a powerful photo essay. Photo essays can showcase any topic, from nature photography to portraiture to wedding shots. We spoke to a few photographers to get their perspectives on what makes a good photo essay, and their tips for how any photographer can get started in this medium. Here are six steps to follow to create a photo essay that tells a memorable story.

Choose a specific topic or theme for your photo essay.

There are two types of photo essays: the narrative and the thematic. Narrative photo essays focus on a story you’re telling the viewer, while thematic photo essays speak to a specific subject.

The most natural method for choosing a topic or theme for your photo essay is to go with what you know. Photograph what you experience. Whether that includes people, objects, or the things you think about throughout the day, accessibility is key here. Common topics or concepts to start with are emotions (depicting sadness or happiness) or experiences (everyday life, city living).

For photographer Sharon Pannen , planning a photo essay is as simple as “picking out a subject you find interesting or you want to make a statement about.”

From Paper & Stories , a photo series by Sharon Pannen for Schön! Magazine.

Consider your photo subjects.

The subjects of your photographs, whether human or not, will fill the space of your photos and influence the mood or idea you’re trying to depict. The subject can determine whether or not your photos are considered interesting. “I always try to find someone that catches my eye. I especially like to see how the light falls on their face and how a certain aesthetic might add to their persona,” says photographer Victoria Wojtan .

While subjects and their interest factor are, well, subjective, when considering your subjects, you should ask yourself about your audience. Do other people want to see this? Is my subject representative of the larger idea my photo essay is trying to convey? Your projects can involve people you know or people you’ve only just met.

“Most projects I work on involve shooting portraits of strangers, so there’s always a tension in approaching someone for a portrait,” says photographer Taylor Dorrell . For Wojtan, that tension can help build trust with a subject and actually leads to more natural images “If there’s tension it’s usually because the person’s new to being photographed by someone for something that’s outside of a candid moment or selfie, and they need guidance for posing. This gives me the opportunity to make them feel more comfortable and let them be themselves. I tend to have a certain idea in mind, but try to allow for organic moments to happen.”

Aim for a variety of images.

Depending on your theme, there are a few types of photos you’ll want to use to anchor your essay. One or two lead photos should slowly introduce the viewer to your topic. These initial photos will function in a similar way to the introductory paragraph in a written essay or news article.

From there, you should consider further developing your narrative by introducing elements like portraiture, close ups, detail shots, and a carefully selected final photo to leave the viewer with the feeling you set out to produce in your photos. Consider your opening and closing images to be the most important elements of your photo essay, and choose them accordingly. You want your first images to hook the viewer, and you also want your final images to leave a lasting impression and perhaps offer a conclusion to the narrative you’ve developed.

Including different types of photos, shot at different ranges, angles, and perspectives, can help engage your viewer and add more texture to your series.

Says photographer Taylor Dorrell: “After I have a group of images, I tend to think about color, composition, the order the images were taken, the subject material, and relevance to the concept.”

From Taylor Dorrell’s photo essay White Fences : “White Fences is an ongoing photo series that explores the theme of suburban youth in the United States, specifically in the midwest suburb New Albany, Ohio.”

Put your emotions aside.

Self-doubt can easily come into play when working with your own photography. The adage that we are our own worst critics is often true. It can be difficult to objectively select your strongest images when creating a photo essay. This is why putting together photo essays is such a useful practice for developing your curatorial skills.

“The most important part for me is getting outside opinions. I don’t do that enough, and have a bias in selecting images that might not be the most powerful images or the most effective sequence of images,” says Dorrell. Your own perception of a photograph can cloud your ability to judge whether or not it adds to your photo essay. This is especially true when your essay deals with personal subjects. For example, a photo essay about your family may be hard to evaluate, as your own feelings about family members will impact how you take and view the photos. This is where getting feedback from peers can be invaluable to producing a strong series.

Collecting feedback while putting your photo essay together can help you determine the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps within the collection of photos you’ve produced. Ask your friends to tell you their favorites, why they like them, and what they think you’re going for in the work you’ve created. Their opinions can be your guide, not just your own emotions.

Edit your photo selection.

Beyond post-production, the series of photos you select as your essay will determine whether you’ve executed your theme or narrative effectively. Can the photos stand alone, without written words, and tell the story you set out to? Do they make sense together, in a logical sequence? The perfect photo essay will give your audience a full picture of the narrative, theme, or essence you’re looking to capture.

A good method to use to cull your images down is to remove as many as half of your images straight away to see if your narrative is still as strong with fewer photos. Or, perhaps, deciding on a small number you’d like to aim for (maybe just five to ten images) and using this as a method to narrow down to the images that tell your story best.

From Taylor Dorrell’s photo essay Over the Rhine , featured in Vice.

Give your photo essay a title, and add a concise written statement.

Finally, you’ll want to create a title and written statement for your photo essay. This will help position your work and can enable the viewer to fully understand your intention, or at least guide their perspective.

A solid written statement and title will be relevant to your topic, detail your primary objective, and introduce your point of view. It’s an opportunity to clarify your intentions to the viewer and ensure they walk away with a clear interpretation of your work. Depending on your photo essay, you may want to include several paragraphs of text, but even just one or two sentences of background can be enough to expand the viewer’s understanding of your work.

Consider if you’d like to add the written statement at the beginning of your essay to introduce it, or at the end as a conclusion. Either one can be impactful, and it depends how you’d like people to experience your work.

For his photo essay White Fences, excerpted above, Taylor Dorrell wrote only one sentence of introduction. But for his series Over the Rhine, Dorell included a longer written statement to accompany the work, which is “an ongoing photo series that seeks to explore the Cincinnati neighborhood of the same name and its surroundings. The series was started in response to the shooting of Samuel DuBose, an unarmed black man, by officer Ray Tensing of the University of Cincinnati Police, which happened July 19th, 2015.” Dorell’s text goes on to offer more background on the project, setting up the viewer with all the information they need to understand the context of the photo essay.

Depending on the motivations behind your photo essay and what sort of subject it depicts, a longer text may be necessary—or just a few words might be enough.

Looking for a place to share your photo essays with the world? Take a look at our guide to creating a photography website for tips on showcasing your photos online.

Cover image by Taylor Dorrell, from his photo essay Hurricane Over Sugar .

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17 Awesome Photo Essay Examples You Should Try Yourself

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If you’re looking for a photo essay example (or 17!), you’ve come to the right place. But what is the purpose of a photo essay? A photo essay is intended to tell a story or evoke emotion from the viewers through a series of photographs. They allow you to be creative and fully explore an idea. But how do you make one yourself? Here’s a list of photo essay examples. Choose one that you can easily do based on your photographic level and equipment.

Top 17 Photo Essay Examples

Here are some fantastic ideas to get you inspired to create your own photo essays!

17. Photograph a Protest

16. Transformation Photo Essays

15. Photograph the Same Place

14. Create a Photowalk

13. Follow the Change

12. Photograph a Local Event

11. Photograph an Abandoned Building

10. Behind the Scenes of a Photo Shoot

9. Capture Street Fashion

8. Landmark Photo Essay

7. Fathers & Children

6. A Day In the Life

5. Education Photo Essay

4. Fictitious Meals

3. Photograph Coffee Shops Using Cafenol

2. Photograph the Photographers

1. Capture the Neighbors

Photo essays tell stories. And there are plenty of amazingly interesting stories to tell! Photographing photo essays is a great way to practice your photography skills while having fun. You might even learn something! These photo essay examples are here to provide you with the inspiration to go out and tell your own stories through photos!

Popular Content

Ten examples of immersive photo essays

By Marissa Sapega — Contributing Writer

Photo essays are one of the most powerful forms of storytelling in the last century. From the great depression photographer W. Eugene Smith to the photojournalism of National Geographic or Life Magazine , the best photo essays entertain, educate, and move readers more than words alone ever could. 

But photo essays have changed. Over the last decade, web publishing technologies — including web browsers and file formats — have improved by leaps and bounds. A good photo essays today is more than a collection of images. It’s a truly interactive, immersive, and multimedia experiences.

In this guide, we introduce 10 stunning examples of visually arresting interactive photo essays to fuel your creative juices.

Now, let's set the scene with a short introduction to immersive, interactive photo essays on the web.

What do the BBC, Tripadvisor, and Penguin have in common? They craft stunning, interactive web content with Shorthand. And so can you! Publish your first story for free — no code or web design skills required. Sign up now.

The rise of immersive, interactive photo essays

What is an immersive, interactive photo essay? Let's take these terms one at a time. 

An immersive photo essay uses rich media and story design to capture and keep the reader's attention. Immersive content is typically free of the most distracting elements of the web, such as pop-ups, skyscrapers, and other intrusions on the reading experience.

As a basic rule of thumb, immersive content respects the reader's attention. 

An interactive photo essay is one that allows the reader to control how the content appears. It may include interactive elements, like maps and embedded applications.

More commonly, modern interactive photo stories use a technique known as scrollytelling . Scrollytelling stories allow the reader to trigger animations and other visual effects as they scroll. Many of the examples in this guide use scrollytelling techniques. Read more scrollytelling examples .

Until relatively recently, immersive, interactive photo essays could only be created with the help of a designer or web developer. But with the rise of digital storytelling platforms , anyone can create compelling, dynamic stories without writing a single line of code.

If you're looking to learn more about how to create a photo essay — or are looking for more photo essay ideas  — check out our introduction to photo essays . 

Photo essay topics

If you’re looking for photo essay examples, chances are you’re looking to create a photo essay for yourself. If you’re just getting started, you might want some guidance on exactly what kinds of topics make for great photo essays.

More experienced photographers — feel free to skip this section. But for those who are just starting out, here’s a quick list of classic photo essay subject matter, for all types of photo essays.

• Local events. A great way to start out is photograph local events in your community, such as a high school fundraiser. A bonus is that you’ll have a ready
• Historic sites. Another classic photo essay topic is an exploration of a historic site. This could be a building, a monument, or even just a specific location that has significance.
• Profile of a person. A great way to get to know someone is to profile them in a photo essay. This could be a family member, friend, or even just someone you’ve met.
• Animals in captivity. Another popular subject matter for photo essays is animals in captivity, whether that’s at a zoo or elsewhere.
• A day in the life. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live someone else’s life for a day? Why not find out and document it in a photo essay?
• Street photography. Another great way to practice your photography skills is to head out into the streets and photograph the everyday lives of people around you. The world has plenty of photo essays of cities like New York and London. But what about street photography in your own backyard?
• Still life photography. Still life photography is all about capturing inanimate objects on film. This could be anything from flowers to furniture to food. It’s a great way to practice your photography skills and learn about composition
• Landscapes . Landscape photography is one of the most popular genres, and for good reason. There are endless possibilities when it comes to finding interesting subjects to shoot. So get out there and start exploring!
• Abandoned buildings. There’s something fascinating about abandoned buildings. They offer a glimpse into the past, and can be eerily beautiful. If you have any in your area, they make for great photo essay subjects.
• Lifestyles. Document someone who lives a lifestyle that’s different from your own. This could be a portrayal of an everyday person, or it could be someone with an unusual job or hobby.
• Social issues. Take photos depicting significant social issues in your community, remembering to respect your subjects.

Ten inspiring photo essay examples

Pink lagoon and peculiar galaxies — July’s best science images

In Pink lagoon and peculiar galaxies , Nature present a mesmerising series of images from the natural world. Highlights include:

• a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it photo of rare albino orcas performing feats of synchronized swimming;
• an arresting aerial view of the aftermath of the flash floods in Germany; and,
• a scarlet gawping Venus flytrap sea anemone. 

The best part? Nature publishes similarly powerful photo essays every month, showcasing some of the best and most creative photography of the natural world anywhere on the web.

Vanishing Lands

Vanishing lands — an ominously interesting photo essay from media company Stuff — opens with a bucolic visual featuring meandering sheep flanked by breathtaking mountains that blur into obscurity.

Soon, more awe-inspiring photos of breathtaking New Zealand farmland appear, accompanied by expressive prose whose tone matches the visuals’ stark beauty.

In this unflinchingly honest photographic essay, Stuff takes the viewer behind the scenes with a day in the life of a high country sheep farmer facing an uncertain future. One stunning photo fades into the next as you scroll through, broken only by the occasional noteworthy quote and accompanying narrative.

Olympic photos: Emotion runs high

This emotionally wrought sports story from NBC begins with a close-up of an anxious Simone Biles, her expression exemplifying the tension and frustration echoed on so many of her fellow athletes’ faces.

The subtitle puts it perfectly: “The agony—and thrill—of competition at the Olympics is written all over their faces.”

Devastation, disappointment, and defeat take centre stage in this piece — but not all the subjects of the photos in this compelling photography essay depict misery. Some of the images, like that taken of the gold medal-winning Russian artistic gymnasts, manage to project the athletes’ joy almost beyond the edges of the screen.

The NBC editors who created this visual story chose to display the series of photos using the entire screen width and limit the copy to simple captions, letting the visuals speak for themselves. The result is a riveting montage of photographs that manage to capture the overarching sentiment of the 2020 Olympic Games.

James Epp: A Twist of the Hand

In A Twist of the Hand , the Museum of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge have produced a gorgeous photo essay. This online art show showcases artist James Epp’s installation, combining photographs of the exhibit with images of museum prints and authentic artefacts.

As you scroll down, close-up shots of the installation make you feel like you’re physically wandering among the ancient sculptures, able to examine hairline spider cracks and tiny divots marking the surface of every antiquated figure. In between the photos—and often flanked by museum prints—are James Epp's musings about what inspired him to create the pieces. It’s an absorbing virtual gallery that will no doubt inspire real life visits to the exhibition.

The Café Racer Revolution

Though it’s a cleverly built piece of interactive content marketing , Honda’s “ Café Racer Revolution ” is also a great photo essay. Alongside information about the latest and greatest motorcycles Honda has to offer, it details the history of the bikers who sought to employ motorcycles (specifically “café racers”) as a way to forge an identity for themselves and project a “statement of individuality.”

Scroll down, and nostalgic black-and-white photos give way to contemporary action shots featuring fully decked-out motorcyclists on various Honda models.

Dynamic photos of bikes rotate them 360 degrees when you mouse over them, and text superimposed over flashy shots rolls smoothly down the screen as you scroll. This photo essay will stir a longing to hit the open road for anyone who has ever dreamed of owning one of Honda’s zippy bikes.

Built to keep Black from white

In Built to keep Black from white , NBC News and BridgeDetroit have built a stunning narrative photo essay that encapsulates the history of Detroit’s Birwood Wall — a literal dividing line intended to separate neighborhoods inhabited by people of different races. 

The piece begins with a brief history of the concrete barrier. Between paragraphs of text, it weaves in quotes from residents who grew up as the wall was erected and a short video. Animated maps highlighting the affected neighborhoods unspool across the screen as you scroll down, accompanied by brief explanations of what the maps represent.

In the series of photographs that follow, contemporary images transition into decades-old shots of the wall when it was newly constructed. This is followed by images of original real estate documents, resident portraits, and additional animated maps — each considering the issue from different angles.

The piece ends with an interactive display of how Detroit’s racial makeup has changed over the past several decades, from majority white to black, and how the wall has impacted the lives of its residents who lived (and died) within its borders.

The story of Black Lives Matter in sport

The BBC pairs illustrations and bold imagery in this photo essay on how athletes participated in the Black Lives Matter movement . At the start, a narrow column of text leads into an iconic image of American football players kneeling during the pre-game national anthem in a solemn protest against police brutality. 

The first excerpt, a summary of Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, draws you in with piercing prose capped off with photographs that bleed into one another. Every account in the photo essay follows this layout.

WaterAid Climate Stories

Climate change affects everyone on the planet, but some people are feeling the effects more than others. WaterAid’s scrollytelling photo essay illuminates the plight of individuals living in areas where extreme weather conditions — caused by climate change — have drastically impacted the water supply and environment, endangering their livelihoods and ability to survive.

This climate change story starts with an engrossing video that provides an up-close and personal look at the devastation that climate change-induced droughts have wreaked on people and the environment. As you scroll down, images of massively depleted bodies of water with superimposed text and quotes unfold before your eyes. It’s an efficient way to drive home the critical message WaterAid wants to convey: climate change is real, and it’s harming real people.

Each extreme weather story focuses on an individual to help viewers empathise and understand that climate change has real, drastic consequences for millions of people worldwide. The piece ends with a call to action to learn more about and financially support WaterAid’s fight to assist people living in the desperate situations depicted in the essay.

28 Days in Afghanistan

In this piece, Australian photo-journalist Andrew Quilty tells the story of the four weeks he spent in Afghanistan . He captures daily events ranging from the mundane—like a casual visit to his barber—to jarring. More than one photo documents blood-spattered victims of violence.

Viewers must scroll through the piece to follow Andrew’s daily musings and the striking photos that accompany them. His photo essay is a powerful example of how scrollytelling is transforming the art of long-form journalism .

La carrera lunática de Musk y Bezos (Musk and Bezos' lunatic careers)

Billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are angling to conquer the final frontier: space.

El Periódico captures their story via a whimsically illustrated photo essay, filled with neon line drawings and bold photos of the massive spaceships, the hangars that house them, and footprints on the moon. La carrera lunática de Musk y Bezos describes the battle between the two titans’ space companies (Blue Origin and SpaceX) for the honor of partially funding NASA’s next mission to the moon.

As you scroll down, white and fluorescent yellow words on a black background roll smoothly over images. The team at El Periódico slips in stylistic animations to break up the text—such as rocket ships with shimmering “vapour trails”—then ups the ante with a series of moon images that transition into portraits of the 12 U.S. astronauts who visited the celestial body.

The photo essay ends with the question: “Who will be the next to leave their footprints on the dusty lunar soil?” At the time of publishing, NASA had not yet decided between the two companies. (Spoiler alert: SpaceX won .)

Marissa Sapega is a seasoned writer, editor, and digital marketer with a background in web and graphic design.

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Pictures That Tell Stories: Photo Essay Examples

Like any other type of artist, a photographer’s job is to tell a story through their pictures. While some of the most creative among us can invoke emotion or convey a thought with one single photo, the rest of us will rely on a photo essay.

In the following article, we’ll go into detail about what a photo essay is and how to craft one while providing some detailed photo essay examples.

What is a Photo Essay? 

A photo essay is a series of photographs that, when assembled in a particular order, tell a unique and compelling story. While some photographers choose only to use pictures in their presentations, others will incorporate captions, comments, or even full paragraphs of text to provide more exposition for the scene they are unfolding.

A photo essay is a well-established part of photojournalism and have been used for decades to present a variety of information to the reader. Some of the most famous photo essayists include Ansel Adams , W. Eugene Smith, and James Nachtwey. Of course, there are thousands of photo essay examples out there from which you can draw inspiration.

Why Consider Creating a Photo Essay?

As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth 1000 words.” This adage is, for many photographers, reason enough to hold a photo essay in particularly high regard.

For others, a photo essay allow them to take pictures that are already interesting and construct intricate, emotionally-charged tales out of them. For all photographers, it is yet another skill they can master to become better at their craft.

As you might expect, the photo essay have had a long history of being associated with photojournalism. From the Great Depression to Civil Rights Marches and beyond, many compelling stories have been told through a combination of images and text, or photos alone. A photo essay often evokes an intense reaction, whether artistic in nature or designed to prove a socio-political point.

Below, we’ll list some famous photo essay samples to further illustrate the subject.

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Famous Photo Essays

“The Great Depression” by Dorothea Lange – Shot and arranged in the 1930s, this famous photo essay still serves as a stark reminder of The Great Depression and Dust Bowl America . Beautifully photographed, the black and white images offer a bleak insight to one of the country’s most difficult times.

“The Vietnam War” by Philip Jones Griffiths – Many artists consider the Griffiths’ photo essay works to be some of the most important records of the war in Vietnam. His photographs and great photo essays are particularly well-remembered for going against public opinion and showing the suffering of the “other side,” a novel concept when it came to war photography.

Various American Natural Sites by Ansel Adams – Adams bought the beauty of nature home to millions, photographing the American Southwest and places like Yosemite National Park in a way that made the photos seem huge, imposing, and beautiful.

“Everyday” by Noah Kalina – Is a series of photographs arranged into a video. This photo essay features daily photographs of the artist himself, who began taking capturing the images when he was 19 and continued to do so for six years.

“Signed, X” by Kate Ryan – This is a powerful photo essay put together to show the long-term effects of sexual violence and assault. This photo essay is special in that it remains ongoing, with more subjects being added every year.

Common Types of Photo Essays

While a photo essay do not have to conform to any specific format or design, there are two “umbrella terms” under which almost all genres of photo essays tend to fall. A photo essay is thematic and narrative. In the following section, we’ll give some details about the differences between the two types, and then cover some common genres used by many artists.

⬥ Thematic 

A thematic photo essay speak on a specific subject. For instance, numerous photo essays were put together in the 1930s to capture the ruin of The Great Depression. Though some of these presentations followed specific people or families, they mostly told the “story” of the entire event. There is much more freedom with a thematic photo essay, and you can utilize numerous locations and subjects. Text is less common with these types of presentations.

⬥ Narrative 

A narrative photo essay is much more specific than thematic essays, and they tend to tell a much more direct story. For instance, rather than show a number of scenes from a Great Depression Era town, the photographer might show the daily life of a person living in Dust Bowl America. There are few rules about how broad or narrow the scope needs to be, so photographers have endless creative freedom. These types of works frequently utilize text.

Common Photo Essay Genres

Walk a City – This photo essay is when you schedule a time to walk around a city, neighborhood, or natural site with the sole goal of taking photos. Usually thematic in nature, this type of photo essay allows you to capture a specific place, it’s energy, and its moods and then pass them along to others.

The Relationship Photo Essay – The interaction between families and loved ones if often a fascinating topic for a photo essay. This photo essay genre, in particular, gives photographers an excellent opportunity to capture complex emotions like love and abstract concepts like friendship. When paired with introspective text, the results can be quite stunning. 

The Timelapse Transformation Photo Essay – The goal of a transformation photo essay is to capture the way a subject changes over time. Some people take years or even decades putting together a transformation photo essay, with subjects ranging from people to buildings to trees to particular areas of a city.

Going Behind The Scenes Photo Essay – Many people are fascinated by what goes on behind the scenes of big events. Providing the photographer can get access; to an education photo essay can tell a very unique and compelling story to their viewers with this photo essay.

Photo Essay of a Special Event – There are always events and occasions going on that would make an interesting subject for a photo essay. Ideas for this photo essay include concerts, block parties, graduations, marches, and protests. Images from some of the latter were integral to the popularity of great photo essays.

The Daily Life Photo Essay – This type of photo essay often focus on a single subject and attempt to show “a day in the life” of that person or object through the photographs. This type of photo essay can be quite powerful depending on the subject matter and invoke many feelings in the people who view them.

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Photo Essay Ideas and Examples

One of the best ways to gain a better understanding of photo essays is to view some photo essay samples. If you take the time to study these executions in detail, you’ll see just how photo essays can make you a better photographer and offer you a better “voice” with which to speak to your audience.

Some of these photo essay ideas we’ve already touched on briefly, while others will be completely new to you. 

Cover a Protest or March  

Some of the best photo essay examples come from marches, protests, and other events associated with movements or socio-political statements. Such events allow you to take pictures of angry, happy, or otherwise empowered individuals in high-energy settings. The photo essay narrative can also be further enhanced by arriving early or staying long after the protest has ended to catch contrasting images. 

Photograph a Local Event  

Whether you know it or not, countless unique and interesting events are happening in and around your town this year. Such events provide photographers new opportunities to put together a compelling photo essay. From ethnic festivals to historical events to food and beverage celebrations, there are many different ways to capture and celebrate local life.

Visit an Abandoned Site or Building  

Old homes and historical sites are rich with detail and can sometimes appear dilapidated, overgrown by weeds, or broken down by time. These qualities make them a dynamic and exciting subject. Many great photo essay works of abandoned homes use a mix of far-away shots, close-ups, weird angles, and unique lighting. Such techniques help set a mood that the audience can feel through the photographic essay.

Chronicle a Pregnancy

Few photo essay topics could be more personal than telling the story of a pregnancy. Though this photo essay example can require some preparation and will take a lot of time, the results of a photographic essay like this are usually extremely emotionally-charged and touching. In some cases, photographers will continue the photo essay project as the child grows as well.

Photograph Unique Lifestyles  

People all over the world are embracing society’s changes in different ways. People live in vans or in “tiny houses,” living in the woods miles away from everyone else, and others are growing food on self-sustaining farms. Some of the best photo essay works have been born out of these new, inspiring movements.

Photograph Animals or Pets  

If you have a favorite animal (or one that you know very little about), you might want to arrange a way to see it up close and tell its story through images. You can take photos like this in a zoo or the animal’s natural habitat, depending on the type of animal you choose. Pets are another great topic for a photo essay and are among the most popular subjects for many photographers.

Show Body Positive Themes  

So much of modern photography is about showing the best looking, prettiest, or sexiest people at all times. Choosing a photo essay theme like body positivity, however, allows you to film a wide range of interesting-looking people from all walks of life.

Such a photo essay theme doesn’t just apply to women, as beauty can be found everywhere. As a photo essay photographer, it’s your job to find it!

Bring Social Issues to Life  

Some of the most impactful social photo essay examples are those where the photographer focuses on social issues. From discrimination to domestic violence to the injustices of the prison system, there are many ways that a creative photographer can highlight what’s wrong with the world. This type of photo essay can be incredibly powerful when paired with compelling subjects and some basic text.

Photograph Style and Fashion

If you live in or know of a particularly stylish locale or area, you can put together an excellent thematic photo essay by capturing impromptu shots of well-dressed people as they pass by. As with culture, style is easily identifiable and is as unifying as it is divisive. Great photo essay examples include people who’ve covered fashion sub-genres from all over the world, like urban hip hop or Japanese Visual Kei. 

Photograph Native Cultures and Traditions  

If you’ve ever opened up a copy of National Geographic, you’ve probably seen photo essay photos that fit this category. To many, the traditions, dress, religious ceremonies, and celebrations of native peoples and foreign cultures can be utterly captivating. For travel photographers, this photo essay is considered one of the best ways to tell a story with or without text.

Capture Seasonal Or Time Changes In A Landmark Photo Essay

Time-lapse photography is very compelling to most viewers. What they do in a few hours, however, others are doing over months, years, and even decades. If you know of an exciting landscape or scene, you can try to capture the same image in Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall, and put that all together into one landmark photo essay.

Alternatively, you can photograph something being lost or ravaged by time or weather. The subject of your landmark photo essay can be as simple as the wall of an old building or as complex as an old house in the woods being taken over by nature. As always, there are countless transformation-based landmark photo essay works from which you can draw inspiration.

Photograph Humanitarian Efforts or Charity  

Humanitarian efforts by groups like Habitat for Humanity, the Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders can invoke a powerful response through even the simplest of photos. While it can be hard to put yourself in a position to get the images, there are countless photo essay examples to serve as inspiration for your photo essay project.

How to Create a Photo Essay

There is no singular way to create a photo essay. As it is, ultimately, and artistic expression of the photographer, there is no right, wrong, good, or bad. However, like all stories, some tell them well and those who do not. Luckily, as with all things, practice does make perfect. Below, we’ve listed some basic steps outlining how to create a photo essay

Steps To Create A Photo Essay

Choose Your Topic – While some photo essayists will be able to “happen upon” a photo story and turn it into something compelling, most will want to choose their photo essay topics ahead of time. While the genres listed above should provide a great starting place, it’s essential to understand that photo essay topics can cover any event or occasion and any span of time

Do Some Research – The next step to creating a photo essay is to do some basic research. Examples could include learning the history of the area you’re shooting or the background of the person you photograph. If you’re photographing a new event, consider learning the story behind it. Doing so will give you ideas on what to look for when you’re shooting.  

Make a Storyboard – Storyboards are incredibly useful tools when you’re still in the process of deciding what photo story you want to tell. By laying out your ideas shot by shot, or even doing rough illustrations of what you’re trying to capture, you can prepare your photo story before you head out to take your photos.

This process is especially important if you have little to no control over your chosen subject. People who are participating in a march or protest, for instance, aren’t going to wait for you to get in position before offering up the perfect shot. You need to know what you’re looking for and be prepared to get it.

Get the Right Images – If you have a shot list or storyboard, you’ll be well-prepared to take on your photo essay. Make sure you give yourself enough time (where applicable) and take plenty of photos, so you have a lot from which to choose. It would also be a good idea to explore the area, show up early, and stay late. You never know when an idea might strike you.

Assemble Your Story – Once you develop or organize your photos on your computer, you need to choose the pictures that tell the most compelling photo story or stories. You might also find some great images that don’t fit your photo story These can still find a place in your portfolio, however, or perhaps a completely different photo essay you create later.

Depending on the type of photographer you are, you might choose to crop or digitally edit some of your photos to enhance the emotions they invoke. Doing so is completely at your discretion, but worth considering if you feel you can improve upon the naked image.

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Best Photo Essays Tips And Tricks

Before you approach the art of photo essaying for the first time, you might want to consider with these photo essay examples some techniques, tips, and tricks that can make your session more fun and your final results more interesting. Below, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best advice we could find on the subject of photo essays. 

⬥ Experiment All You Want 

You can, and should, plan your topic and your theme with as much attention to detail as possible. That said, some of the best photo essay examples come to us from photographers that got caught up in the moment and decided to experiment in different ways. Ideas for experimentation include the following: 

Angles – Citizen Kane is still revered today for the unique, dramatic angles used in the film. Though that was a motion picture and not photography, the same basic principles still apply. Don’t be afraid to photograph some different angles to see how they bring your subject to life in different ways.

Color – Some images have more gravitas in black in white or sepia tone. You can say the same for images that use color in an engaging, dynamic way. You always have room to experiment with color, both before and after the shoot.

Contrast – Dark and light, happy and sad, rich and poor – contrast is an instantly recognizable form of tension that you can easily include in your photo essay. In some cases, you can plan for dramatic contrasts. In other cases, you simply need to keep your eyes open.

Exposure Settings – You can play with light in terms of exposure as well, setting a number of different moods in the resulting photos. Some photographers even do random double exposures to create a photo essay that’s original.

Filters – There are endless post-production options available to photographers, particularly if they use digital cameras. Using different programs and apps, you can completely alter the look and feel of your image, changing it from warm to cool or altering dozens of different settings.

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If you’re using traditional film instead of a digital camera, you’re going to want to stock up. Getting the right shots for a photo essay usually involves taking hundreds of images that will end up in the rubbish bin. Taking extra pictures you won’t use is just the nature of the photography process. Luckily, there’s nothing better than coming home to realize that you managed to capture that one, perfect photograph. 

⬥ Set the Scene 

You’re not just telling a story to your audience – you’re writing it as well. If the scene you want to capture doesn’t have the look you want, don’t be afraid to move things around until it does. While this doesn’t often apply to photographing events that you have no control over, you shouldn’t be afraid to take a second to make an OK shot a great shot. 

⬥ Capture Now, Edit Later 

Editing, cropping, and digital effects can add a lot of drama and artistic flair to your photos. That said, you shouldn’t waste time on a shoot, thinking about how you can edit it later. Instead, make sure you’re capturing everything that you want and not missing out on any unique pictures. If you need to make changes later, you’ll have plenty of time! 

⬥ Make It Fun 

As photographers, we know that taking pictures is part art, part skill, and part performance. If you want to take the best photo essays, you need to loosen up and have fun. Again, you’ll want to plan for your topic as best as you can, but don’t be afraid to lose yourself in the experience. Once you let yourself relax, both the ideas and the opportunities will manifest.

⬥ It’s All in The Details 

When someone puts out a photographic essay for an audience, that work usually gets analyzed with great attention to detail. You need to apply this same level of scrutiny to the shots you choose to include in your photo essay. If something is out of place or (in the case of historical work) out of time, you can bet the audience will notice.

⬥ Consider Adding Text

While it isn’t necessary, a photographic essay can be more powerful by the addition of text. This is especially true of images with an interesting background story that can’t be conveyed through the image alone. If you don’t feel up to the task of writing content, consider partnering with another artist and allowing them tor bring your work to life.

Final Thoughts 

The world is waiting to tell us story after story. Through the best photo essays, we can capture the elements of those stories and create a photo essay that can invoke a variety of emotions in our audience.

No matter the type of cameras we choose, the techniques we embrace, or the topics we select, what really matters is that the photos say something about the people, objects, and events that make our world wonderful.

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What is a Photo Essay? 9 Photo Essay Examples You Can Recreate

A photo essay is a series of photographs that tell a story. Unlike a written essay, a photo essay focuses on visuals instead of words. With a photo essay, you can stretch your creative limits and explore new ways to connect with your audience. Whatever your photography skill level, you can recreate your own fun and creative photo essay.

9 Photo Essay Examples You Can Recreate

• Photowalk Photo Essay
• Transformation Photo Essay
• Day in the Life Photo Essay
• Event Photo Essay
• Building Photo Essay
• Historic Site or Landmark Photo Essay
• Behind the Scenes Photo Essay
• Family Photo Essay
• Education Photo Essay

Stories are important to all of us. While some people gravitate to written stories, others are much more attuned to visual imagery. With a photo essay, you can tell a story without writing a word. Your use of composition, contrast, color, and perspective in photography will convey ideas and evoke emotions.

To explore narrative photography, you can use basic photographic equipment. You can buy a camera or even use your smartphone to get started. While lighting, lenses, and post-processing software can enhance your photos, they aren’t necessary to achieve good results.

Whether you need to complete a photo essay assignment or want to pursue one for fun or professional purposes, you can use these photo essay ideas for your photography inspiration . Once you know the answer to “what is a photo essay?” and find out how fun it is to create one, you’ll likely be motivated to continue your forays into photographic storytelling.

1 . Photowalk Photo Essay

One popular photo essay example is a photowalk. Simply put, a photowalk is time you set aside to walk around a city, town, or a natural site and take photos. Some cities even have photowalk tours led by professional photographers. On these tours, you can learn the basics about how to operate your camera, practice photography composition techniques, and understand how to look for unique shots that help tell your story.

Set aside at least two to three hours for your photowalk. Even if you’re photographing a familiar place—like your own home town—try to look at it through new eyes. Imagine yourself as a first-time visitor or pretend you’re trying to educate a tourist about the area.

Walk around slowly and look for different ways to capture the mood and energy of your location. If you’re in a city, capture wide shots of streets, close-ups of interesting features on buildings, street signs, and candid shots of people. Look for small details that give the city character and life. And try some new concepts—like reflection picture ideas—by looking for opportunities to photographs reflections in mirrored buildings, puddles, fountains, or bodies of water.

2 . Transformation Photo Essay

With a transformation photography essay, you can tell the story about change over time. One of the most popular photostory examples, a transformation essay can document a mom-to-be’s pregnancy or a child’s growth from infancy into the toddler years. But people don’t need to be the focus of a transformation essay. You can take photos of a house that is being built or an urban area undergoing revitalization.

You can also create a photo narrative to document a short-term change. Maybe you want to capture images of your growing garden or your move from one home to another. These examples of photo essays are powerful ways of telling the story of life’s changes—both large and small.

3 . Day in the Life Photo Essay

Want a unique way to tell a person’s story? Or, perhaps you want to introduce people to a career or activity. You may want to consider a day in the life essay.

With this photostory example, your narrative focuses on a specific subject for an entire day. For example, if you are photographing a farmer, you’ll want to arrive early in the morning and shadow the farmer as he or she performs daily tasks. Capture a mix of candid shots of the farmer at work and add landscapes and still life of equipment for added context. And if you are at a farm, don’t forget to get a few shots of the animals for added character, charm, or even a dose of humor. These types of photography essay examples are great practice if you are considering pursuing photojournalism. They also help you learn and improve your candid portrait skills.

4 . Event Photo Essay

Events are happening in your local area all the time, and they can make great photo essays. With a little research, you can quickly find many events that you could photograph. There may be bake sales, fundraisers, concerts, art shows, farm markets, block parties, and other non profit event ideas . You could also focus on a personal event, such as a birthday or graduation.

At most events, your primary emphasis will be on capturing candid photos of people in action. You can also capture backgrounds or objects to set the scene. For example, at a birthday party, you’ll want to take photos of the cake and presents.

For a local or community event, you can share your photos with the event organizer. Or, you may be able to post them on social media and tag the event sponsor. This is a great way to gain recognition and build your reputation as a talented photographer.

5. Building Photo Essay

Many buildings can be a compelling subject for a photographic essay. Always make sure that you have permission to enter and photograph the building. Once you do, look for interesting shots and angles that convey the personality, purpose, and history of the building. You may also be able to photograph the comings and goings of people that visit or work in the building during the day.

Some photographers love to explore and photograph abandoned buildings. With these types of photos, you can provide a window into the past. Definitely make sure you gain permission before entering an abandoned building and take caution since some can have unsafe elements and structures.

6. Historic Site or Landmark Photo Essay

Taking a series of photos of a historic site or landmark can be a great experience. You can learn to capture the same site from different angles to help portray its character and tell its story. And you can also photograph how people visit and engage with the site or landmark. Take photos at different times of day and in varied lighting to capture all its nuances and moods.

You can also use your photographic essay to help your audience understand the history of your chosen location. For example, if you want to provide perspective on the Civil War, a visit to a battleground can be meaningful. You can also visit a site when reenactors are present to share insight on how life used to be in days gone by.

7 . Behind the Scenes Photo Essay

Another fun essay idea is taking photos “behind the scenes” at an event. Maybe you can chronicle all the work that goes into a holiday festival from the early morning set-up to the late-night teardown. Think of the lead event planner as the main character of your story and build the story about him or her.

Or, you can go backstage at a drama production. Capture photos of actors and actresses as they transform their looks with costuming and makeup. Show the lead nervously pacing in the wings before taking center stage. Focus the work of stagehands, lighting designers, and makeup artists who never see the spotlight but bring a vital role in bringing the play to life.

8. Family Photo Essay

If you enjoy photographing people, why not explore photo story ideas about families and relationships? You can focus on interactions between two family members—such as a father and a daughter—or convey a message about a family as a whole.

Sometimes these type of photo essays can be all about the fun and joy of living in a close-knit family. But sometimes they can be powerful portraits of challenging social topics. Images of a family from another country can be a meaningful photo essay on immigration. You could also create a photo essay on depression by capturing families who are coping with one member’s illness.

For these projects on difficult topics, you may want to compose a photo essay with captions. These captions can feature quotes from family members or document your own observations. Although approaching hard topics isn’t easy, these types of photos can have lasting impact and value.

9. Education Photo Essay

Opportunities for education photo essays are everywhere—from small preschools to community colleges and universities. You can seek permission to take photos at public or private schools or even focus on alternative educational paths, like homeschooling.

Your education photo essay can take many forms. For example, you can design a photo essay of an experienced teacher at a high school. Take photos of him or her in action in the classroom, show quiet moments grading papers, and capture a shared laugh between colleagues in the teacher’s lounge.

Alternatively, you can focus on a specific subject—such as science and technology. Or aim to portray a specific grade level, document activities club or sport, or portray the social environment. A photo essay on food choices in the cafeteria can be thought-provoking or even funny. There are many potential directions to pursue and many great essay examples.

While education is an excellent topic for a photo essay for students, education can be a great source of inspiration for any photographer.

Why Should You Create a Photo Essay?

Ultimately, photographers are storytellers. Think of what a photographer does during a typical photo shoot. He or she will take a series of photos that helps convey the essence of the subject—whether that is a person, location, or inanimate object. For example, a family portrait session tells the story of a family—who they are, their personalities, and the closeness of their relationship.

Learning how to make a photo essay can help you become a better storyteller—and a better photographer. You’ll cultivate key photography skills that you can carry with you no matter where your photography journey leads.

If you simply want to document life’s moments on social media, you may find that a single picture doesn’t always tell the full story. Reviewing photo essay examples and experimenting with your own essay ideas can help you choose meaningful collections of photos to share with friends and family online.

Learning how to create photo essays can also help you work towards professional photography ambitions. You’ll often find that bloggers tell photographic stories. For example, think of cooking blogs that show you each step in making a recipe. Photo essays are also a mainstay of journalism. You’ll often find photo essays examples in many media outlets—everywhere from national magazines to local community newspapers. And the best travel photographers on Instagram tell great stories with their photos, too.

With a photo essay, you can explore many moods and emotions. Some of the best photo essays tell serious stories, but some are humorous, and others aim to evoke action.

You can raise awareness with a photo essay on racism or a photo essay on poverty. A photo essay on bullying can help change the social climate for students at a school. Or, you can document a fun day at the beach or an amusement park. You have control of the themes, photographic elements, and the story you want to tell.

5 Steps to Create a Photo Essay

Every photo essay will be different, but you can use a standard process. Following these five steps will guide you through every phase of your photo essay project—from brainstorming creative essay topics to creating a photo essay to share with others.

Step 1: Choose Your Photo Essay Topics

Just about any topic you can imagine can form the foundation for a photo essay. You may choose to focus on a specific event, such as a wedding, performance, or festival. Or you may want to cover a topic over a set span of time, such as documenting a child’s first year. You could also focus on a city or natural area across the seasons to tell a story of changing activities or landscapes.

Since the best photo essays convey meaning and emotion, choose a topic of interest. Your passion for the subject matter will shine through each photograph and touch your viewer’s hearts and minds.

Step 2: Conduct Upfront Research

Much of the work in a good-quality photo essay begins before you take your first photo. It’s always a good idea to do some research on your planned topic.

Imagine you’re going to take photos of a downtown area throughout the year. You should spend some time learning the history of the area. Talk with local residents and business owners and find out about planned events. With these insights, you’ll be able to plan ahead and be prepared to take photos that reflect the area’s unique personality and lifestyles.

For any topic you choose, gather information first. This may involve internet searches, library research, interviews, or spending time observing your subject.

Step 3: Storyboard Your Ideas

After you have done some research and have a good sense of the story you want to tell, you can create a storyboard. With a storyboard, you can write or sketch out the ideal pictures you want to capture to convey your message.

You can turn your storyboard into a “shot list” that you can bring with you on site. A shot list can be especially helpful when you are at a one-time event and want to capture specific shots for your photo essay. If you’ve never created a photo essay before, start with ten shot ideas. Think of each shot as a sentence in your story. And aim to make each shot evoke specific ideas or emotions.

Step 4: Capture Images

Your storyboard and shot list will be important guides to help you make the most of each shoot. Be sure to set aside enough time to capture all the shots you need—especially if you are photographing a one-time event. And allow yourself to explore your ideas using different photography composition, perspective, and color contrast techniques.

You may need to take a hundred images or more to get ten perfect ones for your photographic essay. Or, you may find that you want to add more photos to your story and expand your picture essay concept.

Also, remember to look for special unplanned, moments that help tell your story. Sometimes, spontaneous photos that aren’t on your shot list can be full of meaning. A mix of planning and flexibility almost always yields the best results.

Step 5: Edit and Organize Photos to Tell Your Story

After capturing your images, you can work on compiling your photo story. To create your photo essay, you will need to make decisions about which images portray your themes and messages. At times, this can mean setting aside beautiful images that aren’t a perfect fit. You can use your shot list and storyboard as a guide but be open to including photos that weren’t in your original plans.

You may want to use photo editing software—such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop— to enhance and change photographs. With these tools, you can adjust lighting and white balance, perform color corrections, crop, or perform other edits. If you have a signature photo editing style, you may want to use Photoshop Actions or Lightroom Presets to give all your photos a consistent look and feel.

You order a photo book from one of the best photo printing websites to publish your photo story. You can add them to an album on a photo sharing site, such as Flickr or Google Photos. Also, you could focus on building a website dedicated to documenting your concepts through visual photo essays. If so, you may want to use SEO for photographers to improve your website’s ranking in search engine results. You could even publish your photo essay on social media. Another thing to consider is whether you want to include text captures or simply tell your story through photographs.

Choose the medium that feels like the best space to share your photo essay ideas and vision with your audiences. You should think of your photo essay as your own personal form of art and expression when deciding where and how to publish it.

Photo Essays Can Help You Become a Better Photographer

Whatever your photography ambitions may be, learning to take a photo essay can help you grow. Even simple essay topics can help you gain skills and stretch your photographic limits. With a photo essay, you start to think about how a series of photographs work together to tell a complete story. You’ll consider how different shots work together, explore options for perspective and composition, and change the way you look at the world.

Before you start taking photos, you should review photo essay examples. You can find interesting pictures to analyze and photo story examples online, in books, or in classic publications, like Life Magazine . Don’t forget to look at news websites for photojournalism examples to broaden your perspective. This review process will help you in brainstorming simple essay topics for your first photo story and give you ideas for the future as well.

Ideas and inspiration for photo essay topics are everywhere. You can visit a park or go out into your own backyard to pursue a photo essay on nature. Or, you can focus on the day in the life of someone you admire with a photo essay of a teacher, fireman, or community leader. Buildings, events, families, and landmarks are all great subjects for concept essay topics. If you are feeling stuck coming up with ideas for essays, just set aside a few hours to walk around your city or town and take photos. This type of photowalk can be a great source of material.

You’ll soon find that advanced planning is critical to your success. Brainstorming topics, conducting research, creating a storyboard, and outlining a shot list can help ensure you capture the photos you need to tell your story. After you’ve finished shooting, you’ll need to decide where to house your photo essay. You may need to come up with photo album title ideas, write captions, and choose the best medium and layout.

Without question, creating a photo essay can be a valuable experience for any photographer. That’s true whether you’re an amateur completing a high school assignment or a pro looking to hone new skills. You can start small with an essay on a subject you know well and then move into conquering difficult ideas. Maybe you’ll want to create a photo essay on mental illness or a photo essay on climate change. Or maybe there’s another cause that is close to your heart.

Whatever your passion, you can bring it to life with a photo essay.

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How to Create a Photo Essay in 9 Steps (with Examples)

Photo Editing , Tutorials

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What is a photo essay?

• Photo essays vs photo stories
• How photo essays help you
• 9 Steps to create photo essays

How to share your photo essays

Read Time: 11 minutes

Gather up a handful of images that seem to go together, and voila! It’s a photo essay, right? Well… no. Though, this is a common misconception.

In reality, a photo essay is much more thoughtful and structured than that. When you take the time to craft one, you’re using skills from all facets of our craft – from composition to curation.

In this guide, you’ll learn what makes a photo essay an amazing project that stretches your skills. You’ll also learn exactly how to make one step by step.

• Photo essay vs photo story

A photo essay is a collection of images based around a theme, a topic, a creative approach, or an exploration of an idea. Photo essays balance visual variety with a cohesive style and concept.

What’s the difference between a photo essay and a photo story?

The terms photo essay and photo story are often used interchangeably. Even the dictionary definition of “photo essay” includes using images to convey either a theme or a story.

But in my experience, a photo essay and a photo story are two different things. As you delve into the field of visual storytelling, distinguishing between the two helps you to take a purposeful approach to what you’re making .

The differences ultimately lie in the distinctions between theme, topic and story.

Themes are big-picture concepts. Example: Wildness

Topics are more specific than themes, but still overarching. Example : Wild bears of Yellowstone National Park

Stories are specific instances or experiences that happen within, or provide an example for, a topic or theme. Example: A certain wild bear became habituated to tourists and was relocated to maintain its wildness

Unlike a theme or topic, a story has particular elements that make it a story. They include leading characters, a setting, a narrative arc, conflict, and (usually) resolution.

With that in mind, we can distingush between a photo essay and a photo story.

Themes and Topics vs Stories

A photo essay revolves around a topic, theme, idea, or concept. It visually explores a big-picture something .

This allows a good deal of artistic leeway where a photographer can express their vision, philosophies, opinions, or artistic expression as they create their images.

A photo story  is a portfolio of images that illustrate – you guessed it – a story.

Because of this, there are distinct types of images that a photo story uses that add to the understanding, insight, clarity and meaning to the story for viewers. While they can certainly be artistically crafted and visually stunning, photo stories document something happening, and rely on visual variety for capturing the full experience.

A photo essay doesn’t need to have the same level of structured variety that a photo story requires. It can have images that overlap or are similar, as they each explore various aspects of a theme.

Photo essays can be about any topic. If you live in a city, consider using your nature photography to make an essay about the wildlife that lives in your neighborhood . 

The role of text with photos

A photo story typically runs alongside text that narrates the story. We’re a visual species, and the images help us feel like we are there, experiencing what’s happening. So, the images add significant power to the text, but they’re often a partner to it.

This isn’t always the case, of course. Sometimes photo stories don’t need or use text. It’s like reading a graphic novel that doesn’t use text. Moving through the different images that build on each other ultimately unveils the narrative.

Photo essays don’t need to rely on text to illuminate the images’ theme or topic. The photographer may use captions (or even a text essay), or they may let the images speak for themselves.

Definitions are helpful guidelines (not strict rules)

Some people categorize photo essays as either narrative or thematic. That’s essentially just calling photo stories “narrative photo essays” and photo essays “thematic photo essays.”

But, a story is a defined thing, and any writer/editor will tell you themes and topics are not the same as stories. And we use the word “story” in our daily lives as it’s defined. So, it makes far more sense to name the difference between a photo essay and a photo story, and bask in the same clarity writers enjoy .

Photo stories illustrate a particular experience, event, narrative, something that happened or is happening.

Photo essays explore an idea, concept, topic, theme, creative approach, big-picture something .

Both photo essays and photo stories are immensely powerful visual tools. And yes, the differences between them can certainly be blurred, as is always the case with art.

Simply use this distinction as a general guideline, providing extra clarity around what you’re making and why you’re making it.

To dig into specific types of images used to create powerful photo stories, check out this training: 6 Must-Have Shots for a Photo Story. 

Meanwhile, let’s dig deeper into photo essays.

Photo essays are a chance to try new styles or techniques that stretch your skills and creativity. This image was part of an essay exploring simplicity and shape, and helped me learn new skills in black and white post-processing.

How photo essays improve your photography

Creating photo essays is an amazing antidote if you’ve ever felt a lack of direction or purpose in your photography. Photo essays help build your photographic skills in at least 3 important ways.

1. You become more strategic in creating a body of work

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut of photographing whatever pops up in front of you. And when you do, you end up with a collection of stand-alone shots.

These singles may work fine as a print, a quick Instagram post, or an addition to your gallery of shots on your website. But amassing a bunch of one-off shots limits your opportunities as a photographer for everything from exhibits to getting your work published.

Building photo essays pushes you to think strategically about what you photograph, why, and how. You’re working toward a particular deliverable – a cohesive visual essay – with the images you create.

This elevates your skills in crafting your photo essay, and in how you curate the rest of your work, from galleries on your website to selecting images to sell as prints .

2. You become more purposeful in your composition skills

Composition is so much more than just following the rule of thirds, golden spirals, or thinking about the angle of light in a shot.

Composition is also about thinking ahead in what you’re trying to accomplish with a photograph – from what you’re saying through it to its emotional impact on a viewer – and where it fits within a larger body of work.

Photo essays push you to think critically about each shot – from coming up with fresh compositions for familiar subjects, to devising surprising compositions to fit within a collection, to creating compositions that expand on what’s already in a photo essay.

You’re pushed beyond creating a single pleasing frame, which leads you to shoot more thoughtfully and proactively than ever.

(Here’s a podcast episode on switching from reactive shooting to proactive shooting .)

3. You develop strong editing and curation skills

Selecting which images stay, and which get left behind is one of the hardest jobs on a photographer’s to-do list. Mostly, it’s because of emotional attachment.

You might think it’s an amazing shot because you know the effort that went into capturing it. Or perhaps when you look at it, you get a twinge of the joy or exhilaration you felt the moment you captured it. There’s also the second-guessing that goes into which of two similar images is the best – which will people like more? So you’re tempted to just show both.

Ultimately, great photographers appear all the more skilled because they only show their best work. That in and of itself is a skill they’ve developed through years of ruthlessly editing their own work.

Because the most powerful photo essays only show a handful of extraordinary images, you’re bound to develop the very same critical skill (and look all the more talented because of it).

Photo essays are also a great stepping stone to creating photo stories. If you’re interested in moving beyond stand-alone shots and building stories, shooting photo essays will get your creative brain limbered up and ready for the adventure of photo stories.

A photo essay exploring the natural history of a favorite species is an exciting opportunity for an in-depth study. For me, that was a photo essay on emotive images of the American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus) as it hunts in streams. 

9 Simple steps to create your photo essays

1. clarify your theme.

Choose a theme, topic, or concept you want to explore. Spend some time getting crystal clear on what you want to focus on. It helps to write out a few sentences, or even a few paragraphs noting:

• What you want the essay to be about
• What kinds of images you want to create as part of it
• How you’ll photograph the images
• The style, techniques, or gear you might use to create your images
• What “success” looks like when you’re done with your photo essay

You don’t have to stick to what you write down, of course. It can change during the image creation process. But fleshing your idea out on paper goes a long way in clarifying your photo essay theme and how you’ll go about creating it.

2. Create your images

Grab your camera and head outside!

As you’re photographing your essay, allow yourself some freedom to experiment. Try unusual compositions or techniques that are new to you.

Stretch your style a little, or “try on” the style of other photographers you admire who have photographed similar subjects.

Photo essays are wonderful opportunities to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and grow as a photographer.

Remember that a photo essay is a visually cohesive collection of images that make sense together. So, while you might stretch yourself into new terrain as you shoot, try to keep that approach, style, or strategy consistent.

Don’t be afraid to create lots of images. It’s great to have lots to choose from in the editing process, which comes up next.

3. Pull together your wide edit

Once you’ve created your images, pull together all the images that might make the cut. This could be as many as 40-60 images. Include anything you want to consider for the final essay in the wide edit.

From here, start weeding out images that:

• are weaker in composition or subject matter
• stand out like a sore thumb from the rest of the collection
• Are similar to other stronger images in the collection

It’s helpful to review the images at thumbnail size. You make more instinctive decisions and can more easily see the body of work as a whole. If an image is strong even at thumbnail size to stand out from similar frames while also partnering well with other images in the collection, that’s a good sign it’s strong enough for the essay.

4. Post-process your images for a cohesive look

Now it’s time to post-process the images. Use whatever editing software you’re comfortable with to polish your images.

Again, a photo essay has a cohesive visual look. If you use presets, filters, or other tools, use them across all the images.

5. Finalize your selection

It’s time to make the tough decisions. Select only the strongest for your photo essay from your group of images.

Each image should be strong enough to stand on its own and make sense as part of the whole group.

Many photo essays range from 8-12 images. But of course, it varies based on the essay. The number of images you have in your final photo essay is up to you.

Remember, less is more. A photo essay is most powerful when each image deserves to be included.

6. Put your images in a purposeful order

Create a visual flow with your images. Decide which image is first, and build from there. Use compositions, colors, and subject matter to decide which image goes next, then next, then next in the order.

Think of it like music: notes are arranged in a way that builds energy, or slows it down, surprise listeners with a new refrain, or drop into a familiar chorus. How the notes are ordered creates emotional arcs for listeners.

How you order your images is similar.

Think of the experience a viewer will have as they look at one image, then the next, and the next. Order your images so they create the experience you want your audience to have.

7. Get feedback

The best photographers make space for feedback, even when it’s tough to hear. Your work benefits from not just hearing feedback, but listening to it and applying what you learn from it.

Show your photo essay to people who have different sensibilities or tastes. Friends, family members, fellow photographers – anyone you trust to give you honest feedback.

Watch their reactions and hear what they say about what they’re seeing. Use their feedback to guide you in the next step.

8. Refine, revise, and finalize

Let your photo essay marinate for a little while. Take a day or two away from it. Then use your freshened eyes and the feedback you received from the previous step to refine your essay.

Swap out any selects you might want to change and reorder the images if needed.

9. Add captions

Even if you don’t plan on displaying captions with your images, captioning your images is a great practice to get into. It gives context, story, and important information to each image. And, more than likely, you will want to use these captions at some point when you share your photo essay, which we dive into later in this article.

Add captions to the image files using Lightroom, Bridge, or other software programs.

Create a document, such as a Google or Word doc, with captions for each image.

In your captions, share a bit about the story behind the image, or the creation process. Add whatever makes sense to share that provides a greater understanding of the image and its purpose.

Photo essays allow you to explore deliberate style choices, such as a focus on shapes, patterns, textures, and lines. Since each photo is part of a larger essay, it encourages you to be bold with choices you might not otherwise make. 

5 Examples of amazing nature photo essays

1. “how the water shapes us” from the nature conservancy.

This gorgeous essay, crafted with the work of multiple photographers, explores the people and places within the Mississippi River basin. Through the images, we gain a sense of how the water influences life from the headwater all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Notice how each photographer is tasked with the same theme, yet approaches it with their own distinct style and vision. It is a wonderful example of the sheer level of visual variety you can have while maintaining a consistent style or theme.

View it here

2. “A Cyclist on the English Landscape” from New York Times’ The World Through A Lens series

This photo essay is a series of self-portraits by travel photographer Roff Smith while “stuck” at home during the pandemic. As he peddled the roads making portraits, the project evolved into a “celebration of traveling at home”. It’s a great example of how visually consistent you can be inside a theme while making each image completely unique.

3. “Vermont, Dressed In Snow” from New York Times’ The World Through A Lens series

This essay by aerial photographer Caleb Kenna uses a very common photo essay theme: snow. Because all images are aerial photographs, there’s a consistency to them. Yet, the compositions are utterly unique from one another. It’s a great example of keeping viewers surprised as they move from one image to the next while still maintaining a clear focus on the theme.

4. “Starling-Studded Skies” from bioGraphic Magazine

This beautiful essay is by Kathryn Cooper, a physicist trained in bioinformatics, and a talented photographer. She used a 19th century photographic technique, chronophotography, to create images that give us a look at the art and science of starling murmurations. She states: “I’m interested in the transient moments when chaos briefly changes to order, and thousands of individual bodies appear to move as one.” This essay is a great example of deep exploration of a concept using a specific photographic technique.

View it here   (Note: must be viewed on desktop)

5. “These Scrappy Photos Capture the Action-Packed World Beneath a Bird Feeder” from Audubon Magazine

This photo essay from conservation photographer Carla Rhodes explores the wildlife that takes advantage of the bounty of food waiting under bird feeders . Using remote camera photography , Rhodes gives viewers a unique ground-level perspective and captures moments that make us feel like we’re in conversation with friends in the Hundred Acre Woods. This essay is a great example of how perspective, personality, and chance can all come into play as you explore both an idea and a technique.

25 Ideas for creative photo essays you can make

The possibilities for photo essays are truly endless – from the concepts you explore to the techniques you use and styles you apply.

Choose an idea, hone your unique perspective on it, then start applying the 9 simple steps from above. 

• The life of a plant or animal (your favorite species, a species living in your yard, etc)
• The many shapes of a single species (a tree species, a bird species, etc)
• How a place changes over time
• The various moods of a place
• A conservation issue you care about
• Math in nature
• Urban nature
• Seasonal changes
• Your yard as a space for nature
• Shifting climate and its impacts
• Human impacts on environments
• Elements: Water, wind, fire, earth
• Day in the life (of a person, a place, a stream, a tree…)
• Outdoor recreation (birding, kayaking, hiking, naturalist journaling…)
• Wildlife rehabilitation
• Lunar cycles
• Sunlight and shadows
• Your local watershed
• Coexistence

As you zero in on a photo essay theme, consider two things: what most excites you about an idea, and what about it pushes you out of your comfort zone. The heady mix of joy and challenge will ensure you stick with it. 

Your photo essay is ready for the world! Decide how you’d like to make an impact with your work. You might use one or several of the options below.

1. Share it on your website

Create a gallery or a scrollytelling page on your website. This is a great way to drive traffic to your website where people can peruse your photo essay and the rest of the photography you have.

Putting it on your website and optimizing your images for SEO helps you build organic traffic and potentially be discovered by a broader audience, including photo editors.

2. Create a scrollytelling web page

If you enjoy the experience of immersive visual experiences, consider making one using your essay. And no, you don’t have to be a whiz at code to make it happen.

Shorthand helps you build web pages with scrollytelling techniques that make a big impression on viewers. Their free plan allows you to publish 3 essays or stories.

3. Create a Medium post

If you don’t have a website and want to keep things simple, a post on Medium is a great option.

Though it’s known for being a platform for bloggers, it’s also possible to add images to a post for a simple scroll.

And, because readers can discover and share posts, it’s a good place for your photos to get the attention of people who might not otherwise come across it.

4. Share it on Instagram

Instagram has changed a lot over the last couple of years, but it’s still a place for photographers to share their work thoughtfully.

There are at least 3 great ways to share your photo essay on the platform.

– Create a single post for each image. Add a caption. Publish one post per day until the full essay is on your feed. Share each post via Instagram Stories to bring more attention and interaction to your photo essay.

– Create a carousel post. You can add up 10 photos to a carousel post, so you may need to create two of them for your full photo essay. Or you might create a series of carousel posts using 3-4 images in each.

– Create a Reel featuring your images as a video.  The algorithm heavily favors reels, so turning your photo essay into a video experience can get it out to a larger audience.

I ran a “create a reel” challenge in my membership community. One member created a reel with her still images around a serious conservation issue. It gathered a ton of attention and landed her opportunities to share her message through YouTube and podcast interviews and publishing opportunities. Watch it here.

5. Exhibit it locally

Reach out to local galleries, cafes, pubs, or even the public library to see if they’re interested in hanging your photo essay for display. Many local businesses and organizations happily support the work of local artists.

6. Pitch your photo essay to publications

One of the best ways to reach an audience with your work is to get it published. Find publications that are a great fit for the theme and style of your photo essay, then pitch your essay for consideration. You gain a fantastic opportunity to share your work widely and can earn a paycheck at the same time.

Remember that if you want to get your photo essay published, you may want to hold back from sharing it publicly before you pitch it to publications.

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Narrative Photography (Ideas, Examples and Techniques)

Dive into narrative photography: a visual storytelling art. Explore inspiring ideas, striking examples, and master techniques to convey compelling tales.

Learn | By India Mantle

Shotkit may earn a commission on affiliate links. Learn more.

This guide will help you to understand what narrative in photography is, and how it’s created, and give you some tips on how to use it yourself.

We’ll also have a look at some of the most famous photographers using narrative to give you a good visual foundation to start from.

Narrative is a useful tool to learn regardless of the kind of photography you’re interested in or pursuing as a career.

Any photographer can use narrative. Food photographers, wedding photographers, photojournalists, travel photographers, and commercial photographers; all use narrative to create powerful series that tell a story.

Without further ado, let’s get stuck in.

Table of Contents

What is Narrative Photography?

Credit: S. Thevaler

Narrative photography is the act of using a camera to narrate a story and the idea that photography is a good medium for storytelling.

As with all other forms of narration, the person doing it must have a good understanding of context, and what it is they want to portray.

Narrative photography uses a series of thematically linked images to narrate a sequence of events.

Not every event, not every moment is needed to tell the story, that is up to the photographer to decide.

The photographer must choose what to include and what to exclude, and in which order to construct the narrative.

And that narrative doesn’t have to be true. Although photojournalism uses narrative to tell real stories about our world, you can also use photographs to tell fictional stories.

• 25 unmissable pictures that tell a story

Why is narrative important in photography?

Credit: Ricardo Gomez Angel

Sometimes, the visual impact or beauty of a photograph is enough to give it meaning to the viewer. Sometimes the technique the photographer uses is enough to give us pause.

There are many pieces of fine art without a story or narrative to them that can stand alone.

But, many images that have nothing behind them except the desire to be beautiful, or shocking, are ultimately bland. And this is where narrative comes in.

Even single images can have a sense of story to them. The cliché, a picture is worth a thousand words, only holds if there was a reason for the photographer to take the picture and the viewer can feel it.

A sequence of images combined to tell a story can be very powerful, both visually and emotionally.

Looking at a photograph or photographs can automatically create a sense of distance and separation between the photograph and the viewer.

There is the photograph, which is being observed, and the person looking at it, who is doing the observing. There is a gap there, and the less the viewer knows of the context and content of the photograph, the wider the gap is.

A narrative helps to bridge this gap between the image and the viewer. And this is important because it connects the photographs to their audience, the photographer to the viewer, and the viewer to the story told by the narrative.

It is the same connection the reader has with the writer of the book they are reading.

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So, the most important thing narrative should do, beyond creating a connection, is to inspire the viewer’s imagination.

Whether the viewer is seeing a single image or a series, they should want to know more, they should want to seek out more of the story.

What is the difference between narrative and story in photography?

Credit: NEOM

The terms ‘narrative’ and ‘story’ are often used interchangeably, but they are quite different.

The story is the events themselves, the things that happen that have a beginning, middle and an end.

The narrative is the way in which the story is told, the sequence of events, and the structure of the story.

The narrative holds the story together, but the story is the content of the narrative.

If that’s confusing, perhaps the easiest way to remember the difference is to think of it this way:

If you reshuffle the order of events, you have a new narrative of the same story.

6 Examples of Narrative Photography

Credit: Bob Brewer

Credit: Alex Shuper

Credit: David Emrich

Credit: Taro Ohtani

Credit: Amir Geshani

Credit: Ruslan Lissitsa

How Do You Do Narrative Photography? 16 Tips

Here are some tips for telling visual stories using photo essays , a single image or across multiple images.

1. Be original

Credit: Oscar Keys

More than ever, our world and our eyes are drowning in images.

They’re on news sites, advertisements, blogs, and your Facebook feed. It’s a deluge.

And even when the aesthetic quality, or technical ability that has gone into taking the photograph is high, it’s often repetitive.

Plagiarism and unoriginality are rife. Just think of how many millions of unique people who have visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa and come away with exactly the same photograph.

If you want to tell a story with your photographs you need to stand out.

No pressure!

Ideally, you need to try to come up with an idea that no one has seen before, but you could also find a completely new way of telling an old story.

The important thing is that it has to be new. There has to be a reason for people to want to engage with it.

The good news is that just because you’re alive, you’re already halfway there.

You are an original, and only you have the ideas that you have.

So have a think about what those ideas are, and try them out.

2. Do your research

Ask yourself, why are you doing this? And why does this story need to be told?

The answer doesn’t have to be that you want to change the world, or that you want this story to say something profound, it can be as simple as that this story interests you in some way.

You have to have a reason to shoot it. If you don’t, you’ll lose motivation or do it half-heartedly. If you’re not interested in the story and have no emotional connection to the content, that will be translated into the image or images, and they will suffer for it.

But, assuming you know why you want to shoot a particular narrative, you then need to research and plan the shoot.

If there’s a history to your topic, you should be reading about it, if you’ll be shooting in a foreign culture, you’ll need to learn about the customs, and probably some of the language.

If there’s a particular fashion that needs to be followed or a set environment it needs to be shot in, you need to know all about it.

Even if your story will be shot in a more spontaneous, candid style, at a sporting event, or religious festival, for example, you still need to plan.

You need to take care of all the logistics, timetables, travel and accommodation arrangements, and know the weather forecast.

During your research, you can find other photographers who have shot the same event and ask them for tips. They might let you know about things, for example, you’re not allowed to shoot, or protective clothing you might need.

Whatever you’re shooting, you need to prepare meticulously, in a way that is relevant to your subject, and well in advance.

Although planning and researching can sound like rigidity to an artist, when you have a plan in place, it frees you up for the next point.

3. Be spontaneous

Credit: Elnaz Asadi

Whether your narrative is being shot through a more candid form of photography, such as street photography, or taking place in a highly stylised and controlled environment like a studio, you need to be spontaneous (or at least be open to it).

You can’t control everything. You can plan, you can set your camera settings, you can tell models what to do, and you can get yourself in the right positions, but you must always be alive to the moment.

Trust your instinct, listen to your gut.

If you are storytelling in a fast-paced environment, or a war zone, you need to think fast and adapt quickly to changing conditions.

But even if your shoot is a slower-paced and in a more controlled environment, things may happen that you have no control over, but those might be the things that bring your images to life.

Something might happen to change the direction of your narrative or give it a layer you hadn’t thought of.

If you are closed to these chance happenings, you might miss the story completely. So, have a plan, and do your research, but remember that plans can change, things happen. That, after all, is the nature of stories.

4. Consider your settings and equipment

The camera settings you use will have a great impact on the effectiveness of your narrative.

Think about your depth of field . What do you want to be in focus? What would you like to be out of focus?

As for your shutter speed , how will you use that? Do you want to freeze the action, or use motion blur to infer movement? Blur can also be used, of course, to express other things like, for example, confusion.

Think about how your use of these settings will help you tell the story.

The time of day you choose to shoot in (if your story takes place outside) will also have a great impact.

Naturally, if you are shooting in a studio, the temperature and brightness of the lighting you use will play the same role.

Think about which camera you’ll use, whether you’ll shoot digital or film. And the lens – the focal length is very important.

Telephoto lenses will bring you up close to your subject, whereas wide-angle lenses will allow you to show more of the background or scene – so you need to make sure this is relevant.

Will you overexpose your images? Should you underexpose them?

These are all things you need to think about before you take your photographs, and also when you are taking them.

5. Look for symbolism

Credit: Mike Cox

This is somewhat related to the third point, spontaneity.

When you are open to what is happening while you are taking photographs, you may start to see symbolic elements you can use in your photographs. Your mind may start to create links.

But this is also true in a more planned sense. When you are planning a shoot, you might want to think of more abstract or symbolic ways in which you can express your story or parts of it.

Literal interpretations can often (although not always) be a little boring.

Think about approaching the narrative from the side, rather than head-on to unearth symbolism in photography.

6. Limit visual distractions

This doesn’t mean that your photographs cannot or should not contain a lot of information, or many focal points (as long as there’s balance).

It just means that you need to eliminate everything from a photograph that’s not relevant to what you want it to express. The image needs to be concise.

If there’s a fish in your image and it doesn’t need to be there, take it out.

7. Pay attention to composition

Credit: Joe Yong

This is a basic rule that applies to narrative photography as much as it does to any other type of photography.

You need to consider leading lines , hidden geometry, the rule of thirds, or the use of negative space.

It can be easy when focusing on narrative elements to forget that in order for anyone to look at your story, you must first present them with a balanced image that draws them in.

That’s composition. Your decisions about which compositional rules to adhere to and which to break will be the viewer’s visual introduction to your work, and therefore the element that will decide if they look further and get to be told a story.

8. Convey emotion

Find ways to introduce emotion into the narrative.

There are many ways in which to do this, and these ways will depend greatly on your subject.

Some examples, though, would be in your choice of lighting, colours, exposure settings, or as simple and stark a choice as whether you choose to photograph someone from the front or back.

Finding a way to express conflicting emotions creates tension.

Most importantly, you, the photographer needs to feel emotionally connected to what you’re photographing. Without that, you won’t be able to convey any emotion at all.

9. Use captions

Credit: Mishal Ibrahim

Not all images need captions, but text is a great way to add information or context to a story.

It doesn’t need to be factual, either.

I’ve seen abstract text paired with images and poetry. The main thing is that the text, if you use it, is relevant to and enhances the image or images, without telling the whole story.

10. Shoot a series, shoot a single

Don’t tie yourself to the number of photos you need to produce.

Sometimes, you’ll intend to create a photo series , but everything you need to say can be said in a single photograph.

Other times, you’ll work on a photograph and realise you need to expand on that idea and create a series.

The narrative will tell you what you need to do.

11. Use colours

Credit: Polina Shirokova

Colours are an extremely important narrative device.

Blue can be associated with sadness, red with passion or anger, green with envy or the natural world.

Think carefully about how your use of colour impacts your storytelling in photography .

12. Think about perspective

Perspective, too, is loaded with psychological weight.

Choosing where to shoot things will determine how viewers see them on a subconscious level.

For example, if you want to portray a person as confident in your narrative, don’t shoot them from above, as that will show them as vulnerable or weak. Instead, shoot them slightly from below, or if you want them to be overconfident or domineering, get down even lower.

13. Be inspired

Look at other photographers’ narrative photography work.

Study their images to learn about composition, use of colour, and how they put narratives together.

Also, it’s a good idea to join a photographer’s group, either online or in the flesh.

Talking to other photographers about your ideas and theirs is a great way to get ideas, feedback, and inspiration, and to let air into your work.

By that I mean, take it out of the bubble you put it in.

Often when we create things we do so in a closed room, so to speak, and letting other people see it, and allowing other perspectives on it, can often be the thing needed to drive it forward.

14. Don’t be afraid of failure

Many people are so scared of failure that they don’t do anything. They might have ideas, but they don’t act on them, just in case they don’t work out.

Failure is a natural part of progress, a natural part of narrative photography.

It’s possible your idea might not work. It might need to be changed, or discarded entirely.

But you can always learn from it, and that’s what will help you change your project for the better, or what will give you a better foundation from which to start something new.

Accepting that you might fail, or might already be failing, is actually pretty freeing. It releases tension and frees you from being overcritical about your work.

And if you can then relax into it and just be interested in the outcome of your own story, you’ll enjoy the process more, and your work will be better.

15. Be coherent

Credit: Kateryna Hliznitsova

This is possibly the most important tip in this narrative photography guide.

Coherence is where the narrative goes to live or die.

The more coherent your idea and execution are, the better chance you have of creating high-quality narrative photography.

For the narrative to work, all your ideas and aesthetic elements need to come together in a tight, complete package, with no fluff or extraneous matter.

That means the composition, use of colour and perspective, the settings you have chosen, and the motivating principle by which you chose the subject, must all clearly have an intention.

And, if all of those elements have been chosen and included with intention, and if everything irrelevant to the expression of the story has been eliminated, you should have something coherent.

Which means, something that is truly itself, and not something else.

16. Give yourself time

Be patient.

Sometimes it can take a long time for a series to come together.

Sometimes things need to be reshot.

Even if you are just trying to take a single photograph, it can take a lot of time for all the elements to come together.

It might need a lot of post-processing.

Sometimes you might get frustrated and need to step away.

But the world is not in a rush to see your narrative photography work, so you shouldn’t rush the process.

Take the time you need to make sure that when you’re finished creating the visual story , you’re happy with it, and wouldn’t want to change anything about it.

Who Is Famous for Narrative Photography?

• Gregory Crewsdon – Best known for staging dramatic scenes of American suburban neighbourhoods and homes
• Robert Capa – A Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist who is considered by some to be the greatest in his field
• Ansel Adams – A famous landscape photographer known for his black-and-white images of America
• Henri Cartier-Bresson – Often considered to be the father of modern photography and a master of capturing the decisive moment
• Robert Frank – A chronicler of America and the American way of life, who created iconic images about racial inequality
• Margaret Bourke-White – A documentary photographer who was the first woman to be given credentials to shoot World War II, and the first photographer to be allowed into the Soviet Union
• Dorothea Lange – An American photojournalist and documentary photographer. Her Depression-era photographs are her seminal work
• Walker Evans – Another American documentary photographer whose work humanized the effects of the Great Depression
• Diane Arbus – A photographer who specialized in disturbing, intimate, and disturbingly intimate portraits
• Steve McCurry – A versatile photographer who shoots travel, portraits, and in war zones. One of his photographs, Afghan Girl, is perhaps one of the most famous photos ever taken

Check out these 8 essential tools to help you succeed as a professional photographer.

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As the Content Manager of Shotkit, India Mantle brings with her a lifelong love for photography that she developed during her childhood, watching her father document their family moments with his Nikon EM. In her free time, you find her enjoying the awe-inspiring natural beauty of her home, Northern Rivers, Australia.

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Photo Essay

Photo essay generator.

We all know that photographs tell a story. These still images may be seen from various perspectives and are interpreted in different ways. Oftentimes, photographers like to give dramatic meaning to various scenarios. For instance, a blooming flower signifies a new life. Photographs always hold a deeper meaning than what they actually are.

In essay writing , photographs along with its supporting texts, play a significant role in conveying a message. Here are some examples of these kinds of photo-text combinations.

What is Photo Essay? A photo essay is a visual storytelling method that utilizes a sequence of carefully curated photographs to convey a narrative, explore a theme, or evoke specific emotions. It goes beyond individual images, aiming to tell a cohesive and impactful story through the arrangement and combination of pictures.

Photo Essay Format

A photo essay is a series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer. It is a powerful way to convey messages without the need for many words. Here is a format to guide you in creating an effective photo essay:

1. Choose a Compelling Topic

Select a subject that you are passionate about or that you find intriguing. Ensure the topic has a clear narrative that can be expressed visually.

2. Plan Your Shots

Outline the story you wish to tell. This could involve a beginning, middle, and end or a thematic approach. Decide on the types of shots you need (e.g., wide shots, close-ups, portraits, action shots) to best tell the story.

3. Take Your Photographs

Capture a variety of images to have a wide selection when editing your essay. Focus on images that convey emotion, tell a story, or highlight your theme.

4. Edit Your Photos

Select the strongest images that best convey your message or story. Edit for consistency in style, color, and lighting to ensure the essay flows smoothly.

5. Arrange Your Photos

Order your images in a way that makes sense narratively or thematically. Consider transitions between photos to ensure they lead the viewer naturally through the story.

6. Include Captions or Text (Optional)

Write captions to provide context, add depth, or explain the significance of each photo. Keep text concise and impactful, letting the images remain the focus.

7. Present Your Photo Essay

Choose a platform for presentation, whether online, in a gallery, or as a printed booklet. Consider the layout and design, ensuring that it complements and enhances the visual narrative.

8. Conclude with Impact

End with a strong image or a conclusion that encapsulates the essence of your essay. Leave the viewer with something to ponder , reflecting on the message or emotions you aimed to convey.

Best Photo Essay Example?

One notable example of a powerful photo essay is “The Photographic Essay: Paul Fusco’s ‘RFK Funeral Train'” by Paul Fusco. This photo essay captures the emotional journey of the train carrying the body of Robert F. Kennedy from New York to Washington, D.C., after his assassination in 1968. Fusco’s images beautifully and poignantly document the mourning and respect shown by people along the train route. The series is a moving portrayal of grief, unity, and the impact of a historical moment on the lives of ordinary individuals. The photographs are both artistically compelling and deeply human, making it a notable example of the potential for photo essays to convey complex emotions and historical narratives.

Photo Essay Examples and Ideas to Edit & Download

• A Day in the Life Photo Essay
• Behind the scenes Photo Essay
• Event Photo Essay
• Photo Essay on Meal
• Photo Essay on Photo walking
• Photo Essay on Protest
• Photo Essay on Abandoned building
• Education photo essay
• Photo Essay on Events
• Follow the change Photo Essay
• Photo Essay on Personal experiences

Photo Essay Examples & Templates

1. narrative photo essay format example.

nytimes.com

2. Student Photo Essay Example

3. Great Depression Essay Example

thshistory.files.wordpress.com

4. Example of Photo Essay

weresearchit.co.uk

5. Photo Essay Examples About Nature

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6. Travel Photo Example

theguardian.com

7. Free Photo Essay Example

vasantvalley.org

Most Interesting Photo Essays of 2019

Now that you are educated with the fundamentals of photo essays, why not lay eyes on some great photo essays for inspiration. To give you a glimpse of a few epitomes, we collected the best and fascinating photo essays for you. The handpicked samples are as follows:

8. Toys and Us

journals.openedition.org

This photo essay presents its subject which is the latest genre of photography, toy photography. In this type of picture taking, the photographer aims to give life on the toys and treat them as his/her model. This photography follows the idea of a toy researcher, Katrina Heljakka, who states that also adults and not only children are interested in reimagining and preserving the characters of their toys with the means of roleplay and creating a story about these toys. This photo essay is based on the self-reflection of the author on a friend’s toys in their home environment.

9. The Faces of Nature Example

godandnature.asa3.org

This photo essay and collection caters the creativity of the author’s mind in seeing the world. In her composition, she justified that there are millions of faces that are naturally made that some of us have not noticed. She also presented tons of photos showing different natural objects that form patterns of faces. Though it was not mentioned in the essay itself, the author has unconsciously showcased the psychological phenomenon, pareidolia. This is the tendency to translate an obscure stimulus that let the observer see faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or even hearing concealed messages in music.

10. The Country Doctor Example

us1.campaign-archive.com

This photo essay depicts the medical hardships in a small rural town in Colorado called Kremling. For 23 days, Smith shadowed Dr. Ernest Ceriani, witnessing the dramatic life of the small town and capturing the woeful crisis of the region. The picture in this photographic essay was photographed by Smith himself for Life magazine in 1948 but remained as fascinating as it was posted weeks ago.

11. New York City Coffeehouses

lens.blogs.nytimes.com

Café Latte, cappuccino, espresso, or flat white—of course, you know these if you have visited a coffee shop at least once. However, the photographer of this photo essay took it to a whole new level of experience. Within two to three days of visiting various coffee places, Mr. Gavrysh stayed most of his day observing at the finest details such as the source of the coffee, the procedure of delivering them, and the process of roasting and grounding them. He also watched how did the baristas perfect the drinks and the reaction of the customers as they received their ordered coffee with delights in their faces. Gavrysh did not mean to compose a coffeehouse guide, but to make a composition that describes modern, local places where coffee is sipped and treated with respect.

12. Hungry Planet: What The World Eats

13. Photo Essay Example

cah.utexas.edu

14. Photo Essay in PDF

condor.depaul.edu

15. Sample Photo Essay Example

colorado.edu

16. Basic Photo Essay Example

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17. Printable Photo Essay Example

One of the basic necessity of a person to live according to his/her will is food. In this photo essay, you will see how these necessities vary in several ways. In 2005, a pair of Peter Menzel and Faith D’ Aluisio released a book that showcased the meals of an average family in 24 countries. Ecuador, south-central Mali, China, Mexico, Kuwait, Norway, and Greenland are among the nations they visited.  This photo essay is written to raise awareness about the influence of environment and culture to the cost and calories of the foods laid on the various dining tables across the globe.

Photo essays are not just about photographic aesthetics but also the stories that authors built behind those pictures. In this collection of captivating photo essays, reflect on how to write your own. If you are allured and still can’t get enough, there’s no need for you to be frantic about. Besides, there are thousands of samples and templates on our website to browse. Visit us to check them all out.

What are good topics for a photo essay?

• Urban Exploration: Document the unique architecture, street life, and cultural diversity of urban environments.
• Environmental Conservation: Capture the beauty of natural landscapes or document environmental issues, showcasing the impact of climate change or conservation efforts.
• Everyday Life in Your Community: Showcase the daily lives, traditions, and activities of people in your local community.
• Family Traditions: Document the customs, rituals, and special moments within your own family or another family.
• Youth Culture: Explore the lifestyle, challenges, and aspirations of young people in your community or around the world.
• Behind-the-Scenes at an Event: Provide a backstage look at the preparation and execution of an event, such as a concert, festival, or sports competition.
• A Day in the Life of a Profession: Follow a professional in their daily activities, offering insights into their work, challenges, and routines.
• Social Issues: Address important social issues like homelessness, poverty, immigration, or healthcare, raising awareness through visual storytelling.
• Cultural Celebrations: Document cultural festivals, ceremonies, or celebrations that showcase the diversity of traditions in your region or beyond.
• Education Around the World: Explore the various facets of education globally, from classrooms to the challenges students face in different cultures.
• Workplace Dynamics: Capture the atmosphere, interactions, and diversity within different workplaces or industries.
• Street Art and Graffiti: Document the vibrant and dynamic world of street art, capturing the expressions of local artists.
• Animal Rescues or Shelters: Focus on the efforts of organizations or individuals dedicated to rescuing and caring for animals.
• Migration Stories: Explore the experiences and challenges of individuals or communities affected by migration.
• Global Food Culture: Document the diversity of food cultures, from local markets to family meals, showcasing the role of food in different societies.

How to Write a Photo Essay

First of all, you would need to find a topic that you are interested in. With this, you can conduct thorough research on the topic that goes beyond what is common. This would mean that it would be necessary to look for facts that not a lot of people know about. Not only will this make your essay interesting, but this may also help you capture the necessary elements for your images.

Remember, the ability to manipulate the emotions of your audience will allow you to build a strong connection with them. Knowing this, you need to plan out your shots. With the different emotions and concepts in mind, your images should tell a story along with the essay outline .

1. Choose Your Topic

• Select a compelling subject that interests you and can be explored visually.
• Consider the story or message you want to convey. It should be something that can be expressed through images.

2. Plan Your Essay

• Outline your narrative. Decide if your photo essay will tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end, or if it will explore a theme or concept.
• Research your subject if necessary, especially if you’re covering a complex or unfamiliar topic.

3. Capture Your Images

• Take a variety of photos. Include wide shots to establish the setting, close-ups to show details, and medium shots to focus on subjects.
• Consider different angles and perspectives to add depth and interest to your essay.
• Shoot more than you need. Having a large selection of images to choose from will make the editing process easier.

4. Select Your Images

• Choose photos that best tell your story or convey your theme.
• Look for images that evoke emotion or provoke thought.
• Ensure there’s a mix of compositions to keep the viewer engaged.
• Sequence your images in a way that makes narrative or thematic sense.
• Consider the flow and how each image transitions to the next.
• Use juxtaposition to highlight contrasts or similarities.

6. Add Captions or Text (Optional)

• Write captions to provide context or additional information about each photo. Keep them brief and impactful.
• Consider including an introduction or conclusion to frame your essay. This can be helpful in setting the stage or offering a final reflection.

7. Edit and Refine

• Review the sequence of your photos. Make sure they flow smoothly and clearly convey your intended story or theme.
• Adjust the layout as needed, ensuring that the visual arrangement is aesthetically pleasing and supports the narrative.

8. Share Your Essay

• Choose the right platform for your photo essay, whether it’s a blog, online publication, exhibition, or print.
• Consider your audience and tailor the presentation of your essay to suit their preferences and expectations.

Types of Photo Essay

Photo essays are a compelling medium to tell a story, convey emotions, or present a perspective through a series of photographs. Understanding the different types of photo essays can help photographers and storytellers choose the best approach for their project. Here are the main types of photo essays:

1. Narrative Photo Essays

• Purpose: To tell a story or narrate an event in a chronological sequence.
• Characteristics: Follows a clear storyline with a beginning, middle, and end. It often includes characters, a setting, and a plot.
• Examples: A day in the life of a firefighter, the process of crafting traditional pottery.

2. Thematic Photo Essays

• Purpose: To explore a specific theme, concept, or issue without being bound to a chronological sequence.
• Characteristics: Centers around a unified theme, with each photo contributing to the overall concept.
• Examples: The impact of urbanization on the environment, the beauty of natural landscapes.

3. Conceptual Photo Essays

• Purpose: To convey an idea or evoke a series of emotions through abstract or metaphorical images.
• Characteristics: Focuses on delivering a conceptual message or emotional response, often using symbolism.
• Examples: Loneliness in the digital age, the concept of freedom.

4. Expository or Informative Photo Essays

• Purpose: To inform or educate the viewer about a subject with a neutral viewpoint.
• Characteristics: Presents factual information on a topic, often accompanied by captions or brief texts to provide context.
• Examples: The process of coffee production, a day at an animal rescue center.

5. Persuasive Photo Essays

• Purpose: To convince the viewer of a particular viewpoint or to highlight social issues.
• Characteristics: Designed to persuade or elicit action, these essays may focus on social, environmental, or political issues.
• Examples: The effects of plastic pollution, the importance of historical preservation.

6. Personal Photo Essays

• Purpose: To express the photographer’s personal experiences, emotions, or journeys.
• Characteristics: Highly subjective and personal, often reflecting the photographer’s intimate feelings or experiences.
• Examples: A personal journey through grief, documenting one’s own home during quarantine.

7. Environmental Photo Essays

• Purpose: To showcase landscapes, wildlife, and environmental issues.
• Characteristics: Focuses on the natural world or environmental challenges, aiming to raise awareness or appreciation.
• Examples: The melting ice caps, wildlife in urban settings.

8. Travel Photo Essays

• Purpose: To explore and present the culture, landscapes, people, and experiences of different places.
• Characteristics: Captures the essence of a location, showcasing its uniqueness and the experiences of traveling.
• Examples: A road trip across the American Southwest, the vibrant streets of a bustling city.

How do you start a picture essay?

1. choose a compelling theme or topic:.

Select a theme or topic that resonates with you and has visual storytelling potential. It could be a personal project, an exploration of a social issue, or a visual journey through a specific place or event.

2. Research and Conceptualize:

Conduct research on your chosen theme to understand its nuances, context, and potential visual elements. Develop a conceptual framework for your photo essay, outlining the key aspects you want to capture.

3. Define Your Storytelling Approach:

Determine how you want to convey your narrative. Consider whether your photo essay will follow a chronological sequence, a thematic structure, or a more abstract and conceptual approach.

4. Create a Shot List:

Develop a list of specific shots you want to include in your essay. This can help guide your photography and ensure you capture a diverse range of images that contribute to your overall narrative.

5. Plan the Introduction:

Think about how you want to introduce your photo essay. The first image or series of images should grab the viewer’s attention and set the tone for the narrative.

6. Consider the Flow:

Plan the flow of your photo essay, ensuring a logical progression of images that tells a cohesive and engaging story. Consider the emotional impact and visual variety as you sequence your photographs.

7. Shoot with Purpose:

Start capturing images with your conceptual framework in mind. Focus on images that align with your theme and contribute to the overall narrative. Look for moments that convey emotion, tell a story, or reveal aspects of your chosen subject.

8. Experiment with Perspectives and Techniques:

Explore different perspectives, compositions, and photographic techniques to add visual interest and depth to your essay. Consider using a variety of shots, including wide-angle, close-ups, and detail shots.

9. Write Descriptive Captions:

As you capture images, think about the accompanying captions. Captions should provide context, additional information, or insights that enhance the viewer’s understanding of each photograph.

What are the key elements of a photo essay?

1. Theme or Topic:

Clearly defined subject matter or theme that unifies the photographs and tells a cohesive story.

2. Narrative Structure:

An intentional narrative structure that guides the viewer through the photo essay, whether chronological, thematic, or conceptual.

3. Introduction:

A strong introduction that captures the viewer’s attention and sets the tone for the photo essay.

4. Captivating Images:

A series of high-quality and visually compelling images that effectively convey the chosen theme or story.

5. Variety of Shots:

A variety of shots, including wide-angle, close-ups, detail shots, and different perspectives, to add visual interest and depth.

6. Sequencing:

Careful sequencing of images to create a logical flow and emotional impact, guiding the viewer through the narrative.

7. Captions and Text:

Thoughtful captions or accompanying text that provide context, additional information, or insights, enhancing the viewer’s understanding.

8. Conclusion:

A concluding section that brings the photo essay to a satisfying close, leaving a lasting impression on the viewer.

Purpose of a Photo Essay

With good writing skills , a person is able to tell a story through words. However, adding images for your essay will give it the dramatic effect it needs. The photographs and the text work hand in hand to create something compelling enough to attract an audience.

This connection goes beyond something visual, as photo essays are also able to connect with an audience emotionally. This is to create an essay that is effective enough to relay a given message.

5 Tips for Creating a Photo Essay

• Don’t be afraid to experiment. Find the right angle and be dramatic with your description, just be creative.
• Pay attention to detail. Chances are, your audience will notice every single detail of your photograph.
• Shoot everything. Behind a single beautiful photo is a hundred more shots.
• Don’t think twice about editing. Editing is where the magic happens. It has the ability to add more drama to your images.
• Have fun. Don’t stress yourself out too much but instead, grow from your experience.

What is a photo essay for school?

A school photo essay is a visual storytelling project for educational purposes, typically assigned to students. It involves creating a narrative using a series of carefully curated photographs on a chosen theme.

How many pictures should be in a photo essay?

The number of pictures in a photo essay varies based on the chosen theme and narrative structure. It can range from a few impactful images to a more extensive series, typically around 10-20 photographs.

Is a photo essay a story?

Yes, a photo essay is a visual storytelling form. It uses a series of carefully curated photographs to convey a narrative, evoke emotions, or communicate a specific message or theme.

What makes a photo essay unforgettable?

An unforgettable photo essay is characterized by a powerful theme, emotionally resonant images, a well-crafted narrative structure, attention to detail, and a connection that leaves a lasting impact on viewers.

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Create a Photo Essay on the theme of urban exploration.

Discuss the story of a local community event through a Photo Essay.

45 Photo Essay Topics

Most academic writing assignments involve just that – writing. But in the case of a photo essay, the assignment becomes one of both writing and photography. A photo essay is simply an essay that uses images instead of (or in addition to) words to tell a story or make a point.

A good photo essay will capture your audience’s attention and tell a story that resonates with them on an emotional level. To create a successful photo essay, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

This detailed guide will walk you through the essential steps of creating a photo essay and provide you with 45 photo essay topics to get you started.

What Is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a written piece that uses images to tell a story or make a point. In other words, it’s an essay that depends primarily on visuals rather than text to communicate its message.

Photo essays are usually themed around a particular subject or topic and can be created for a variety of purposes. They can be used to:

• Tell a news story
• Raise awareness about an important issue
• Share a personal experience
• Document a place or event
• Highlight the work of a specific artist or photographer

No matter what the purpose of your photo essay is, there are a few key elements that should be included in order to impact the audience to the best degree.

What Makes a Good Photo Essay?

A good photo essay will have a clear focus, with each image adding something new to the story. It should also be structured to make sense so that the viewer can easily follow along and understand the point you’re trying to make.

When choosing images for your photo essay, be sure to select ones that are high quality and have a consistent theme or style. This will help create a cohesive story that is visually pleasing and easy to follow.

It’s also important to ensure that your images are appropriately captioned and credited, especially if you’re using someone else’s work. This ensures that your photo essay is both accurate and legal.

Steps for Creating a Photo Essay

Creating a photo essay is a process that requires time, patience, and careful planning. Follow these steps to create a successful photo essay:

1. Choose a topic or theme

The first step in creating a photo essay is to choose the topic or theme you want to focus on. This can be anything from a place, an event, or even a person. Once you’ve decided on your subject, it’s time to start brainstorming ideas for your essay.

2. Do your research

If you’re documenting a place or an event, it’s important to do your research beforehand. This will help you understand your subject’s background and give you a better idea of what to include in your essay.

3. Gather your material

Now it’s time to start gathering the material for your essay. This includes both images and text. Remember, if you’re using someone else’s photos, be sure to get their permission first.

4. Choose a format

There are a few different ways you can format your photo essay. The most common is to create a series of images that progress in a linear fashion, such as from left to right or top to bottom.

Another option is to arrange your images more abstractly, such as in a grid or collage. This can help to add visual interest and variety to your essay.

5. Edit your material

Once you have all of your material gathered, it’s time to start editing. This includes both choosing which images to use and writing the accompanying text.

For the images, you’ll want to select those that are the most visually appealing and that best support the story you’re trying to tell. As you edit, also be sure to crop and resize your images as needed.

For the text, you’ll want to write a brief introduction and conclusion, as well as captions for each of your images. The goal is to provide just enough context and information to help viewers understand what they’re seeing.

6. Design your essay

Now it’s time to start putting your photo essay together. If you’re using a linear format, begin by arranging your images in the order you want them to appear. Then, add the accompanying text.

If you’re using a more creative format, start by playing around with different ways to arrange your images. Then, add the text once you’ve settled on a design you like.

7. Finalize and Hand it in

Once you’ve designed your photo essay, it’s time to finalize it and hand it in. Be sure to proofread the text for any errors and check the images to ensure they’re properly captioned. It is highly recommended to use a professional printing service to print your photo essay to ensure the best possible quality.

Understanding how to create a photo essay is only half the battle. The other half is finding a topic that you’re passionate about that will also interest your audience. To help get you started, here are 45 ideas for photo essay topics:

Photo Essay Topics About Places

• Your hometown
• A nearby city or town
• A favorite vacation spot
• An interesting landmark
• A place from your childhood
• A hidden gem in your town
• The most beautiful place you’ve ever been
• The most interesting place you’ve ever been
• The strangest place you’ve ever been
• A place that is significant to you for personal reasons
• A place that is significant to your family
• A place with a lot of history
• A place that is in danger of disappearing

Photo Essay Topics About Events

• A sporting event
• A music festival
• A parade or procession
• A protest or demonstration
• An annual celebration in your town
• A once-in-a-lifetime event that you witnessed
• An event that had a significant impact on you
• An event that had a significant impact on your community
• An event that is widely considered to be positive
• An event that is widely considered to be negative
• A controversial event
• A natural disaster
• A man-made disaster

Photo Essay Topics About People

• The people in your neighborhood
• The people at your job
• Your family
• Your friends
• The elderly
• A group of people with a common interest or hobby
• A group of people from a different culture than your own
• A group of people who are disadvantaged or marginalized in some way
• A group of people who are often misunderstood
• Celebrities
• Politicians
• Everyday people

Photo Essay Topics About Concepts

A photo essay is an interesting assignment that can help you express your creativity while also teaching you how to pay attention to detail, tell a story, and edit images. If you follow the steps outlined in this article, you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful photo essay.

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Testimonials

What is a Photo Essay in Photography (13 Examples You Can Try)

Do you know what a photo essay is?

If not, that’s okay. Many photographers aren’t even familiar with the term. I didn’t know until a few years back myself after doing many of them unknowingly.

A photo essay is an interesting form of visual storytelling that presents a narrative through a series of images.

Powerful photo essays communicate emotions and understanding without using words.

You’re guiding the viewer through your narrative journey.

In this article, I’ll be going over the important parts of a great photo essay idea, 13 interesting photo essay ideas you can try, and a few photo essay tips.

What is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a powerful form of visual storytelling in which a narrative is presented through a series of images.

Unlike a written essay, a photo essay relies on visuals to tell a story and evoke emotions within the viewer. When you create a photo essay, you can stretch your creative limits and explore new ways of connecting with your audience.

In a photo story or essay, the images are carefully selected.

They’re arranged in order to create a coherent and engaging narrative.

Each photograph should contribute to the overall theme of the story and maintain visual and technical consistency throughout.

As the photographer, you play a big role in coming up with interesting photo essay ideas, the narrative, and providing context for the images.

To create a good photo essay, here are a few guidelines:

Choose a Strong Theme: Select a subject that resonates with your audience and communicates a clear message or emotion.

Curate the Images: Carefully select the photographs that best represent your theme and arrange them logically.

Maintain Consistency: Your images should have a consistent visual style, color palette, and framing. You want to create a cohesive narrative.

Provide Context: Include captions or short text descriptions to give the viewer a better understanding of the story being told.

Other Important Elements of a Photo Essay

These other components help provide a clear narrative and evoke emotions that keep the audience engaged in your story.

Storytelling : The primary purpose of a photo essay is to tell a story through your images. You must carefully choose your photos to convey a coherent and interesting narrative. The flow of your images should guide the viewer through your perspective or various viewpoints on the subject.

Emotion : A strong photo essay evokes emotions that resonate with the viewer. As you select your photos, consider how they touch the viewer emotionally. The emotions your images evoke can differ, ranging from happiness and love to fear and sadness.

Idea : Your photo essay idea should revolve around a central idea or theme. This foundation not only provides direction for your work but also ensures your images remain focused and relevant. Before starting your photo essay, you need a well-defined idea that’ll guide your photography and narrative.

Style : For your photo essay to be visually cohesive you need a consistent style. This can include using a particular color palette, choosing images with a distinct composition, or using a specific technique in each photo. As you curate your images, make sure they’re consistent in their visual qualities to create a harmonious presentation.

Composition : The composition of each photo plays a significant role in guiding the viewer’s eye within the image. Pay attention to elements like leading lines, patterns, and framing.

Technique : Using specific photography techniques can create a unique style for your photo essay. Experiment with different techniques like long exposures, shallow depth of field, and post-processing methods. Doing so will enhance the visual impact of your images.

Why Create a Photo Essay

Creating a photo essay allows you to merge your passion for photography with the art of storytelling.

By focusing on a specific narrative, you have a purpose and direction while capturing images. This can lead to a deeper connection with your subject and inspiration to create an interesting visual story.

And as a photographer, you can use photo stories to experiment with various styles, techniques, and compositions.

This not only challenges your creativity but also helps improve your skills as a photographer. The process encourages you to explore new perspectives and angles while conveying your message.

The images you choose can make people feel happy, sad, or even angry. By doing so, you harness the power of visuals to communicate a message beyond words.

Photo essays also serve as an opportunity for reflection.

By picking a topic or theme close to your heart, you can ponder, look back, analyze, and dive deeper into a subject matter. It can be a powerful tool for personal growth and self-expression, allowing you to learn more about your own emotions and perceptions.

This is valuable if you intend to share your photography with a wider audience.

You can use a photo essay to show your skills in composition, storytelling, and emotional impact, making it a powerful way to gain recognition.

13 Photo Essay Examples

There are so many great photo essay examples, and I might try all of them myself!

But here are 13 not-too-hard photo essay ideas you can try.

1. Local Event Photo Essay

This is one of the most popular photo essay examples. You’re capturing the joy of local events by focusing on the participants’ emotions and interactions.

Doing so shows the diversity of the people and the range of activities taking place. From stall setups to exciting performances. Document memorable moments and unique aspects of the event that make it stand out.

2. A Day in the Life Photo Essay

Highlight a typical day in the life of a person, family, or community.

This photographic essay gives you an opportunity to capture the reality of daily life and routines. Focus on the small moments that give insight into the subject’s personality and relationships.

3. Transformation Photo Essay

Transformation photo essay topics are popular. This photo essay project showcases the power of change through photographs that depict the transformation of a person, place, or object. Include before and after pictures.

You want shots with angles and perspectives that show change and development. One of the most common transformation photo essay examples is weight loss before and after.

4. Family Photo Essay

Tell the story of a family’s life together by capturing candid moments, daily routines, and special occasions.

Focus on the relationships between family members and the unique characteristics that make them a cohesive unit.

5. Education Photo Essay

An educational photo essay shows the educational process in action by documenting classes, workshops, or seminars.

You can capture students’ learning and applying new skills. Observe interactions between teachers and students. Or show off diverse educational settings, from schools to informal learning environments.

6. Urban Renewal Photo Essay Examples

Explore the renewal of urban spaces with your photography.

Take pictures as the city improves, new developments go up, and the impact it has on local communities. Include images of old and new architecture, as well as scenes that feature revitalization efforts.

7. The Changing Seasons of a Park Photo Essay

Make a transformation essay showing the changing seasons in a park. With this photo story, you want to capture the elements of the atmosphere that make each season of the year unique.

Highlight the features and activities that define each season, from the colors of the leaves to the snow-covered landscapes.

Bonus points if you can shoot the same shot for each photo!

8. City Artwork and Murals Photo Essay

Another great photo essay example is celebrating the urban art scene by showcasing striking murals and street art found in cities and towns. Take photos that show the diverse styles, colors, and messages conveyed by the artists.

9. Historic Landmarks: Then and Now Photo Essay

Compare historic landmarks and sites in their current state with photographs from the past. This photo essay can show the changes and preservation efforts of these important cultural and historical places.

10. Coffee Shop Chronicles

Photograph coffee shops or the unique atmosphere of your favorite local coffee shop. Then document with your essay the diverse customers, staff members, and aesthetic elements that make it special.

Focus on the details that give it character and the emotions it evokes in visitors and customers.

11. Through The Lens of a Photographer

Be a photographer for another photographer and provide insight into their creative process. It can be a friend, another professional photographer, or even someone you want to learn from.

You can showcase their work, techniques, and equipment with your photo story. Include behind-the-scenes shots of the photographer in action, as well as their perspective on their craft.

12. Recipes From Your Favorite Local Restaurant

Do a photo shoot and partner with a local restaurant to create a visually appealing photo essay featuring their signature dishes.

You can include photographs of the cooking process, finished plates, and behind-the-scenes shots of the kitchen and staff.

13. Behind The Scenes Photo Essay

Offer a glimpse into the hidden aspects of various locations, professions, or events. Capture the unseen scenes and the people who make them happen by providing a unique and rarely seen perspective.

Tips for Creating Your Own Photo Essay

Choose Something You Love: Do something that sparks emotion in you and others. Tell a story that’s personal and meaningful to you. Whether it’s a social issue, an event, or a day in the life of a specific person, make it a subject you love.

Develop Your Own Style: Your unique photography style plays a role in keeping your audience engaged. And having a signature style can help you carve out a niche for yourself. This will attract clients who appreciate and seek your unique perspective.

Plan Your Shots: Photo essays are like storytelling, so take time to compose and plan out each image carefully. Each photo communicates an essential part of your story. Without a story, there’s nothing to captivate your viewers.

Keep The Story Cohesive: Maintain a clear narrative throughout your photo essays. Each image contributes to the story’s flow. So, organize your photos logically for effective communication of your message.

The Power of Sequence: Plotting the Narrative Arc for Your Photo Essay

Just like a traditional narrative, your photo essay should have a beginning, middle, and end.

The opening image sets the stage and draws your audience in. It’s similar to the hook in written storytelling.

As you progress towards the middle of your essay, develop your theme or subject further. This may involve using contrasting images or presenting different aspects of your topic to maintain viewer interest. And finally, end with an impactful image that leaves a lasting impression or delivers a powerful message.

View these steps as the equivalent of crafting plot points in written narratives:

Beginning : Set up your story.

Middle : Develop the main characters or themes.

End : Resolve any conflicts or deliver the final message.

Linking Images Together: The Art of Transitions in Photo Stories

Transitions are super important.

They’re key elements that string individual photos together. Photo essay transitions are like the transitions between paragraphs in writing. They help maintain flow and continuity.

A transition might be thematic, such as moving from color-filled scenes. Or black-and-white images to represent shifting moods or timescales.

It might even be visual: you can focus on common shapes, patterns, or subjects across several photographs.

To create effective photo transitions:

Identify common themes between photos.

Look for similarities in colors, textures, shapes, and lighting.

Experiment with gradually shifting the mood of your photos too.

How to Create a Photo Essay in 7 Steps

Step 1: choose a topic.

Select an engaging topic for your photo essay.

Reflect on your interests, the emotions you want to evoke, and the story you want your landmark photo essay to tell. Topics can range from personal stories to cultural explorations or even school events. You want an angle and style that will make your essay stand out and resonate with your audience.

Step 2: Research Beforehand

Before shooting, conduct research on your chosen topic. Gather information and familiarize yourself with the theme, people, and culture involved. This will help you capture consistent and authentic images. And provide depth to your photo essay project.

Step 3: Capture a Wide Variety of Images

Experiment with different shooting techniques, angles, and perspectives. Photograph various images that reflect your subject’s emotions, moods, and environment. Cover every aspect of your story. And remember, quality shots are more important than quantity.

Step 4: Create a Storyboard With Your Ideas and Images

After shooting, review your images and develop a storyboard. Arrange the photos in a manner that portrays your story effectively. Consider composition, techniques, and the flow of your narrative.

Step 5: Narrow Down, Edit, and Organize Your Photos to Tell a Story

Select the images that best illustrate your story, and edit them for style and consistency. Then organize your images in a sequence that connects with your audience emotionally. And make sure your photo essay is visually appealing and reflects the essence of your topic.

Step 6: Use Captions for Your Images as Needed

Captions can help tell your story without overwhelming your audience with text. So, if necessary, include captions to provide context and explain your images. But keep them short, concise, and informative.

Step 7: Ask for Feedback

Before publishing your photo essays, ask for feedback from friends, family, mentors, or even strangers. Then listen to their insights and suggestions, and make adjustments as needed. Getting a variety of perspectives can help ensure your photo essay is engaging, clear, and relatable to your audience.

The Importance of Photo Essays in Photography

Photo essays tell an intriguing story.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

But have you ever thought about how true this statement is?

When photographs are thoughtfully grouped together, they can weave a captivating narrative. A photo essay allows you to explore subjects deeply and from various angles, telling stories that may not be possible with just one image.

For instance, highlighting the daily life of a particular subject.

Or showcasing the transformation of an abandoned building into a vibrant community center. These narratives become more profound and interesting when illustrated not just through words but through the lens of a camera.

Photo Essays Can Connect With an Audience

They’re powerful tools for connecting on an emotional level with your audience.

They allow viewers to walk in someone else’s shoes, experiencing situations and emotions that might be entirely different from their own lives.

For example, a well-executed photo essay on local environmental pollution could stir up feelings of concern and urge viewers to take action.

A Good Photo Essay Can Market Your Products or Services

Photo essays offer businesses a unique way to promote products and services in a visual world.

But you aren’t simply showing off your offerings. Instead, you’re telling engaging stories around them. These stories make it easier for potential customers to relate and respond positively.

Take Airbnb as an example.

They’re pairing photos of hosts’ homes with local attractions or experiences to create mini-photo-essays. Potential customers feel like they’re getting a sneak peek at their vacation experience.

Can Convey a Wide Range of Emotions

One image may evoke joy. While another stirs up sadness.

By grouping these images together, a photo essay lets you create an emotional rollercoaster for your viewers. You’re not just showing them what’s happening—you’re making them feel it.

Consider a photo essay documenting the journey of a cancer survivor. From the initial shock and fear to the strength found in treatment, and finally, the joy of remission.

Such a powerful narrative can touch hearts and inspire action like no other medium can.

They Bring Life to an Otherwise Ordinary Collection of Photos

A random assortment of photographs might be visually appealing, but without context or purpose, they may lack depth or meaning.

That’s where photo stories come into play.

They provide structure to these collections, turning them into interesting narratives. Ones with clear themes and messages.

Imagine a series of seemingly unrelated photos—portraits of people from different walks of life.

When presented as part of a photo essay that explores societal diversity within cities, these portraits become more than just faces. They turn into symbols of unity and diversity.

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Kyra Chambers (KyraTheCreative) is the Co-Founder of Red October Firm. And a photographer, artist, and graphic designer. She has been in the photography industry since 2015 and loves making photography easy for everyone.

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How to Build a Photography Story with a Photo Essay

The Power of a Well Told Story

Why is storytelling important? Because telling stories is how humans make meaning. The tradition goes back to the beginning of language and it’s just as important in visual traditions as it is in oral or written ones.

We all know the value of a good story. If you’ve ever enjoyed a book or movie, if you’ve ever laughed around a campfire or sat spellbound at a grandparent’s feet, you’ve felt the power of storytelling. Stories open up our minds, increase our empathy, and touch our souls in life and world-changing ways.

The ability to tell stories is one of the most powerful tools an image maker has. There are many places for storytelling in photography, but no other project is quite so suited to storytelling as the photo essay.

What is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a series of images that explores one topic, thought, idea, or subject. This form of storytelling allows photographers to create a visual narrative through a series of photographs, which can be accompanied by text or other storytelling elements but does not require them. The heart of a photo essay is building a story with photographs , rather than words.

Photo essays have been a mainstay in journalism for decades, but traverse genres from landscape and documentary to portraiture and fine art. Most photographers are well acquainted with photo essays like “The Great Depression” by Dorothea Lange, and more contemporary essays where portraitists photographed themselves daily or weekly over a series of years.

While the photo essay umbrella encompasses many genres and approaches, the two main types of photo essays are Thematic and Narrative.

Thematic photo essays are created around a subject, idea, or theme. They can be very broad and cover everything from street photography in New York in the 1970’s, to Route 66 Motels . They tend to document a larger story and leave more room for interpretation.

Narrative photo essays follow a storyline and are generally much more specific. These essays can be documentary, fine art, conceptual, or anything in between, but they tend to stick with one story from beginning to end.

War Widow: a Narrative Photo Essay by Kate Woodman

How to Create a Photo Essay

All photo essays begin with a topic, theme, or idea the photographer wants to explore, convey, or understand. Then, the photographer decides how to approach the subject. They may build a shot list, or approach the subject from a documentary standpoint and shoot the subject as they find it. Photographing these subjects can cover a lot of time, such as the study of a people group or an environment, or be completed in the short term, such as a “day in the life,” style of essay.

Once the photographer knows how they want to approach the subject, they’ll make preparations and begin shooting. Every photographer will approach this process differently, but all should keep in mind that everything in the frame will help tell the story. Therefore, it’s in the photographer's best interest to be as exacting in their approach as they would be for any other project.

The ultimate goal is to compile a series of photographs for a visual story that allows the viewer to engage with the subject matter.

• Select a topic, subject, create a story, or select a photo essay idea. There are no right or wrong answers, as long as the photographer is interested in exploring the subject or telling a story. Any idea can be a good idea if it's approached the right way.
• Consider whether a shot list is necessary. Documentarians often choose to shoot subjects as they find them, while fine artists or conceptual photographers will often create a storyline and a series of photographs to illustrate it.
• Make plans to photograph the subject. This could be as simple as grabbing a camera and heading out to a location, or as complex as building a set and scheduling several shoots over the course of months or years.
• Curate the story. Look at all the images that have been captured and decide which are the strongest, and which contribute most to telling the story or exploring the theme or idea. Remember, an essay cannot be a single image, but a single image can make or break the story.
• Present the essay. This is, possibly, the most important part of the process because how an essay is presented, and where, will be very important in determining whether the story reaches the intended audience. Consider who needs to see this story, and what venues will be best to reach that audience. This could be a simple release to one's network on social media platforms, through a gallery, a self-funded art show, or in partnership with a company that supports a specific cause.

In this video, PRO EDU Instructor Kate Woodman talks about her conceptual photo essay, War Widow, and breaks down how each visual contributes to the narrative.

Photo Essay Topic Ideas

A day in the life

30 days of my desk

Shelter Dogs of Houston

The life of a garden

Derelict Buildings

The effect of violence in the home

Homage to the old west

Historic sites

Car Salesmen

Retired veterans

Local events

Unplanned still lives

There are no bad ideas for an essay photo series, as long as the photographer is interested in exploring the ideas, capturing the story elements, and creating a photo story.

The photo essay is a powerful tool photographers can use to bring light to topics they care about, explore ideas, and hone their storytelling skills so they're better able to evoke emotion.

Essays have often been the catalyst for growth and made more than one photographer famous when the essay sparks fire to the imagination of the public. Almost every photographer in any genre can benefit from the exercise of creating a photo essay, so what’s stopping you?

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How to create an outstanding Photo Essay

If you are working on your photo essay and would wish to know how to create a successful one, we have some tips, tricks, and techniques outlined in this article. With the sophistication of digital publishing, you need to be on your A-game when creating digital photos that tell a story.

As a custom essay writing service , our ultimate goal in this article is to guide you on creating a photo essay without straining. We like it when writing, and creativity is fun altogether. Therefore, we have outlined examples, classifications, and a framework that you can use when creating your photo essay.

This article also bears the definition of what a photo essay is. And although you could use this as a professional or a student, you can pay someone to do your essay on our website. When you do so, a polished essay writer will work with you in creating a good photo essay,

We have creatives with expertise, a knack for experimentation, critical thinking and creativity, and an insatiable urge to produce top content. If it sounds like you could use our help, let us know the best way we can assist you in creating a perfect photography essay.

If, however, all you need is insights to point you in the right direction, here is how to create a good photo essay without straining. Let’s explore!

What is a Photo Essay?

Visual storytelling appeals to everyone who has a sense of sight.

Unlike your typical essay in college, a photo essay is a project where you present a series of photographs or images to tell a story, share a narrative, or push a theme/agenda. Thus, a photo essay facilitates picture-led storytelling , which is a creative innovation in photojournalism.

It is also known as a photographic or picture essay. A great photo essay powerfully evokes emotions and appeals to the understanding of its intended audience without using words or with minimal words alongside the series of images.

A perfectly-created photo essay narrates a story using many photographs that take the viewer along your narrative journey. Indeed, it proves that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, since there are many pictures/images, you could say a photo essay is rich in words, flavor, and content, yet it does not have words.

Talking of photo essays, Ansel Adams is one of the revered and famous photo essayists. Other photo essayists include James Nachtwey, Eugene Smith, and Nancy Borowick .

How to Create a Photo Essay in a step-by-step format

Here is a step-by-step approach to follow to successfully create a compelling and engaging photo essay:

Step 1 – Do your Research

If you are to create an attractive and relevant photo essay, begin by researching the best framework to adopt. Look at what people are doing out there and find out how creatively you can do it better. There are inexhaustible ideas and concepts that you can explore when writing a photo essay. If you’ve not chosen a topic, thorough research can help you decide on a topic and handle it well.

Step 2 - Choose a theme for your photo essay

With the research, you can already identify a specific theme or narrative for your picture essay. Therefore, highlight the theme or narrative, write some notes about the direction you will tackle and how you will reach and satisfy your audience.

Step 2 – Choose a topic that aligns with the theme

Following the findings from your research, choose a great topic. You are not that lucky photo essayist who opportunistically happens upon a story and turns it into a brilliant photo essay. Therefore, you should choose an attractive, reasonable, short, and memorable topic. You are free to select any topic that interests you and one that you find fun to work on. Your chosen theme or narrative can help define the topic for your photo essay.

Step 3 – Pick your subjects

With the theme/narrative and the topic, you can then choose your subjects. These are the people, things, sceneries, or places of central focus in your photography essay.  

The subjects are the ones that give your photo essay a voice, strengthen your narrative, and engage the audience.

Step 4 – Select your top images

Define the appropriate number of images that you intend to use when telling the story. For example, if you intend to leave the audience under suspense, choose which images to use and their order of appearance.  Your photo essay project does not have to use all your images but the best.

The best way to integrate your theme, narrative, and subjects is to create a storyboard that helps you decide how to tell the story. Then, when you lay your ideas out, a storyboard helps you focus on what is essential, especially when you have little control over a given subject.

Step 5 – ask for insights and input from others

After creating the storyboard, choosing the photos, and writing a narrative or theme statement, you can share it with someone knowledgeable for critique. You should also invite views and comments from another person. Ensure that you give the entire photo cache to the person so that they can choose, then compare with your best photos and tweak your choice accordingly.

Step 6 – Write the captions and text

With everything set, write the accompanying content for your photo essay. As well, make sure you caption each photo to enhance your visual narrative. Nothing is cast in stone here because you can also drop using image captions. You can experiment with lighting, tone, color, composition, angles, and location so that the narrative flows. Also, don’t forget to create introductory messages and closing messages. You need to have your signature introductory and closing images well-decided.

Step 7 – Edit your work

Now that you have created a photo essay, it is now time to edit everything. You can ask for help or rest and do it when you are energetic and objective. If you want a skilled essay writer to write you an excellent narrative to post alongside your photo essay, you can always trust our essay website.  We can also edit the narrative to maintain a good flow.

Step 8 – Publish/submit your work

If everything else is okay, convert the photo essay to the correct format and submit or publish it. Remember, photo essays can be a portion of a webpage, a webpage, a document, fashion publication, photo editorial, collage of images, or mixed media.

Helpful Tips when compiling your Photographic Essay

If you are on track to become a photo essayist, you need to grasp the most critical photo essaying tips, techniques, and tricks. Here is some best advice you could use to find a subject for your photo essay.

1. Try to tell a diverse and confident story

When you get out there to tell a story, make sure you do it most awesomely. Understand your target audience, do anything that will resonate with their needs, appeal to their emotions, logic, and thoughts, and leave them musing over your narrative. It is, therefore, vital that you consider what your key message will be and be confident when handling it in your photo essay.

2.Storyboard before building

Architects, surgeons, artists, engineers, you name the profession, all begin with either a sketch, blueprint or a plan to visualize the entire concept or creation before its actualization. In the real of photo essays, you have to be invested right from the beginning. Therefore, you need to create a storyboard that helps you to convert your vision, abstract thoughts, and ideas to a concrete plan that you can execute to succeed in your project. A storyboard also doubles as a shortlist for your photography project.

When storyboarding, you will notice that you take an outsider view, which helps you evaluate how every element fits into the larger picture – your narrative/theme. When doing it, you can discard otherwise burdensome but irrelevant content, which saves you time and leaves you to focus more.

Storyboarding is a critical, creative step when building a perfect photo essay as it ensures the flow to your viewers.

3. Have a visual structure

A contemporary photo essay follows a simple or basic framework that gives your theme direction and scope. Therefore, having a visual structure, marker, or framework helps you transform the photo series into a narrative. For instance, this Growing up young photo essay published in the BBC chooses to have quotes from the subjects running alongside the photos. Likewise, the picture essay done by photojournalist Stefanie Glinski titled  One Month in Kabul Under Taliban rule – a photo essay has narrative and captions to further illustrate the themes, content, and narratives.

4. Have a variety of images

To write an exceptional photo essay, ensure that you have as many photos or images as possible. Assemble as much as you think you will need for the project, then use your ruthless photo editing skills to pick the best photos.

Although shedding content hurts, it’s the only best way to achieve the best piece. It is also better to be in a dilemma of which photos to use than wish that you included a specific shot. Having multiple shots ensures that everything is captured. Then compiling your photo series becomes easier.

5. Edit your photos well

When editing, do it ruthlessly. While you cannot be Annie Leibovitz, Stefanie Glinski, or Ansel Adams, you certainly have to up your game to be at par with them. You can either use a professional editor. Alternatively, you can edit your photos using Photoshop, Illustrator, or other image-editing software. Whatever you choose your struggle to be, ensure that you end up with high-quality photos that make sense to your theme or narrative. If you have to refine an image to remove blemish or flaws, use it as long as it ends up fine. Make sure that the focus of each photo is visible and that unwanted areas are cropped out. If you are editing on your own, edit the photos a few days after the shoot to have an objective mind when doing it.

6. Choose the top 10 images

You are not just going to lazily throw images and words all over a structure and have it for the best photo essay out there. Instead, you need to select quality photos that will tell your narrative. Be keen enough to ensure that any photo that makes it to the top 10 list is compelling and poignant. If you notice that you don’t have good equipment to produce or capture quality photos, don’t be afraid to pull in a professional photographer.

7. Use outside input to perfect your choice

When working on a photo essay project, you are not necessarily an island. The photo essayists we’ve mentioned work with teams. You equally need to get a trusted, visually active, and sophisticated individual, professional, or friend to help you.

Have them look at the photos you took and ask them to choose the best. As well, provide them with a written description of your narrative and ask them to select their 10 best photos.

Compare their choice with yours and if they differ, make a point of asking the reason. Listen keenly and tweak your narrative and choice as they most likely reflect what an audience would perceive from the photo essay.

8. Select the best photos from the best

Based on the reasons from your external source (friend, editor, or photographer), select the 10 best photographs to use in telling your story. As well, change the narration if there is a need to tweak it.

9. Write reasonable captions

For your final choice of 10 images, write a befitting caption that will help to enhance your visual narrative. You need to be concise, brief, and clear. If the photos have a strong or exciting background story you wish to run, have the narrative written as content alongside the photos.

However, if you feel like the images can stand alone without captions, don’t beat yourself over it; leave them out. After all, using captions is not a must.

Look at this example of Black Lives Matter Photo Essay (Link to external site).

Apart from the caption, you can add text that contains data, complex metrics, or maps to support your narrative. Using maps can help drive the point home.

10. Focus on the details

Yes, the devil is always in the details. When you eventually display your photo essay to an audience, everybody analyzes it their way. However, when you capture the details, you will take care of each perspective, judgment, and reasoning from your audience. Ensure that you place everything in context and that everything is up to date.

11. Make it fun

Unlike college essays that come with challenges, creating a photo essay should be fun. Therefore, enjoy every bit of the project. Doing so helps you to step up your game, inspire creativity, and relaxes your mind. There is nothing creative and innovative you cannot do in a photo essay with a let loose sort of spirit.

12. Set the scene

When telling a story through photography, you are equally writing your story. Therefore, ensure that you set a scene to capture the moment that appeals to your audience.

For the events that you have no control over, try as much as possible to take photos that match your narrative or theme.

13. Experiment more when taking photos

There is no single bullet to creating an outstanding photo essay. To achieve perfection, let your photo essay express your story in the best way it can. Therefore, you need to test filter effects, use fonts, adjust the visuals, check the contrast, adjust color, hue, and feel, and crop your photos well. With experimentation comes creativity and innovativeness, which birth perfection.

Classification of Photo Essays

In terms of classification, there are two general classes of photo essays where all the genres of photo essays fall. These classes are narrative and thematic.

1. Narrative Photo Essays

A narrative photo essay, as the name suggests, tells a specific story. But, mainly, these types of photo essays tend to tell a peculiar and more direct story.

Unlike thematic photo essays, narrative photo essays give less freedom to the photo essayist. The use of text is to have some sense of completion to the story.

For instance, the 28 Days in Afghanistan by Andrew Quilty published in the SBS is a narrative photo essay that documents the photographer’s experience in the war-torn nation using both text and unadulterated photos.

The picture essay by photojournalist Stefanie Glinski titled  One Month in Kabul Under Taliban rule – a photo essay also falls under this category as it highlights her one-month encounter in Kabul.

2. Thematic photo Essays

Thematic photo essays are topic-specific. For example, they can be on politics, pollution, police brutality, global pandemic, poverty, crime, etc.

You have the freedom of choosing the subjects, location, and you do not necessarily have to incorporate text.

An example of a thematic photo essay is the “ They call us bewitched ” picture essay published in the Guardian. We also bumped into the Olympics Photos: Emotion runs high by the NBC News, which we find as an excellent thematic photo essay. Next, look at this Hurricane Katrina photo essay. It is thematic in the sense that it focuses on a natural disaster. Finally, if you want more examples, this photo essay titled “ From Trayvon Martin to Colin Kaepernick ” details the theme of Black Lives Matter/ police brutality.

Typical Photo Essay Examples/Genres to inspire your creativity

• The daily life photo essay – A Day-in-the-life photo essay tells a story about the day-to-day life of a given subject. It could be a lawyer, president, celebrity, farmer, industrialist, pope, student, etc. most of these photographic essays evoke emotions and help the audience enter into the subject's world.
• Transitioning through life photo essay – These are essays that detail photos of how people transform through life. It can be a photo of a celebrity, president, farmer, or famous person since they were young to date.
• Special events photo essays – As the name suggests, these are photo essays on special events, festivities, and occurrences. The events can be weddings, burials, art exhibitions, car shows, auction events, or celebrations. They have very elaborate and relatable background objects that connect to the main idea.
• Family photo essays – These can be photo essays on family members. You can include photos that show how the family has grown or detailing the family tree. They can also be family business photos that detail the leaders assigned roles to family businesses.
• Protest photo essays – These are thematic photo essays that detail how protests occurred and paint a clear picture of the theme of such protests as the Black Lives Matter protests. When creating a protest photo essay, you should have information about the particular protest. Focus on incidents and protests that occurred in history.
• Sports photo essays – Sports essays can be on sports events such as Olympics, Wimbledon, football leagues, or about sportsmen and women. For instance, the Skysports’ picture essay on Diego Maradona titled Diego Maradona: Images of a football Icon .
• Medical Photo Essays – Organizations such as WHO , Universities , or CDC have various examples of medical photo essays. These visual illustrations focus on medical research, medical practice, diseases, and medical breakthroughs.
• Scientific Photo Essays – Like medical essays, these photo essays detail scientific encounters, breakthroughs, inventions, etc.
• Celebrity photo essays – You can create a photo essay on a celebrity.
• Political photo essays are photo essays that capture and narrate political events, history, and news in a series of photographs and narratives. It could be about leftist and rightist politics or geopolitics as well as policy-making.
• War photo essays – Captures the critical and significant elements of conflict, war, and peace. There are many samples online.
• Timelapse photo essays – These are transformational photo essays that capture the changes of a subject through time. They might take longer to develop and can be on buildings, estates, cities, trees, or landscapes.
• Relationship photo essays – This photo essay genre captures the interaction between people, families, and loved ones. It is the most common assignment in journalism class. It offers an excellent chance to capture emotions like love, family, and friendship.
• Poverty photo essays – This genre of photo essays captures poverty from the standpoint of the subject. They can contain infrastructure, housing, amenities, food, water, etc. They are very emotional and can use narratives. They are the same as drought photo essays that capture how the drought has ravaged a geographic region of interest.
• City photo essays – These are photographic essays that capture a city's feel, life, and pleasures. They are thematic in nature and allow you to focus on specific areas, moods, and feeling that such places evoke.
• Education photo essays – Details issues in education. For instance, it can be a photo essay showing the disparity in access, challenges in education, or infrastructure in education. An example is The Many Faces of Learning, published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Another one is Embracing Education , published by the Lutheran World Federation.

As long as you can think of any topic, there is always a picture or photo essay genre where it can fall under. Remember, you can be asked to create a photo essay on a Word Document or PDF for class, which is where you get the chance to display your prowess and creativity.

Common Photo Essay Examples

Here are the famous photo essays that you can draw inspiration from:

• Various American Natural Sites by Ansel Adams
• “Everyday” by Noah Kalina
• “Signed, X” by Kate Ryan 
• “The Vietnam War” by Philip Jones Griffiths
• “The Great Depression” by Dorothea Lange

Structure/Anatomy of a Photo Essay

Here is a blueprint or skeleton of how a basic photo essay can look like

Introductory text/content

This is where you type the text that explains or introduces the photo essay to your audience.

Signature Image

This is the strongest image that has a visual impact on the story you are running. It should be an image that invites the viewers to your story to be interested in looking further. In simple terms, this is your window, attention grabber, or icon; make it count.

This is the picture of a key player or the main subject of your story. You must ensure that the foreground and background elements reinforce the theme or narrative.

Where the subject is caught in real moments, such as in environmental portraits, is reportedly more compelling. You can use a series of posed portraits as well.

Overall wider view

This is the photograph that gives the viewers a sense of the place or part of the place where the story happens. You use such images to create a scene. It can also be a series of detailed images bundled together to set the scene.

Here, you need to follow up with a photograph that explains the finer details. The photo can be abstract but eye-catching in the sense that it draws the attention of the audience. It should be an image that reveals to the audience some aspect that is otherwise missed in a wider shot. You are allowed to use series of small detail photos as a mosaic in one image .

When defining an action, look for a photograph that shows the main theme in your story. For instance, if it is a Black Lives Matter protest, focus on a photo that captures banners, police, and protesters.  Specifically, focus on the most poignant or dramatic images that capture people interacting with one another. You can as well capture gestures or moments that amplify the visual narrative you want to communicate.

Closing Photo and text

This is the powerful closing photograph that lets your audience ponder more about your visual narrative. You can follow it with a text highlighting the thoughts you want the audience to reason with as they come to the end of your photo essay.

Gradecrest is a professional writing service that provides original model papers. We offer personalized services along with research materials for assistance purposes only. All the materials from our website should be used with proper references. See our Terms of Use Page for proper details.

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How to Make a Photo Essay

Last Updated: September 27, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Heather Gallagher . Heather Gallagher is a Photojournalist & Photographer based in Austin, Texas. She runs her own photography studio named "Heather Gallagher Photography" which was voted Austin's Best Family Photographer and top 3 Birth Photographers in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Heather specializes in family Photojournalism and has over 15 years of experience documenting individuals, families, and businesses all over the world. Her clients include Delta Airlines, Oracle, Texas Monthly, and her work has been featured in The Washington Post and The Austin American Statesman. She is a member of the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers (IAPBP). There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 289,174 times.

Photo essays are an increasingly popular medium for journalists, bloggers, and advertisers alike. Whether you’re trying to show the emotional impact of a current news story or share your hobby with friends and family, images can capture your topic in a personal, emotional, and interesting way. Creating a photo essay can be as easy as choosing a topic, getting your images, and organizing the essay.

Things You Should Know

• Reflect long and hard on your topic, considering your audience, current events, and whether to go for a thematic or narrative approach.
• Create an outline, including your focus image, establishing shot, clincher, and other image details.
• When you finally take your photos, remember to take more photos than you think you need and don't be afraid to let the project change as you create it.

Finding Your Topic

• Offer a photo essay of your place of business as a training tool.
• Use a photo essay about your business as a sales or social tool by publishing it on your website or social media page.
• Create a how to photo essay to help others learn about your hobby, so they can take it up as well. [4] X Research source

• Thematic subjects are big ideas including things like local gun laws, at-risk youth, or welcoming home soldiers.
• Narrative essays can include a day in the life, how to tutorials, or progression series that show changes over time such as tracking a building project.
• If you have been given a commission or specific publication to work with, you may need to choose a topic that will fit a thematic or narrative approach as outlined by the publication. Make sure you are aware of any publication guidelines in advance.

Organizing Your Shoot

• Consider how difficult it will be to get permission to photograph your subjects. If you already have relationships established, it will be easier. If not, allow for extra time to get permission and/or waivers.
• Schools, daycares, and other places with kids typically have more regulations on who can be photographed and for what purposes. You’ll usually need to get parental approval, in addition to permission from those in charge. [7] X Research source

• Consider doing interviews with people involved prior to the shoot. Ask things like, “What’s the most interesting thing you do during this event?” or “How long have you been involved with this organization?”
• These interviews are also a great opportunity to ask for permission and get waivers.
• If you’re going to visit a job site, charitable event, or other large group activity, ask the person or persons in charge to explain what you’re doing to everyone before you arrive. [8] X Research source

Capturing Your Images

• Many new photographers stay away from high ISO shots because they allow more light through producing a “busy” image. However, these images are often easier to edit later as there’s more information to work with. [11] X Research source
• If it’s very bright in your location or you’ve set up artificial lighting, a low ISO is likely adequate, For darker areas, you’ll likely need to use a higher ISO.
• If you need one second to capture an image with a base ISO of 100, you’ll need one eighth of a second to capture with an ISO of 800. [13] X Research source

• Even snapping candid shots, which you may need to capture quickly, take a few moments to think about how objects are placed to make the most impact.
• Always think about how the main subject’s surroundings play into the overall image, and try to create different levels and points of interest.
• You can change composition as part of the editing process in some cases, so if you can’t line up the shot just right, don’t let it deter you from capturing the image you want. [14] X Research source

Organizing the Essay

• If you’re doing a day in the life photo essay about a frustrated person working in an office, an image of that person struggling to open the front door against the wind might be an apt focus shot.
• If your essay is about the process of building a home, your focus image may be something like a contractor and architect looking at blue prints with the framed up home in the background.
• If your essay is about a family reunion, the focus image may be a funny shot of the whole family making faces, pretending to be fighting, or a serious photo of the family posed together. Capture whatever seems natural for the family. [18] X Research source

• Regardless of essay type, you’ll need a focus image to grab attention.
• Use an overall shot to give context to your essay. Where is it, when is it happening, who’s involved, what’s going on, and why should someone be interested? The five “W’s” of journalism are a great way to determine what your overall shot should capture.
• Find your final image. This should be something provocative that asks your viewer to think about the topic.
• Between the focus and overall shot and ending image, include a series of images that move the viewer from the lead-in shots to its result. Use images that build in intensity or draw the viewers further into the essay.

• If the images aren’t telling the story, ask your friends to look at your other photos and ask, “I wanted this image to make this point. You got a different idea. Would any of these images make this point to you more clearly?”
• If the others like the images you’ve chosen, you may still want to ask them to look at your other photos and tell you if they think any of the images you didn’t include should be added in. They may see something you missed. [20] X Research source

• If you're commissioned to add photos to an essay, you should make sure images reflect the written word, but also add emotion and context the writing could not capture. For example, an essay on poverty may include an image of a child and parent living on the street could capture more emotional context.
• Captions should only include information the viewer could not derive from the photo itself. For instance, you can include a date, the subject’s name, or a statistic relevant to your subject in the caption.
• If you choose not to have any text or just a title and some introductory and/or closing words, make sure you convey all necessary information succinctly. [21] X Research source

Expert Q&A

• Be creative with your topics. However, something as simple as "things I like" will suffice so long as you stay creative. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Make sure you're familiar with your camera. It will make the photo composition a lot easier. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Don't get discouraged. It may take several tries to get the desired results in your photos. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://digital-photography-school.com/5-photo-essay-tips/
• ↑ Heather Gallagher. Professional Photojournalist & Photographer. Expert Interview. 8 April 2020.
• ↑ http://improvephotography.com/30816/10-ideas-creative-photo-essays/
• ↑ http://www.apogeephoto.com/how-to-create-a-photo-essay/
• ↑ https://petapixel.com/how-to-create-a-photo-essay/
• ↑ http://photo.journalism.cuny.edu/week-5/
• ↑ http://clickitupanotch.com/2010/12/creating-a-photo-essay/
• ↑ https://photographylife.com/what-is-iso-in-photography
• ↑ https://wiredimpact.com/blog/how-to-make-a-photo-essay-nonprofit/
• ↑ http://digital-photography-school.com/5-tips-for-creating-a-photo-essay-with-a-purpose/
• ↑ https://www.format.com/magazine/resources/photography/how-to-make-photo-essay-examples

About This Article

To make a photo essay, start by selecting a subject that is easy to capture and that inspires you, like a friend or a family pet. Then, decide if you want to present your photo essay as thematic, which shows specific examples of a big idea, or narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end. Next, create an outline of your essay to determine which photos you’ll need, like an establishing shot. Finally, take your photos, select which images you want to use in your essay, and organize them according to your theme before adding text to explain the essay. To learn how to capture the best images, keep scrolling! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Narrative Photo Essays with Models and Sets

A course by samuka marinho , photographer, illustrator, and editor.

Learn to use lighting, props, and characters in your photoshoots to tell inspiring stories with your camera

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It's been said time and again that an image is worth a thousand words. So can you imagine the visual impact of a project that compiles a series of them? Samuka Marinho is an illustrator, photographer, photo editor, and the creator of Corsários , a 192-page photographic narrative that tells the story of the so-called Golden Age of Piracy with more than 400 richly crafted scenes.

In this online course, learn to develop a visual narrative alongside Samuka, who walks you through the entire process involved in creating a photo essay that tells a powerful story, from the initial idea to the final editing in Adobe Photoshop. Combine images and words to depict original and captivating stories!

What will you learn in this online course?

14 lessons & 21 downloads

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What is this course's project?

Create your own narrative photo essay or photo novel.

Who is this online course for?

Photographers, visual artists, and anyone interested in venturing out into the world of narrative photography.

Requirements and materials

Basic knowledge of photography is recommended for this course.

As for materials, you need a DSLR camera capable of shooting in RAW mode, two or more flash devices, light modifiers, a tripod, colored cellophane sheets, and a computer with Adobe Photoshop installed.

Curso espetacular e inspirador.

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Excellent et très inspirant. Merci.

Very knowledgeable and inspiring presenter. I have found many new artists to study and take inspiration from after watching this course. Enjoyable and well paced course. This is already helping me to improve my personal projects.

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Excelente curso

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Samuka Marinho A course by Samuka Marinho

Samuka Marinho is an illustrator, photographer, and photo editor whose work has been featured on book and album covers, exhibited in galleries, and included in specialized publications. He has also collaborated on advertising campaigns awarded with the Cannes Gold Lion. But his most ambitious project to date is Corsários , a 192-page photographic narrative depicting the so-called Golden Age of Piracy in over 400 carefully crafted scenes.

Introduction

Pre-production.

• Project "Corsairs"
• From text to image
• Taking off paper
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Final project

What to expect from a domestika course, learn at your own pace.

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Domestika's courses are online classes that provide you with the tools and skills you need to complete a specific project. Every step of the project combines video lessons with complementary instructional material, so you can learn by doing. Domestika's courses also allow you to share your own projects with the teacher and with other students, creating a dynamic course community.

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What is a Good Narrative Photo Essay?

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Early photographers quickly realized that an image could be worth 1,000 words - and in some cases many more. Words evoke a largely intellectual response from those who read them, but images can produce intense emotional reactions. A good photojournalist harnesses this potential to confront viewers with the reality of pain, injustice or whatever his or her story incorporates. Indeed a successful and factual photo essay has the potential to bring about social change, provoke lawmakers in to changing laws, and even end wars.

An effective and successful essay produces an emotional reaction in the majority of viewers. It may cause them to laugh, feel sad, angry or even walk away in tears. Such reactions are evidence of an author's success. Viewers who walk away unmoved feed back a much less positive message about the success of the work. The best photo essays, like good books and music, tend to stand the test of time. They are still around after countless years, often because the message they convey continues to be relevant even though the events portrayed have long since passed in to history.

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More From Forbes

101 famous authors and greatest writers of all time.

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Illustration of William Shakespeare.

Writers have always had the ability to shift paradigms, define eras and impact a broader society with their craft. From the philosophical musings of Plato, particularly those featuring Socrates’ thoughtful dialogues, to the classic wisdom of Aesop, who influenced fables and storytelling for generations, the art of writing has the unique power to outlive time and space, impacting readers across generations and geographies. Thanks to the masterminds putting ink to paper to tell some of the most powerful stories of human time, we are able to see the world with new eyes and find perspective and solace in our shared human experiences. In this list, I have compiled the works of the 101 greatest authors and writers of all time, celebrating their unique contributions to literature and their mastery of the written word. This list was compiled with the assistance of several librarians at Herrick Library in Holland, Michigan. A fun fact is that Holland, Michigan, partly inspired Lyman Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz .

Top Authors

The authors on this list represent a variety of time periods, capturing the evolution of storytelling and its form, from ancient to modern times. This list does not just cover fictional characters and experiences; it points to the insight of these wordsmiths, whose ideas have traveled through time and continue to challenge, disrupt and reform. Although this list spans millennia of written history, including ancient figures like Homer, classical authors like Virgil and Renaissance luminaries like William Shakespeare, modern fan-favorites like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King also made the list. Whether you are a fan of poetry, mystery, horror, romantic fiction, memoirs or autobiographies, there is a writer for every type of reader on this list of the 101 greatest authors of all time.

101. John Grisham (1955- )

John Grisham in Torino, Italy, May 2007.

American writer John Grisham is an Arkansas-born author best known for transposing his legal knowledge into written form. Before his writing career took off, Grisham practiced law for nearly a decade, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation, which gave him real-life experiences that would later inform the legal axioms in his written work. His pivot from a small-town lawyer to one of the world’s most popular novelists is as fascinating as the plots of his legal thrillers, but did not come without persistence. Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill was inspired by a real case he witnessed in a Mississippi courtroom and it would become a moment that would be a turning point in his career. The novel examined the racial tensions and justice in the American South and also analyzed themes of revenge, morality and the complex nature of the justice system. Although A Time to Kill was rejected by 28 publishers, Grisham persisted in writing and that grit paid off, leading to a well-respected career that has redefined the genre of legal fiction. Among Grisham’s most influential works are The Firm; The Pelican Brief, a political-legal thriller involving the murders of two Supreme Court justices; and The Runaway Jury . Grisham’s works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “Critics should find meaningful work.” ― John Grisham

100. Danielle Steel (1947- )

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Author Danielle Steel poses for a portrait in 1997 in Los Angeles.

Born in 1947 in New York City, Danielle Steel grew up between France and the United States, where she began writing short stories and poetry as a young girl. Although Steel attended New York University for Literature and Design, she began her writing career in the 1970s, and published her first novel, Going Home , in 1973. Shortly after, her novels quickly gained massive public interest. With over 800 million copies of her books sold, Steel’s writing is characterized by its romantic depth, vivid characterizations and complicated family relationships. Her most acclaimed novels like The Gift , Kaleidoscope and Sisters, often include themes of romance, passion, loss, resilience and redemption. Steel is one of the best-selling authors of all time and in 1989, she earned a Guinness World Record for having a book on The New York Times bestsellers list for 381 consecutive weeks. Despite her commercial success, many readers don’t know that Steel still writes with a manual typewriter, a practice she finds creatively fulfilling and grounding. Although her work primarily consists of novels, she has also written poetry and children’s books. Her books are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote : “No man can take your freedom from you. They can limit your mobility, but that's about all they can do.” ― Danielle Steel .

99. Sidney Sheldon (1917-2007)

Writer Sidney Sheldon poses for a photograph during a book signing for "The Sky Is Falling" at a ... [+] Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Sidney Sheldon was born in Chicago, but began his career in Hollywood, where he initially worked on scripts for B-movies and later moved on to Broadway musicals. Although Sheldon achieved massive success in Hollywood, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer in 1947​, the script would become just one of many success stories for Sheldon. He also attained success with numerous other successful films and television shows including The Patty Duke Show , I Dream of Jeannie and Hart to Hart . After a successful stint in show business, Sheldon started writing books in the 1960s and his first novel, The Naked Face , was published in 1970 and earned him a nomination for the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel. His novels, often featuring ambitious female protagonists, are known for their suspenseful and dramatic storylines. Some of his most celebrated written works include The Other Side of Midnight , Master of the Game and If Tomorrow Comes . Sheldon is also the only writer to have won an Oscar, a Tony, and an Edgar in his lifetime. His works are available at HarperCollins Publishers .

Famous Quote: “Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what is going to happen until you turn the page.”― Sidney Sheldon .

98. Mary Augusta Ward (1851-1920)

Mrs Humphrey Ward (1851 - 1920) born Mary Augusta Arnold.

Mary Augusta Ward was a prominent British novelist and social activist whose pen name was Mrs. Humphry Ward. Her novel Robert Elsmere opened up a lot of public discussion about Christianity in Victorian society and all of its nuances. Ward was known for her deep reflection and engagement with contemporary social issues and even earned a nod of approval from Leo Toltsoy, who praised Ward for being the greatest English novelist of her time. Despite her success as a writer, Ward also advocated for education reform and founded the Passmore Edwards Settlement, a center that was founded to enrich the lives of working-class adults on evenings and weekends and to offer after-school recreation and instruction to poor children while their parents were still at work. Ward was also well-known for her stance against the Women's Suffrage Movement because she was concerned that emancipation would dilute the moral influence of women. This led her to establish the Anti-Suffrage League in 1908. The Australia-born novelist became a best-selling author and also achieved success with other books like D avid Grieve , Sir George Tressady and Helbeck of Bannisdale . Her works are available at The Kelmscott Book Shop .

Famous Quote: “Truth has never been, can never be, contained in any one creed or system.” — Mary Augusta Ward .

97. Dr. Seuss (1904-1991)

Children's book author/illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel poses with models of some of the characters ... [+] he has created.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, was a La Jolla, California-born children’s author, humorist, political cartoonist and illustrator whose work has become the hallmark of children’s books. For years, his comical and highly imaginative books have created an opportunity for children to maintain their child-like wonder, while ushering an opportunity for them to experience real-life situations. Books like Oh,The Places You’ll Go!, The Cat in the Hat , Green Eggs and Ham and How the Grinch Stole Christma s! have become staples of children’s literature, establishing a permanence and formula that is impossible to duplicate. Dr. Seuss’s playful language and memorable characters have had a lasting impact on young readers and innovative use of alliteration, rhyme and rhythm has not only entertained children but also helped them develop early literacy skills. Dr. Seuss’s books are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”― Dr. Seuss .

96. Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)

Laura Ingalls Wilder autographing a book.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, born in Pepin, Wisconsin, was an American author best known for her Little House series of children’s books. These semi-autobiographical novels loosely mirrored her childhood growing up in a pioneer family, and offered a lucid portrayal of life on the American frontier in the late 19th century. At 15 years old, Wilder began to teach, and that ushered her into writing and editing years later. She started out writing for McCall’s Magazine and Country Gentleman and she later served as the poultry editor for the St. Louis Star before becoming a home editor for the Missouri Ruralist . In her fictional writing, Wilder’s simple, yet detailed and engaging storytelling has compelled readers for years, providing an intimate look at the simplicity, hardships and joys of pioneer life. Her timeless stories of adventure, family, and perseverance continue to inspire fans of her work and remind them of the values of courage, honesty and simplicity. Wilder also wrote essays, short stories, letters and poetry. Her works are available at HarperCollins Publishers .

Famous Quote: “I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” — Laura Ingalls Wilder .

95. John Bunyan (1628-1688)

Portrait of English preacher and writer John Bunyan.

John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most important works in religious English literature. The Bedfordshire, England-born author, who would go on to become one of the most well-known religious writers of all time had his own fair share of suffering, much of which informed his outlook on faith and religion. Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was written while he was imprisoned for preaching without a license. For centuries, the famous Puritan-themed book has inspired readers with its acute spiritual insight and vivid storytelling. In fact, Bunyan’s accessible and striking storytelling has ensured the book’s place as a classic, offering moral and spiritual guidance across generations. At one point The Pilgrim’s Progress was considered the second most influential religious book after the Bible . Apart from The Pilgrim’s Progress , Bunyan also wrote his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding while he was imprisoned for 12 years. The account detailed his personal journey of faith, struggles with doubt, and a spiritual triumph which provided some insight into his personal life. Bunyan’s works are available at Moody Publishers .

Famous Quote: “In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. ”― John Bunyan .

94. Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832-1898)

British mathematician, author and photographer Charles Lutwidge Dogson (1832 - 1898), who wrote ... [+] several books under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll.

Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , was also a mathematician and logician, whose obsession with logic influenced his career. Carroll’s interest in logic and wordplay had a major impact in his formulaic approach to writing, making his works rich in both imaginative and intellectual content. Born in Chesire, England, the skilled mathematician had an innate skill when it came to weaving complicated mind puzzles and otherworldly narrative elements together to create fascinating stories, and this is primarily what makes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a captivating and often mind-bending read. Apart from writing novels, Carroll was also a poet and photographer, whose other notable works include Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark . Carroll’s timeless appeal can be attributed to his ability to reconcile the interplay between reality and fantasy, coupled with logic and nonsense. His works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”― Lewis Carroll .

93. Saint Mark the Evangelist (A.D. 12-A.D. 68)

Saint Mark the Evangelist, circa 1624-1625.

The Evangelist Mark was the author of The Gospel of Mark, the second book of the New Testament. His account is often considered to be the earliest and pithiest account of Jesus life and teachings. Mark, who was born in Cyrene of the Roman Empire, never met Jesus, but his concise and poignant storytelling about Christ has had a lasting impact on Christian theology for centuries. Written with a sense of immediacy and urgency, the Gospel of Mark captures the core of Jesus’ ministry, highlighting his miracles, parables, and the weighty sense of mission that defined his journey on earth. Mark’s writing style, while simple and unadorned, is poignant and relatable, making it accessible to a broad audience. The gospel’s influence has extended beyond religious circles and influenced Western literature, art and broader socio-cultural perceptions and interpretations of who Jesus was. His work is available at Bible Gateway .

Famous Quote : “Do not become a disciple of one who praises himself, in case you learn pride instead of humility.” — Saint Mark the Evangelist .

92. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)

Portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, born in London, England, is best known for her seminal book Frankenstein, which shattered literary boundaries and blurred the lines between gothic storytelling and science fiction. Shelley completed her first draft of Frankenstein in 1816 at only 18 years old, but it was published anonymously two years later, when she was 20. The novel is considered one of the earliest examples of science fiction because it explores creation, ambition and the ethical limits of scientific inquiry. Shelley’s imaginative vision and profound questions about the ethical roles that humans play in the world are ones that have continued to be explored by new and up-and-coming writers and thinkers. Her ability to integrate Gothic horror with philosophical questioning also made her an unforgettable figure. Her other notable work is The Modern Prometheus and her books are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” — Mary Shelley .

91. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish clergyman, satirist and poet.

Dublin-born Jonathan Swift is widely regarded as one of the greatest satirists in the English language. His works, which include the critically acclaimed Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal , were the highlights of his sharp wit, keen intellect and understanding of human nature and psychology. Swift’s writing conveyed a brilliant ability to combine biting satire with insightful social commentary to create meaningful stories that would remain classic historical relics long after his death in 1745. Swift was also involved in the political and social issues of his time. As a cleric, he held several leadership positions in the Church of Ireland, including his position as Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. His political pamphlets and essays, such as The Drapier’s Letters , played a crucial role in the Irish resistance to English economic policies. Swift’s works were not limited to prose; he was also an accomplished poet and essayist whose poems like A Description of a City Shower , proved his ability to merge satire with vivid imagery. Swift also wrote essays, and some of his work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” ― Jonathan Swift .

90. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

Still portrait of Hans Christian Andersen.

Born in Odense, Denmark, Hans Christian Andersen rose from a poor background to become one of the most recognized authors of all time, whose fairy tales have enchanted children and adults alike for generations. Although he struggled early in his career, his work eventually gained recognition for its imaginative and whimsical storytelling. Andersen created memorable stories by using simplicity and charm to teach moral lessons and his fairy tales often explored themes of resilience, kindness and the triumph of good. Some of his most iconic creations include The Little Mermaid , The Ugly Duckling , The Emperor’s New Clothes and Thumbelina . Some say that glimpses of Andersen’s childhood could be found in most of his written work, and for centuries, his immortal stories have been translated into numerous languages and adapted into various forms, including ballets, plays and films. Readers of all ages, have found his work magnetic, stretching his legacy as a master storyteller from one generation of readers, old and young, to the next. Andersen’s works can be purchased from Penguin Random House.

Famous quote: “But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”― Hans Christian Andersen .

89. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Portrait of American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Massachusetts, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who was one of the most influential American thinkers of the 19th century. Emerson who was fondly called by his middle name, Waldo, was a visionary essayist, lecturer, philosopher, poet and ardent abolitionist whose intellectual leadership inspired the Transcendentalist movement and advocated for the inherent goodness of people and nature. This advocacy was so powerful that it flowed into his written work and made him stand out as a great writer, public speaker and advocate. Besides writing, Emerson used his skills as a public speaker to condemn slavery and advocate for civil right and liberty. Some of his best written works include Self-Reliance , The Over-Soul , Circles and Nature . Some of his works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson .

88. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Writer Henry David Thoreau poses for a portrait in circa 1860.

Henry David Thoreau, born in Concord, Massachusetts, was an American naturalist, essayist, poet and philosopher whose works have continued to be studied in schools and institutions of higher education for their emphasis on American and environmental thought. Like his close friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau also became a central figure in the Transcendentalist movement, and his writings began to reflect his respect for nature, his advocacy for simple living, and his commitment to social reform and civil liberty. Thoreau's commitment to his principles was demonstrated when he was jailed for refusing to pay a poll tax, which he believed supported slavery and the Mexican-American War. This act of civil disobedience inspired his famous essay Civil Disobedience . In Civil Disobedience , originally titled Resistance to Civil Government , Thoreau argues for the importance of individual conscience and the moral necessity to resist unjust laws and government actions. His essay has influenced many notable figures and movements advocating for social justice and nonviolent resistance. Thoreau’s best works include Walden, a series of 18 essays, Civil Disobedience and Walking. Some of his work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”— Henry David Thoreau .

87. Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Portrait of Louisa May Alcott.

Because Louisa May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, was a Transcendentalist, she grew up in the company of well-known transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Thoreau, all of whom also happened to be excellent writers. In fact, Thoreau inspired quite a bit of Alcott’s work, and was one of the driving forces behind her desire to write. Although Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, she lived most of her life in Massachusetts, and that location would inspire her work. Among some of her notable books are Little Women, which was a self-directed book about her experiences growing up with her sisters and their childhood memories. Other notable books from Alcott include Good Wives and Little Men. An avid writer , Alcott also thrived in the short story form, and her success as an author afforded her the opportunity to also become a Transcendentalist and advocate for women’s rights. Her works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” — Louisa May Alcott .

86. J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger was born in New York City, so he knew a thing or two about good storytelling. His critically-acclaimed novel The Catcher in the Rye is considered the magnum opus of his career, and is a detailed and sincere account that explores the angst and alienation that can often come with adolescence. Before becoming a famous wrier, Salinger briefly attended New York University and Columbia University, and he served in World War II, where he participated in the D-Day invasion and witnessed the liberation of concentration camps. These experiences influenced his writing, adding depth to his portrayal of human emotions and relationships and during his time serving, Salinger wrote more than 20 short stories, which helped him to segue into full-time writing. His short stories published in magazines like The New Yorker and introduced readers to his tone. Throughout his years as an author , Salinger’s signature colloquial tone and careful analysis of the characters in his stories always guided his plots. His written work is available at Hachette Book Group .

Famous quote: “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” ― J.D. Salinger .

85. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

British writer and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his garden.

British writer and physician Arthur Conan Doyle, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, became known for his iconic creation of the detective Sherlock Holmes, a mystery book character who has become synonymous with stealth. Doyle was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine; he offered his medical services during the South African War and detailed his experience in his non-fiction book, The Great Boer War . Doyle’s writing, characterized by a keen attention to detail and deliberate plotting, made a lasting impact on detective-themed storytelling and secured Sherlock Holmes as a blueprint for the detective-mystery genre. Even though he created the highly logical and skeptical detective Sherlock Holmes, Doyle was a firm believer in spiritualism and became one of the leaders of the spiritualist movement following the First World War. His book The History of Spiritualism further examined the topic through a variety of essays. Apart from his detective stories, Doyle also wrote historical novels , science fiction, plays and fantasy. His works are available at Harrington Books Co .

Famous quote: “You see, but you do not observe.” — Arthur Conan Doyle .

84. Sylvia Plath ( 1932-1963)

Sylvia Plath seated in front of a bookshelf.

Sylvia Plath was an American poet and novelist known for her confessional style of writing. That confessional writing style became more widely recognized during the 1950s and 1960s, with Plath being one of its leading figures alongside poets like Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton​. Born in Boston, Plath’s work was unique for its intensity and focus on mental illness. Very often, Plath’s state of mind was expressed through her writings, and some of her best-known works include the poetry collection Ariel, Daddy, Lady Lazarus and The Bell Jar, which mirrored her own struggles with depression . Plath’s The Collected Poems , which included previously unpublished works, was posthumously published in 1981, and she received a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for the collection in 1982, making her the fourth person to receive the recognition posthumously at the time. Her works are available at HarperColins Publishers .

Famous Quote: “If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”― Sylvia Plath .

83. Roald Dahl (1916-1990)

Closeup candid portrait of writer Roald Dahl waving a cigarette while talking at home.

Roald Dahl’s zany and often times dark children’s books , like Matilda , Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach , have been fan favorites for decades. This is partly thanks to the Wales-born writer’s penchant for the otherworldly and adventurous. Dahl, who often had views that were deemed controversial, tapped into a wide range of emotions and subjects in his works. Almost every visual adaptation of a Dahl-inspired storyline has the same element of strangeness, with larger-than-life protagonists who have a lopsided, loopy way about them. Dahl’s past as a fighter pilot in World War II and his role as a spy for the British government also partly inspired his adventurous approach to writing stories. Although he was well-known for children’s books, Dahl wasn’t just about entertaining children. His grisly-themed short stories for adults also explored the darker sides of human nature, and highlighted his versatility as a writer. Even after his death, fans remember his work for the way he reconciled the fantastical with the sinister, which has made him a notable name in history. In 2021, Forbes ranked Dahl as one of the top-earning dead celebrities, and with over 300 million copies of his works sold worldwide, Dahl’s work continues to impact literature. They are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”― Roald Dahl .

82. Zadie Smith (1975- )

Zadie Smith at the Cliveden Literary Festival in Windsor, England.

London-born Zadie Smith is a critically acclaimed British novelist, essayist, professor and avid reader known for her vibrant, multi-layered story structures and careful explorations of race, identity and multiculturalism. Her debut novel White Teeth caught the attention of many critics who appreciated her take on multiculturalism and identity in modern Britain and beyond. Smith’s character development in her debut book was so excellent that it prompted critics to call her a modern-day Charles Dickens. Over the course of her career, Smith’s unique insight into sensitive issues like race, identity and religion have made her a well-respected figure of the 21st century. Her intelligent analysis of the diverse, multicultural experience of life in London and beyond it has helped to frame her as a leading voice in contemporary fiction. In spite of this, Smith has developed a rather pragmatic approach to writing, arguing that the art form should not be a division of head and heart, but the useful integration of both. Other notable works from Smith include On Beauty, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays and Feel Free. Her work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.”― Zadie Smith .

81. Aesop (620 B.C.-564 B.C.)

A bust of slave and story-teller Aesop (620 - 560 BC), who lived in ancient Greece and is known for ... [+] the genre of fables ascribed to him, circa 550 B.C.

Fables have been a crucial part of human storytelling for millennia, and that is partly because one of the most revered fabulists, Aesop, who is responsible for some of the most popular fables in history. The fabled ancient Greek fabulist and storyteller is known for his collection of fables, known as Aesop’s Fables , which include stories like The Tortoise and the Hare and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, which symbolize evergreen moral lessons through simple and memorable stories that have been passed on from one generation to the next. Aesop’s stories have become a cornerstone in children’s literature because of their pithy and wise observations of human nature, often featuring animals as characters with human traits and vices. These timeless stories have been translated into numerous languages and adapted into various cultural contexts, influencing folklore and storytelling traditions worldwide. While much about Aesop’s life is a mystery, his stories have had a lasting effect on Western culture and education. Aesop’s work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.”― Aesop .

80. Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994)

Novelist Ralph Ellison poses for a portrait in Harlem, New York City.

Born in Oklahoma City, Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote in a way that was notable for its rich, symbolic and honest accounts of race and individuality in America. At the start of his career, Ellison moved to New York City in 1936 and lived in Harlem, hoping to be able to study sculpture. It was there that he would meet Langston Hughes, Harlem’s “unofficial diplomat” during the Depression era, and a well-respected author at the time. While in Harlem, Ellison also met influential people like Romare Bearden and Richard Wright, all of whom would become impactful in his life as an author. After serving in World War II, Ellison produced Invisible Man , which won the 1953 National Book Award for Fiction. The book was particularly celebrated for its complex storyline and thematic content​. Although he became well-known for his novel, his compiled essays and his work as a sculptor, musician, photographer and college professor earned him accolades and recognition as well. Ellison’s compiled essays included collections like Shadow and Act and Going to the Territory . Other works by Ellison include Flying Home and Other Stories and Juneteenth, which were posthumously published . Ellison’s work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.”― Ralph Ellison .

79. Isabel Allende (1942- )

Isabel Allende photographed in her home on February 12, 1990 in San Rafael, California.

Isabel Allende is a Lima, Peru-born author who is famous for books that mostly contain strong elements of magical realism. Her storytelling style tends to incorporate the personal with the historical, bringing Latin American culture and history to life. Some of Allende’s most famous books include City of the Beasts , The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna . Allende spent much of her childhood in Chile and various other countries because of her stepfather’s diplomatic career. Allende continues to write and has earned the respect of critics for her apt imagination and restless ambition to keep creating stories that refine wat magic realism represents. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the National Literature Prize of Chile, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement, among others. Her books can be found at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “Magical realism is a genre of literature that depicts the real world as having an undercurrent of magic or fantasy.” — Isabel Allende .

78. Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

Jorge Luis Borges at the Sorbonne university in Paris, France In 1978.

Jorge Luis Borges was an imaginative poet, essayist and short story writer who skillfully crafted a career by creating complex and imaginative plots that are defined by labyrinths, mirrors and infinite libraries. The Argentina-born author has become a 20th century icon for his effective storytelling and unprecedented ability to concoct the boundaries of reality and fiction to create stories that intrigue and fascinate. As a writer, Borges has created an extensive body of work that has left its imprint on literature, primarily short stories and essays that have been drawn from the inspiration of Buenos Aires. Some of his best known works are The Library of Babel and Fictions . His work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges .

77. John Milton ( 1608-1674)

Engraved portrait of British poet and politician John Milton (1608 - 1674), mid 17th century.

English historian, poet and pamphleteer John Milton is considered one of the most important figures in British literature. Milton’s reputation as a great is partly because his work spanned various genres, including prose and poetry, which has offered every type of reader a plethora of options to choose from. Milton’ s Paradise Lost , published in 1667, is widely regarded as his magnum opus, consisting of ten books that were later expanded to twelve in the 1674 edition. Even though he was blind in both eyes when he created Paradise Lost , his ability to compose such complex and detailed work is a testament to his intellectual acumen. Milton was often unafraid to share his thoughts on tyrannical leadership and the state of religion, and that is primarily what made him an unforgettable writer. Other notable works from Milton include Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. His works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” — John Milton .

76. Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison photographed in New York City in 1979.

Born in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison was a Nobel Prize-winning author whose work took readers on a deep exploration of the Black experience. Her critically acclaimed novels, such as the Pulitzer-prize winning Beloved , evocative Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye , are honored for their poetic prose and immense emotional and cultural impact. Morrison wasn’t just a writer; she was a thought leader whose ideas remain relevant to today. Like James Baldwin, her criticism of unjust society has remained a cornerstone for conversations around race and class. In addition to novels, she wrote essays, children’s books, articles and plays that showcased her genius as a writer. Her works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “The function of freedom is to free someone else.” — Toni Morrison .

75. Henry James (1843-1916)

American novelist Henry James in his study.

Henry James, born in New York City, was an American-British author known for his contributions to the 20th-century novel as well as literary realism and modernism. His writing focused on his beliefs concerning the innocence and exuberance of the New World in contrast to the jadedness of the Old. His notable works include Daisy Miller , The Portrait of a Lady , The Turn of the Screw and The Wings of the Dove . James’s writing often explored the complicated nature of the human mind and social reform and revolutions, as well as social consciousness. During his time, James was regarded as a brilliant short story writer whose work frequently appeared in magazines. James also wrote poems and memoirs. His work is available at the Library of America .

Famous quote: “Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost.” — Henry James .

74. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Still image of D.H. Lawrence.

David Herbert Lawrence, born in Eastwood, England, was a novelist, poet and essayist known for his controversial and unconventional storytelling, which inevitably made him one of the most influential writers in the early 20th century. His novels emphasized multiple themes, including vivid realism, sexuality and complex family dynamics. During his time, Lawrence had an uncanny ability to vividly describe human emotions and states of mind, which were both compelling and relatable to readers. Some of his best-known books include Sons and Lovers and Women in Love. The English author also wrote short stories, plays, travel books and letters. Some of his work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.” — D.H. Lawrence .

73. Wole Soyinka (1934- )

Wole Soyinka circa 1986.

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, political activist, poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, becoming the first African laureate to do so. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, Soyinka grew up in an environment that was rich with the Nigerian Yoruba culture , which significantly influenced his work. He studied in Nigeria and the UK, where he attended the University of Leeds. Throughout his career, Soyinka has been a vocal critic of Nigerian dictatorships, which led to his imprisonment during the Nigerian Civil War and subsequent exile. Soyinka’s writing style is noted for its lyrical quality, which often weaves traditional African theater with Western literary forms. Some of his most influential works include Myth, Literature, and the African World; Death and the King’s Horseman ; the novel The Man Died: Prison Notes and the memoir Ake: The Years of Childhood . His works can be found at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress truth.”― Wole Soyinka .

72. Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)

Chinua Achebe.

Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, born in Ogidi, Nigeria, is considered an African icon and an ambassador for the Igbo tribe. To this day, Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is a cornerstone of modern African study and has been globally celebrated in scholarly circles for its vivid depiction of the clash between traditional African culture and colonial influences. Achebe’s work has been regarded as a central piece to modern African Literature and his lucid writing style, known for its syllogistic conjoinment of oratory, folk stories and Igbo proverbs has depicted the core of African societies. Achebe’s writing style has also been marked by its poetic, yet stark analogy of Nigerian culture and society but more specifically, the Nigerian Igbo culture. Achebe’s works extend beyond novels to essays, poetry and short stories. His books can be found at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.” — Chinua Achebe .

71. Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

English detective novelist, Agatha Christie typing at her home, Greenway House, Devon, England ... [+] January 1946.

English writer Agatha Christie was known for her prolific creation of detective novels and the iconic characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, who drove many of her stories. Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in 1890 in Torquay, England, Christie's journey from a privileged upbringing to becoming one of the best-selling authors of all time began while she was working as a nurse during World War I. Her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles , was published in 1920 and would become a stepping stone for an iconic repertoire. ​Most of Christie’s books have a similar formula that includes meticulous plotting, clever plot twists and engaging mysteries that are difficult to determine for readers until the very end of the story. With over two billion books sold worldwide, Christie’s influence on mystery is undeniable, and her works have been translated into numerous languages and adapted into various films, television series and stage plays. Some of Christie’s most influential works include Murder on the Orient Express , T he Murder of Roger Ackroyd , and And Then There Were None , which are celebrated for their complex plots and surprising resolutions. Christie’s books are available for purchase at HarperCollins Publishers

Famous quote: “A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. ― Agatha Christie .

70. Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Franz Kafka circa 1915.

Franz Kafka, born in Prague, was a German-speaking Bohemian writer who was known for his surreal and existential approach to telling stories. Kafka’s notable books include The Metamorphosis , Letter to His Father and The Castle . His stories were often filled with themes of alienation and absurdity and he often depicted his characters as alienated people facing systemic oppression and isolation. He was one of the most prominent writers to showcase the impact of societal shunning through the lens of the shunned. Although Kafka was a talented writer who spent long nights immersed in his craft, his struggles with constant self-doubt caused him to destroy 90% of his work and much of what survived remains lost or unpublished. Other Kafka words include Contemplation and A Country Doctor. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” — Franz Kafka .

69. J.K. Rowling (1965- )

J.K. Rowling attends the European premiere of "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them" at Odeon ... [+] Leicester Square on November 15, 2016 in London.

J.K. Rowling, born Joanne Rowling in Gloucestershire, England, is a British author best known for creating the globally beloved Harry Potter series. Her journey from a struggling single mother to one of the world’s most successful and influential writers is a remarkable one that has heightened the appeal of her success story. According to Rowling, she jotted down the initial idea for Harry Potter on a napkin while her train from Manchester to London was delayed for hours in 1990. According to the famous writer, she had a visceral reaction to the concept of the main character who would go on to define her career and this napkin became the starting point for her immensely popular series. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the U.S.) was published in 1997 after being rejected by numerous publishers. The book quickly became a success and has since expanded into a seven-volume series and sold over 600 million copies worldwide, inspiring a global billion-dollar media franchise. Many of Rowling fans consider Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to be the unofficial eighth book in the series. Although Rowling is well known for The Harry Potter series, other books in her repertoire are Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Tales of Beedle the Bard among others . Her books are available at Bloomsbury Publishing .

Famous Quote: “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” ― J.K. Rowling .

68. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

American poet Emily Dickinson.

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson is one of America’s most important lyric poets. Dickinson was known for her unconventional approach to painting a literary picture, and even her use of punctuation marks, which was reflected in an approach to the art form which critics often defined as concise and enigmatic, has established her as a unique and quintessential American poet. Dickinson’s poetry themes often explored death, immortality and nature. Her reclusive life was always ever-so-evident in her work, which is replete with short lines, slant rhyme and enigmatic language. Some of her famous works include I’m Nobody! Who are you?, Wild Nights – Wild Nights! and Because I could not stop for Death. Even though Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems during her lifetime, fewer than a dozen of her poems appeared in print while she was alive. Apart from writing, Dickinson was also an accomplished gardener who frequently drew inspiration for her poems from the natural world she carefully tended to. Her collected works are available at the Harvard Library .

Famous quote: “Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me—The Carriage held but just Ourselves –And Immortality.” — Emily Dickinson .

67. Mark Twain ( Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910)

Colorized portrait of American author and humorist Mark Twain, circa 1900.

American writer, humorist, educator and journalist Mark Twain has become a decades-long household name for his apt depiction of the spirit of adventure. Twain, who was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, is often called the “father of American literature.” Known for his quick wit and sharp social commentary, Twain’s impressive output includes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . Both of these books have served as a blueprint for high-spirited, adventure-loving children around the world. His works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice” — Mark Twain .

66. William Faulkner (1897-1962)

William Faulkner, circa 1935, on display at his Rowan Oak estate in Oxford, Mississippi.

Nobel Prize-winning American writer William Faulkner was well-known for his technical approach to writing and his ability to deep-dive into the human psyche with his stylistic prose. His famous novels, such as The Sound and the Fury , As I Lay Dying and Light in August, have become cornerstones of Southern Gothic literature. One distinct feature of Faulkner’s writing was his alternating exploration of thematic structure and stylistic creativity. Faulkner also wrote screenplays and short stories, and is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world... would do this, it would change the earth.”― William Faulkner .

65. T.S. Eliot (1888–1965)

T. S. Eliot inspecting manuscripts.

T.S. Eliot, born in St. Louis, was a leading playwright, poet and essayist of the 20th century. The English-American who became the leader of the modernist movement in poetry had an extensive body of work that included The Waste Land, his iconic play Murder in the Cathedral and his magnum opus Four Quartets, which are all renowned for their unorthodox, yet brilliant approach to storytelling. Eliot’s influence was palpable, so much so that in 1948, he earned a Nobel Prize for Literature. Beyond poetry, Eliot also wrote drama and was a literary critic. His work is available at Faber & Faber .

Famous quote: “Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute, there is time for decisions and revisions, which a minute will reverse.”― T.S. Eliot .

64. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

F. Scott Fitzgerald writing at a desk.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, born in St. Paul, was an American novelist, short story writer and Hollywood scriptwriter who became known for his vivid depiction of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald is not just a famous writer, but one that is crucial to the breadth and depth of American literature and the concept of the American Dream itself. His masterpiece, The Great Gatsby , is a profound critique of the American Dream and one of the most important novels about the American ideal. Fitzgerald’s writing was often characterized by lyrical prose and tragic characters, which have made his work timeless. Other notable Fitzgerald books include Tender Is the Night and This Side of Paradise . His works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald.

63. Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

French novelist Marcel Proust (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)

Marcel Proust, born in Auteuil, near Paris, France and he is best known for his crowing glory In Search of Lost Time ( À la Recherche du Temps Perdu ). The seven-volume series were published throughout his lifetime and even after his death, and they explored themes of memory, time and art with precise depth and elegance. Proust’s psychological insight has made his work a blueprint for modern writing. More specifically, his ability to capture the nuances of memory and the fleeting nature of time has made In Search of Lost Time a classic. The seven-part novel examines the story of Proust’s life, told as a quest to find truth and meaning. In the book, Proust wrote what was reported to be the longest sentence ever published, and holds the record for doing so at a whopping 847 words.​ Proust’s work introduced the concept of involuntary memory, which is often referred to as the “Proust Effect.” This concept describes how sensory experiences, like taste or smell, can prompt suppressed memories from the past. Other notable works by Proust include Swann’s Way ( Du Côté de Chez Swann ). Proust also wrote short stories, including Les Plaisirs et les Jours, and most of his works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”— Marcel Proust .

62. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

The French novelist Gustav Flaubert circa 1851.

Gustave Flaubert, renowned for his bourgeois-themed novel Madame Bovary , was a prominent author in the literary realism movement. It wasn’t just the themes of his work that distinguished him, but his obsessive attention to detail and pursuit of stylistic perfection which has set the high bar for other novelists, especially up-and-coming French writers. Flaubert’s candid portrayals of his characters made him a leading figure in the realist school of French literature and earned him the respect of his peers. Flaubert viewed writing as his life’s purpose, which is why he was able to create vivid characters and portray everyday life so poignantly. Although he was born in Rouen, France, Flaubert was an avid traveler who took the time to see the world outside of his comfort zone. His travel to countries like Egypt and Greece and the Middle East influenced his works, adding depth and authenticity to his descriptions, particularly in novels like Salammbô ​. Other well-known Flaubert pieces are Sentimental Education and Three Tales. His work is available at Simon& Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”― Gustav Flaubert .

61. Thomas Mann (1875-1955)

Portrait of German author Thomas Mann as he sits at his desk.

Thomas Mann was a German essayist and novelist best known for his novels Buddenbrooks , Der Tod in Venedig and Der Zauberberg, which contributed to earning him a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Mann’s first major novel, Buddenbrooks , was inspired by his personal experiences and his family’s background as merchants in Lübeck, Germany, where he was born. Buddenbrooks played a major role in earning him the Nobel Prize in Literature, but it was his other acclaimed work, The Magic Mountain, that would make him a household name. In The Magic Mountain, Mann highlighted complex themes of time, illness and death set against the backdrop of a Swiss sanatorium, which made the book a cultural touchstone and increased Mann’s critical acclaim. Notably, in his writings, Mann also critiqued the German government in many of his writings and was an outspoken critic of the Nazi regime. This led him to move to Switzerland in 1936 after he was exiled by Germany in 1933. He would later emigrate to the United States, where he lived until after World War II. His books are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.” ― Thomas Mann .

60. J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Image of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien in a library.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who is famously known as J. R. R. Tolkien, was a South-African-English author, poet, professor and philologist whose high-fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy became pivotal literary landmarks in his career. Tolkien’s richly constructed world of Middle-earth, complete with its own languages, histories and cultures, has had a lasting impact on the fantasy genre and pop culture. Tolkien’s imagination, as depicted through his use of mythology, detailed maps and complex characters, has set the bar high for world-building in literature. As a writer and creator, Tolkien’s expertise in language was especially evident in his invention of Elvish languages like Quenya and Sindarin, which reflected his academic background as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. His scholarly works, including his translations and studies of ancient texts such as "Beowulf," influenced his creative process and informed the depth of most of his fictional universe. Modern day filmmakers have used Tolkien’s work as a blueprint for bringing the lore of Middle-earth to the big screen. His creativity has inspired an array of adaptations, including animated films, live-action movies and numerous video games. Tolkein’s books are available at HarperCollins Publishers .

Famous quote: “Not all those who wander are lost.”― J.R.R. Tolkien .

59. Robert Frost (1874-1963)

American icon, poet Robert Frost.

Robert Frost, with his depiction of rural New England life, is one of America’s most celebrated poets. Frost’s simple and understated signature writing is what earned him four Pulitzer Prizes during the life of his career. Although the famous poet has been closely linked to New England, he was actually born in San Francisco, and only moved to Massachusetts at 11 after his father’s death. This move would later influence his career and reputation as a writer. Some of Frost’s prominent works include Mountain Interval , New Hampshire and A Witness Tree, all of which won Pulitzer Prizes. In addition to his literary accomplishments, Frost also had an impactful academic career that gave him the opportunity to teach at several colleges. He taught at Amherst College and also at Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, where he spent many summers teaching and mentoring young writers. Frost’s legacy extended beyond his poetry; he was invited to read a poem titled The Gift Outright at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. Frost’s work are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”― Robert Frost .

58. Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)

Author Alexandre Dumas.

Alexandre Dumas is a key author of 19th century historical adventure novels, and is well known for stories like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers . Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterêts, France, and was of mixed race. This racial ambiguity would become a sticking point in his career and something that he would address in his 1843 novel Georges . Dumas’ family background also inspired his interest in historical-based writing. His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, was an army general in Napoleon’s army and one of the highest-ranking officers. It can be easy to conclude that Dumas’ interest in using historical contexts as setting for his stories were inspired by his own background. Besides novels, Dumas also wrote memoirs and plays. Some of his most notable plays include Napoléon Bonaparte and the classic story of Antony. Dumas’ works are available at Barnes and Noble .

Famous quote: “Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.”― Alexandre Dumas .

57. Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)

Illustration of Nikolai Vassilievich Gogol.

Nikolai Gogol was a Ukrainian-born novelist, humorist and dramatist whose works were pivotal in the progression and reception of European literature. His satirical works, as depicted in stories like Dead Souls , masterfully critiqued the social and political issues of 19th-century Russia. Gogol employed his sharp wit and incisive observations on society to analyze issues of the corruption, greed and moral decay that were prevalent in 19th century Russian society. Other works like The Nose and The Overcoat depicted him as a versatile writer capable of employing creative techniques to make difficult topics more digestible for readers, and this solidified his credibility and earned him a reputation as an innovative writer. Gogol’s sharp intellect, coupled with his command of prose made him a well-respected writer whose influence continues to be relevant in Russian literature. His books can be found at Barnes & Noble .

Famous quote: “Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.”― Nikolai Gogol .

56. Haruki Murakami (1949- )

Haruki Murakami arrives at the "Princesa de Asturias" Awards at Teatro Campoamor on October 20, 2023 ... [+] in Asturias, Spain.

Haruki Murakami’s writing style is characterized by reflective and introspection. The contemporary Japanese author has gained a global following for the unique combination of surrealism and melancholy that he brings to his books. Born in Kyoto, his body of work includes novels, essays and short stories, and his books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Some of his famous pieces include Norwegian Wood, 1Q84 and Kafka on the Shore, which earned him the World Fantasy Award in 2006. Murakami’s work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.” — Haruki Murakami .

55. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Writer Kurt Vonnegut at home on April 12, 1972 in New York City.

Kurt Vonnegut was an author and short-story writer who was renowned for his wry, satirical novels, including The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five , a war-themed novel that was interspersed with cultural references that enriched its satirical edge. During his lifetime, Vonnegut shared that his work was influenced by George Orwell, Mark Twain and James Joyce, among others, and it is easy to see why. Apart from his unique and often bleakly humorous style, Vonnegut’s works frequently feature recurring themes such as the folly of war, the randomness of the universe, and the illusion of free will, especially in issues like death and life. The Indianapolis-born writer was also known for using the phrase ““And so it goes...” to illustrate the unavoidable finality of death. In his novel Cat’s Cradle , Vonnegut challenged the dangers of scientific advancement without moral oversight, while Player Piano — a book that seemed ahead of its time — discusses the economic hardship that can happen when human jobs becoming replaced by automated systems. A little known fact about Vonnegut’s humanitarian and scientific skepticism was the fact that he was a prisoner of war during World War II, and this influenced some of the angst in his writing, especially in Slaughterhouse-Five . Vonnegut’s works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “And so it goes...”― Kurt Vonnegut .

54. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Portrait Robert Louis Stevenson, 19th century English poet and novelist.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s writings were not just memorable, they had a life-like manner to them. Perhaps this was because of his superior writing skills, but notable classics like Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , which explored the duality of human nature, and Kidnapped , a historical adventure story set in Scotland, have made the Scotland-born essayist and poet a relevant figure even today. His evergreen insight into psychology is still resonant and impactful, offering timeless reflections on the human mind and the complex nature of morality and identity. A little known fact about Stevenson is his struggle with chronic health issues throughout his life, which influenced his writing style and themes. Regardless of his frail health, Stevenson traveled extensively, drawing inspiration from his journeys to places like the South Pacific, which influenced works such as In the South Seas . Although Stevenson’s father wanted him to pursue a career path in engineering, his decision to put pen to paper instead have earned him a distinguished place in literary history. Stevenson’s works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.”― Robert Louis Stevenson .

53. George Orwell (1903-1950)

Still image of Eric Arthur Blair also known as George Orwell.

George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair in India, was an English novelist, journalist and essayist best known for his wildly successful novels 1984 and Animal Farm . Orwell’s writing was known for its conciseness, clarity and political insight. He was also famous for his critique of totalitarianism and used his writing to advocate for democratic socialism. His commitment to social justice was not just evident in his fictional writing; it also came alive in his essays, journalism and memoirs. Orwell’s experiences in the Spanish Civil War, documented in his autobiographical account, Homage to Catalonia , and his insight into the lives of the poor in Down and Out in Paris and London , were a part of his advocacy as a storyteller who was committed to exposing social injustice. In essays like Shooting an Elephant and Politics and the English Language, Orwell proved that he could tackle complex political and social issues in a straightforward way that was also not trite. His ability to interweave personal experience with broader social commentary has left a lasting impression, not just on literature, but on global political thought. His works can be found at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” — George Orwell .

52. David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

Close-up shot of Author David Foster Wallace.

Before becoming a renowned writer, David Foster Wallace was a competitive junior tennis player whose love for the sport often found its way into his writing, providing rich metaphors and insights into human behavior and competition​. The New York-born author completed his undergraduate degree at Amherst College, where he majored in English and philosophy. He was working towards his masters degree when his acclaimed debut novel, The Broom of the System was published . Other notable works from Wallace include Infinite Jest and short storie s like A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster, and Other Essays. Wallace’s writing is known for its signature use of by its use of extensive footnotes and endnotes, which provide additional commentary and tangential information, providing depth and context to his readers. This distinctive style has captivated readers and set his work apart from that of other contemporary writers. Wallace struggled with mental health throughout his career and this influenced a lot of his writing. At the time of his death in 2008, Wallace was working on a novel titled The Pale King . This unfinished manuscript was posthumously published in 2011 and received critical acclaim.. Wallace’s works are available at Hachette Book Group .

Famous quote: “The so-called “psychotically depressed” person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote “hopelessness” or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”― David Foster Wallace .

51. Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

Edith Wharton

American novelist and poet Edith Wharton was born in New York City into a well-established family. Her childhood was characterized by the finest luxuries that money could afford. Years later, this upbringing would inspire her writing because she later became well-known for her incisive portrayals of the American upper class. Her notable works, including The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome examined themes of social change, class and the often noisy bothers of social expectations. Wharton was also a prominent voice in World War I and was living as an expatriate in France when the war broke out. As opposed to leaving the country and returning to comfort in America, Wharton to chose to stay and write extensively about the events that unraveled during that period, and she has become one of the most prominent storytellers of that era because of her grit and dedication during that time. Wharton’s elegant writing style and observant social commentary have her a notable author, and her ability to capture the nuances of social interactions and the tensions between individual desires has made her work timeless. Wharton’s works are available through Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Silence may be as variously shaded as speech.” — Edith Wharton .

50 . James Baldwin (1924-1987)

American Writer James Baldwin in Paris.

James Baldwin, born in Harlem, New York City, was a significant voice in American literature and a powerful advocate for civil rights. Known for his honest opinions on themes of race, sexuality and identity, Baldwin’s writing style often combined his personal experiences with poignant social critique in a way that was both provocative and intelligent. His most influential works include Go Tell It on the Mountain , Giovanni’s Room and The Fire Next Time . Although he was primarily a novelist and essayist, Baldwin’s written work is comprised of many genres, including novels, short stories, essays, songs, children’s literature, poetry and drama. His works can be found at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin .

49. Voltaire (1694-1778)

Engraved portrait of Voltaire by Nicholas de Largilliere.

Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet in Paris, was an Enlightenment writer and philosopher. His razor-sharp intellect and advocacy of civil liberties set him apart in his time. His writing career began early, and his unique interest in satire brought him both recognition and controversy. His satirical novella Candide , a scathing critique of optimism and organized religion, remains relevant today for its incisive commentary on human suffering and the foolishness of naive idealism. His other well-known work, Lettres Philosophiques, is an essay-style series that provides a unique insight into Voltaire's experiences in Britain. In addition to books, Voltaire also wrote poems, plays and polemics, each with its own unique perspective. This diversity in his work is a testament to his wide-ranging intellect and interests. His works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.” — Voltaire.

48. Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

A portrait of poet, author, playwright and Harlem Renaissance leader Langston Hughes, New York, New ... [+] York, February 1959.

Langston Hughes was an important American poet, novelist, social activist, playwright and columnist from Joplin, Missouri, whose work spanned various genres, including poetry, short stories, novels and plays. Hughes was also influential during the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement of the 1920s and 1930s that celebrated African American cultural expressions and became a period that was renowned for its flourishing artistic, literary and intellectual achievements. This celebration of African American culture enriched the literary and artistic landscape of the time. Apart from leading the Harlem Renaissance movement, Hughes was also one of the creators of the literary genre known as jazz poetry, a rich form of literature that captures the core of jazz music and is illustrated by its jazz-like rhythm and focus on jazz music or musicians as its main elements. Born in 1902, Hughes’ writing frequently focused on the lives of Black Americans, their struggles, and their joys, marked by a sense of social justice and a celebration of Blackness. Some of his most notable works include The Weary Blues, Harlem , The Ways of White Folks and The Big Sea . His works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”― Langston Hughes .

47. John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

John Steinbeck holds a press conference after being awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The working-class life is one that can seem so mundane and ordinary, yet John Steinbeck, born in Salinas, California, created a niche in literature for his honest and empathetic portrayal of working-class life. The Nobel Prize-winning American author knew that the average reader was a working-class member of society and he created characters to cater to that niche. His notable works include The Grapes of Wrath , The Pearl and East of Eden . A majority of Steinbeck’s writing is marked by its social consciousness and humanism. Steinback also wrote poems, plays and short stories. His work. is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “ I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.” — John Steinbeck .

46. Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)

Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov in Montreux, Switzerland, circa 1965.

Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov is best known for his novel Lolita , a controversial yet masterfully written story about warped obsession and how depraved the human mind can become. Nabokov’s writing was always characterized by its poetic flow, intricate language, literary allusions and narrative structure. Nabokov dabbled in a lot of different types of writing, including poetry, science writing, translations and autobiographies. His work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece”― Vladimir Nabokov .

45. Albert Camus (1913-1960)

French writer Albert Camus poses for a portrait in Paris following the announcement of his being ... [+] awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

French-Algerian novelist and Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus was a true literary powerhouse, whose skill for the written word also earned him the titles of journalist, playwright, novelist and essayist. As a leader of the existentialism movement, Camus became best known for his novels The Stranger , The Plague and his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus . His writings frequently addressed themes of justice, rebellion and otherness. His work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ― Albert Camus .

44. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Friedrich Nietzsche was a Röcke, Germany-born philosopher whose provocative ideas and radical critiques of morality, religion and contemporary culture left an impact on intellectual history. Nietzsche was best known for his declaration that “God is dead” and his exploration of the concept of the Übermensch, with Nietzsche arguing that the Übermensch would transcend conventional Christian morality. His work addressed the human psyche, challenging traditional notions of truth, and frequently critiquing both traditional and modern values. His notable works, including Thus Spoke Zarathustra , The Birth of Tragedy , Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals , which offer a three-dimensional approach into the questions that lay the foundations for Western thought. Nietzsche’s work has influenced generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights. Apart from his philosophical influence, Nietzsche’s life was also marked by intense personal struggles like debilitating migraines and deteriorating eyesight, which forced him to retire from his professorship at a relatively young age. Interestingly, Nietzsche was also a composer, having created several musical pieces that reflected his complex and introspective worldview. His work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”― Friedrich Nietzsche .

43. Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)

German-born novelist Hermann Hesse, circa 1945.

Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist and painter whose writing emphasized the importance of identity and non-conformity. The Calw, Germany-born writer is famous for books like Siddhartha , Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game. Hesse’s written pieces often went beyond the surface of exploring trite self-discovery and explored more complex issues like spirituality and self-actualization. As a true intellectual himself, many of Hessse’s characters also mimicked his sharp mind. Besides books, Hesse also wrote essays, short-stories and poems. His work is available at Macmillan Publishers .

Famous quote: “I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.” — Hermann Hesse .

42. Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014)

Colombian writer and Nobel prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez poses for a portrait on September 11, ... [+] 1990 in Paris.

Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian novelist and Nobel laureate, is one of the most prominent authors of the 20th century and one of the greatest Latin American writers in history. Born in Aracataca, his magical realism-themed novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude, which earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, and Love in the Time of Cholera, are just two pieces in her reportoire that have given him worldwide critical acclaim. He was primarily known for his short story expertise and his books can be found at HarperCollins Publishers .

Famous quote: “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” — Gabriel García Márquez .

41. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

British author Thomas Hardy.

Stinsford, England-born Thomas Hardy was an novelist and poet who crafted a niche in his depictions of rural life and the struggles of ordinary, working-class people. His major works, including Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd , were pieces that centered themselves on themes of fate, suffering and the limitations of social class and structure. Hardy’s writing was always rich and textured, and his ability to capture the beauty and harshness of rural England made his work all the more appreciated. Hardy’s works are available through Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.”― Thomas Hardy.

40. Margaret Atwood (1939- )

Margaret Atwood in Paris, 2014.

Margaret Atwood, a prolific Canadian poet and writer, is celebrated for her speculative fiction and mostly dystopian storylines. Her best-known work is top dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale , which has become a symbol of feminist resistance and has also been adapted for TV for its powerful storytelling. With over 50 books written, Atwood’s writing, which also includes essays and poetry, is marked by its incisive social commentary and imaginative scope. Atwood’s work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “ Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don't go there to swim, then those young people don't have to find out by trial and error.” - Margaret Atwood .

39. James Joyce (1882-1941)

James Joyce

Short story aficionado James Joyce is a prolific name in modernist literature and a name that resonates with many. His groundbreaking works, including Ulysses , A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners , are acclaimed for their experimental techniques and close examination of the human psyche. The Dublin-born author refined his skill not only as a master storyteller but also as a credible designer of fictional characters that are deeply relatable. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.” — James Joyce .

38. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Edgar Allan Poe in a 19th century print.

Mystery and macabre guru Edgar Allan Poe was an American short-story writer, literary critic, poet and editor whose Gothic-themed writing caught the world’s attention. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe is best known for his macabre-inclined stories like The Tell-Tale Heart , The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher. In his personal life, Poe lived a troubled life that was rife with controversy and alleged alcoholism, which sometimes seemed to inspire his written work and its concise literary precision. Poe’s work can be found at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”― Edgar Allan Poe .

37. Herbert George Wells (1866-1946)

Herbert George Wells

Born in Bromley, England, Herbert George Wells is often regarded as the father of science fiction. His classic novels , such as The War of the Worlds , The Time Machine and The Invisible Man have inspired countless adaptations and continue to influence the literary landscape for emerging writers. Although Wells’ background as a child did not expose him to a lot of opportunities, his curiosity for learning helped to lay the foundation for his scholarly pursuits and, eventually, his writing career. He is often regarded as the leading literary spokesman for liberal optimism and much of his writing often analyzes themes of social justice and scientific ethics. His work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “ If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.” — H.G. Wells .

36. Walt Whitman ( 1819-1892)

Walt Whitman in Camden, New Jersey, circa 1891.

Walt Whitman, born in West Hills, New York, is considered one of America’s most influential poets. At the age of 12, he had finished his formal education and taught himself how to read by visiting museums in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and frequently visiting the library. Whitman’s poetry was also a mold-breaker. It defied norms and conventional poetic writing forms, later earning him recognition as a trailblazer. This approach to writing was evident in the critically-acclaimed collection, Leaves of Grass , which celebrated democracy and nature with its free-verse style and caught the attention of readers, especially European readers. The collection went through nine editions throughout Whitman’s lifetime, each edition expanding and refining his vision of the American experience and becoming one of his most acclaimed projects. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “Resist much, obey little.” — Walt Whitman .

35. Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

American poet and author Maya Angelou gestures while speaking during an interview at her home.

Actress, activist, memoirist and poet Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, was an American poet and civil rights activist whose literary acumen left a major imprint, not just on literature but on society. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which explore her childhood, early adult experiences, and rise to prominence. Angelou’s writing abandoned the trite for the raw, uncomfortable and challenging, often offering an unflinching honesty that made her writing both evocative and poignant. Her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , published in 1969, brought her international acclaim and recognition as a powerful advocate for Black women. Her poetry collections, such as And Still I Rise and Phenomenal Woman, also earned her critical acclaim. Her works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “ You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.” — Maya Angelou .

34. Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)

Illustrated image of English novelist Charlotte Brontë, seated with a small book in hand.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, England, to an Anglican clergyman father and a stay-at-home mother. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre , a groundbreaking work in the development of the novel form and in the portrayal of the inner life of a woman, much of which mimicked her childhood and adulthood. Initially published under the name Currer Bell, Jane Eyre was a massive success and is regarded as a seminal English classic. Brontë’s writing had an intense emotional gravity to it and an acute attention to detail in its characters. Her work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “I am no bird, and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.” — Charlotte Brontë .

33. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880)

English novelist Mary Anne Evans, who wrote under the nom de plume of George Eliot (1819 - 1880), ... [+] pictured at the age of 30, circa 1849.

George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, was an English author who was well-respected for detailed and psychologically nuanced novels. Through her writing, she invented and later developed the method of psychological analysis, a form that was not used at the time. Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, Evans grew up in a rural environment that influenced her later works. Her keen observations of village life, combined with her deep intellectual pursuits, allowed her to create some of the most enduring and insightful works of the 19th century. Some of her most significant works include The Mill on the Floss , Adam Bede and Silas Marner . Her work is available at HarperCollins Publishers .

Famous Quote: “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” — George Eliot .

32. Joseph Conrad ( 1857-1924)

Black and white portrait of Joseph Conrad.

Joseph Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, was a Polish-British short story writer and novelist who achieved a lot of recognition for notable bodies of work like Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, which focus on themes of colonialism, morality and angst. Conrad was born in Berdychiv, which was previously part of the Russian Empire at the time, and is now in Ukraine. His rich command of prose and ability to tell memorable stories in a way that felt personal to every reader who picked up his work were also a signature traits of his work. Conrad frequently examined themes of moral complexity and loneliness against the backdrop of the sea, and this was inspired by his days as a sailor. As a writer, Conrad had complex skill and striking insight into the human mind and its approach to the concept of good and evil. Conrad’s books are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests, notably, among others, on the idea of Fidelity.”― Joseph Conrad .

31. C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Irish-born academic, writer and Christian apologist Clive Staples Lewis.

C.S Lewis, born Clive Staples Lewis in Belfast, Ireland, was a well-respected British writer, scholar, and theologian whose paradigm-shifting works have impacted both literature and global Christian thought. He is best known for his beloved children's series, The Chronicles of Narnia , a series of seven fantasy novels that have enchanted readers for generations, as well as his significant contributions to Christian apologetics and his scholarly works on medieval and Renaissance literature. Despite his broad intellectual pursuits, Lewis always remained humble, and this quality endeared him to readers and colleagues. Lewis’ works are available at HarperCollins Publishers .

Famous Quote: “A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.” — C.S. Lewis .

30. Joseph Heller (1923-1999)

American author Joseph Heller sits at a desk in his home, East Hampton, Long Island, New York, 1984. ... [+]

Joseph Heller, born in Brooklyn, was another master of satire and dark comedy. His satirical novel Catch-22 became one of the most important books in the 20th century and even in pop-culture. Thanks to his sharp sense of humor, biting satire and apt narration, Heller positioned himself as one of America’s greats after Catch-22 . Other notable works by Heller include Something Happened and Good as Gold. He also wrote plays, screenplays and autobiographical works. His play We Bombed in New Haven critiques the Vietnam War, and his autobiography Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here is a memoir about his life and career. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”― Joseph Heller .

29. Stephen King (1947- )

Stephen King

Stephen King, famously known as the king of horror, was born in Portland, Maine, and is one of the most successful authors of contemporary times. King’s contributions to the horror genre as well as his extensive body of work, which spans novels, short stories, essays and screenplays, have made him a household name and an icon in popular culture. With over 60 novels and 200 short stories to his name, King’s ability to mix the gory supernatural with the everyday has thrilled and scared readers for decades. Some of his notable works include Carrie, Salem’s Lot and The Shining among others. King has written non-fiction, screenplays, and even columns and his work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “Get busy living or get busy dying.”― Stephen King .

28. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977- )

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer on the sidelines of a museum opening.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, born in Enugu, Nigeria, is a critically acclaimed Nigerian writer known for her novels, poems, short stories and essays that explore themes of identity, race, migration, gender and the Nigerian postcolonial experience. In 1997, after initially studying medicine in Nsukka, Adichie decided to emigrate to the United States to pursue further education, which led to a change in her career trajectory. She completed her undergraduate studies in communication and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University, graduating with a B.A. in 2001 before later earning a master’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. Adichie would later study African history at Yale University, and this would inform a lot of her written work. Adichie’s powerful storytelling and intelligent storytelling have made her a global voice in literature. Some of Adichie’s best work includes her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, as well as Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, which received numerous accolades, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2014. Her TED Talk, We Should All Be Feminists , has also been widely influential, leading to a book of the same name that has inspired discussions on feminism worldwide. Adichie’s works continue to resonate deeply with readers around the globe, addressing contemporary issues with nuance and depth. Her works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.”― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie .

27. Alice Walker (1944- )

American author and poet Alice Walker.

Alice Walker is an American novelist, poet, and activist known for her powerful exploration of race, gender and social issues. Born in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, Walker grew up as the youngest of eight children in a family of sharecroppers, and a BB gun accident at the age eight left her blind in one eye. After the accident, her mother gave her a typewriter, allowing her to write instead of doing chores. Her upbringing in the racially segregated South has influenced her work, and her writing vividly depicts Black life, offering readers insights into the experiences and struggles that define the Black community. In 1983, The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award; it was adapted into a film in 1985. Walker has also been honored with the Lillian Smith Award and the Mahmoud Darwish Literary Prize for Fiction. Other notable works by Walker include Meridian, The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Possessing the Secret of Joy . Her work is available at HarperCollins Publishers .

Famous Quote: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”― Alice Walker .

26. Salman Rushdie (1947-)

Salman Rushdie receives the 2023 Peace Prize of the German book trade association at Paulskirche ... [+] church on October 22, 2023 in Frankfurt, Germany. (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

Indian-born British-American professor and writer Salman Rushdie began his writing career as an ad copywriter, but later decided to start writing books. His first novel, Grimus, was published in 1975 and went relatively unnoticed, but his second novel, Midnight’s Children, in 1981, catapulted him to literary stardom. The novel won the Booker Prize and was later awarded the Booker of Bookers for the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. But Rushdie’s literary rise would later be clouded with a lot of controversy. In his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, he triggered outrage among some Muslims for his portrayal of the prophet Muhammad. The book’s release led to widespread protests, bans in several countries, and, most notably, a fatwa calling for his assassination issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. The fatwa forced Rushdie into hiding under police protection for many years, significantly impacting his personal and professional life. Rushdie, nevertheless, continued to be a target. During a 2022 speaking engagement in Chautauqua, New York, Rushdie was brutally stabbed while on stage, effectively blinding him in his right eye and causing him permanent nerve damage. The attack inspired his memoir, Knife . Rushdie is still alive and continues to write. Most of Rushdie’s writing style is steeped in magical allegory and fantasy, and his work is available at Penguin .

Famous Quote: What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”― Salman Rushdie .

25. Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)

Photo of American writer Flannery O'Connor.

An extraordinary ability to coordinate the grotesque and the profound to create unsettling and insightful stories defines Flannery O'Connor’s legacy. The Southern Gothic fiction guru was born in Savannah, Georgia, to a devout Catholic family, and this background would later significantly impact her writing. Many of O’Connor’s novels are centered around questions of morality and redemption through a religious lens. Some of O’Connor’s most notable works include A Good Man Is Hard to Find , Wise Blood, and Everything That Rises Must Converge . The Southern writer wrote novels and is renowned for her short stories, considered some of the best in American literature. At some point in her life, O’Connor also considered a career as a cartoonist but did not fully pursue that career track. Despite her short life, O’Connor’s works continue to resonate with readers for portraying the complex nature of faith and humanity. Her stories remain important for those seeking to understand the darker yet redeemable aspects of humans.

Famous quote: “I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek, as my tongue is always in it.” ― Flannery O’Connor .

24. Herman Melville (1819-1891)

Painting of Herman Melville by Joseph Eaton.

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer and poet known for his deep and dark storylines that explored themes of fate and free will. The New York City-born writer grew up in a family that faced financial difficulties after his father’s death, prompting him to work various jobs. Melville attended the Albany Academy but left to work as a clerk, a teacher and eventually a sailor on whaling ships. These experiences particularly influenced his literary work, including being a sailor, which provided him with maritime experiences that would inspire much of his writing. His complex approach to the art of plotting, his symbolic depth, and his exploration of existential undertones characterize Melville’s writing style. His ancestors were among the Scottish and Dutch settlers of New York who played significant roles in the American Revolution and the competitive commercial and political arenas of the emerging nation. His grandfather, Major Thomas Melville, participated in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and later became an importer in New York. Some of Herman Melville’s most influential works include Moby-Dick , Bartleby, the Scrivener and Billy Budd, Sailor , which was published posthumously in 1924. Melville’s books are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”― Herman Melville .

23. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci by Lattanzio Querena.

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath whose primary interests included painting, sculpture, music, mathematics and literature. While he is primarily known as an artist and scientist, his literary contributions, including his notebooks filled with observations, sketches and musings, have also had a significant impact on the evolution of art and science for centuries. Leonardo ’s notebooks, such as the Codex Atlanticus and the Codex Leicester , reveal his incisive insights into anatomy, engineering and hydraulics. His meticulous records and innovative ideas have inspired generations of scientists and artists. Some of Vinci’s written works are available in places like the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, and Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, to name a few, but Vinci is primarily known for creating The Last Supper and his magnum opus, Mona Lisa. Leonardo’s holistic approach to artistic design and expression embodied the Renaissance humanist ideal and influenced public thought through its enduring relevance in both the arts and sciences, making him a classic icon.

Famous quote: “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” ― Leonardo da Vinci .

22. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Photo of Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde sitting down.

Irish poet Oscar Wilde was a playwright, lecturer and novelist whose writing can be defined as witty and flamboyant. The Dublin-born writer became renowned for notable works like The Picture of Dorian Gray , The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husban d. Wilde’s enduring popularity can be credited to his precise exploration of aestheticism and ability to harmonize humor with social critiques, which allowed him to expose Victorian society’s specific hypocrisies and superficialities. Wilde was also a well-respected person in the Aesthetic Movement, which advocated art for art’s sake and emphasized beauty and sensory experiences over moral or narrative content. Despite facing personal and legal challenges, including a highly publicized trial and imprisonment for his homosexuality, Wilde’s legacy is defined by his literary brilliance and his aphoristic wit. His essays, such as The Critic as Artist and The Soul of Man under Socialism , also showed his intellectual depth and advocacy for individuality and artistic freedom, much of which was inspired by his extensive education at Trinity College, Dublin, Magdalen College and Oxford. His works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Oscar Wilde .

21. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe circa 1800.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director and critic who is famous for his work on Faust, a Tragedy, a dramatic two-part play that is considered one of the finest works of German literature. Goethe’s contributions to literature, philosophy and science have made him a focal figure in European intellectual history, and the Frankfurt-born luminary is considered one of the greatest German literary figures of the modern era. Beyond Faust , Goethe’s also gained acclaim for works such as The Sorrows of Young Werther , which is credited with launching the Sturm und Drang literary movement, and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship , which became a center piece in the development of the Bildungsroman genre. Goethe’s poetry, including collections like West-östlicher Divan , showcases his wide-ranging palette and his engagement with diverse cultures and philosophies. His scientific work, particularly in the fields of botany and optics, demonstrated his holistic approach to understanding nature, culminating in influential texts like Metamorphosis of Plants and his theories on color, which he detailed in Theory of Colours . As a statesman, Goethe played an active role in the cultural and political life of Weimar, contributing to the Weimar Classicism movement alongside his friend Friedrich Schiller. His intellectual curiosity and interdisciplinary approach made him a polymath, deeply influencing the Romantic movement and shaping modern thought in both the humanities and sciences. Goethe’s legacy endures not only in his literary masterpieces but also in his profound impact on the intellectual and cultural developments of his time. Goethe’s works can be found at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

20. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Colorized photograph of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, late 1800s.

Born in Portland, Maine, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet, professor and translator who is considered the most popular American poet in the 19th century. Longfellow’s early life and education gave him a solid foundation for his career and the intellectual acuity to compose the lyrical poetry that he did. After graduating from the Portland Academy, Longfellow studied at Bowdoin College, where he later became a professor upon his return from Europe, where he became proficient in Romance and Germanic languages. Longfellow was always skilled in translation. During his time in Europe, he honed his skills by immersing himself in various languages and literature that influenced his work. Some of his most famous works are The Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline , Tales of a Wayside Inn and Paul Revere’s Ride. Many of Longfellow’s poems were quite introspective, offering readers insight into human nature and all of its intricacies. As an educator, Longfellow was also a professor at Harvard College, where he influenced generations of students with his passion for literature and languages. Although Longfellow was primarily a poet, his impact on American literature extends beyond his poetry. He was instrumental in popularizing European literature in the United States through his translations of works like Dante’s Divine Comedy and he also wrote novels. His works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .

19. Jules Verne (1828-1905)

Colorized photo of Jules Verne (1828-1905), French writer. (Photo by Boyer/Roger Viollet via Getty ... [+] Images)

France-born author Jules Verne is often regarded as one of the fathers of science fiction because of his sharp imagination and thorough research, which brought to life classics like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , Journey to the Center of the Earth and Around the World in 80 Days . His stories often focus on adventure, exploration and the possibilities of science, which reflected the technological advancements of his era. Verne did not always aspire to be a writer, and his father initially wanted him to become a lawyer, but when those plans failed, he worked at the Paris stock exchange before becoming a writer. Verne’s thorough descriptions of submarines, space travel and airships were visionary and inspired a generation of many scientists and inventors who also had an interest in writing. Apart from writing novels, Verne was also a playwright and poet, and despite early rejections and financial struggles, Verne’s determination made him one of the best-selling authors of all time, with his works translated into many languages and adapted into films, TV shows and theater. Verne’s books are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”― Jules Verne .

18. William Blake (1757-1827)

William Blake

William Blake was a London-born author who is considered one of the best English writers and painters of all time. Some of his well-respected works include Poetical Sketches, S ongs of Innocence, Songs of Experience and Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Apart from his work as an author, Blake was an engraver, artist, poet and visionary whose art was informed by his spiritual worldviews, and although he was not a was a religious seeker, he believed in the movement. During his lifetime, Blake’s work was often underestimated because his views and poetic style seemed to be ahead of his time, and also because he was regarded as being somewhat mentally unwell, because of behavior that would be thought of as only slightly eccentric today. Regardless, Blake would later become appreciated for his creativity and the philosophical tangents that guided his work. Blake’s works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”― William Blake .

17. John Donne (1572-1631)

John Donne circa 1610.

John Donne was not just fascinating as a poet. His life was a colorful adventure that often seeped into his poems, which are considered landmark feats of language. Donne was born into a Roman Catholic family in London at a time when practicing Catholicism was illegal in England and despite of his impressive education at Oxford and Cambridge, he could not get a degree because, as a Catholic, he refused to take the Oath of allegiance to queen Elizabeth. Donne endured significant poverty for a major part of his lifetime and this led him to pour all of his energy and resources into writing about theology, canon law, anti-Catholic polemics and love poems. Donne’s poetic style, which had a lot of depth and intellectual rigor, was ahead of its time and not widely recognized during his life. In fact, his works Songs and Sonnets, Holy Sonnets and Anniversaries were all published after his death. His works are available at Canon Press .

Famous quote: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”― John Donne .

16. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra circa 1590.

Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish novelist, playwright and poet best known for his classic Don Quixote , often considered the first modern novel in history. Many critics consider Cervantes to be a contemporary of Shakespeare and this title holds even more meaning since the literary giants died within a day of each other in April of 1616. Born in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, Cervantes’ life had all of the elements of a good movie: adventure, action, hardship and eventual success. He served as a soldier and was severely wounded at the Battle of Lepanto, losing the use of his left hand. In 1575, he was captured by Barbary pirates and spent five years as a slave in Algiers before being ransomed and returning to Spain where he would spend 25 years before finally striking gold with Don Quixote. His final novel Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda , was published posthumously in 1616. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra .

15. Elena Ferrante (1943-)

Some of the books of Elena Ferrante at Piu Libri Piu Liberi Publishing Fair on December 6, 2017 in ... [+] Rome.

Elena Ferrante is the pseudonym of the Italian author known for L’amica Geniale , Delia’s Elevator and the Neapolitan Novels, a four-part series of fiction that has made her a leading, yet mysterious voice in modern-day fictional writing. Despite the worldwide acclaim of her work, Ferrante’s true identity is still a mystery and this has added to the intrigue and speculation surrounding her. The mysterious New York Times bestselling author has communicated through her publisher stating that anonymity is important for her writing process, allowing her to focus solely on her work without public scrutiny. Apart from novels, Ferrante has published several essays and interviews where she discusses her approach to writing and her views on literature and society, providing rare insights into her creative mind. Her writing has showcased her psychological insight, complex characters and exploration of friendship, identity and the struggles of women in a patriarchal society. Despite the speculation and attempts to uncover her identity, Ferrante has successfully maintained her privacy, letting her work speak for itself. In 2016, Time m agazine named Ferrante one of the 100 most influential people. Her books are available at Europa Editions .

Famous quote: “Words: with them you can do and undo as you please.”― Elena Ferrante .

14. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Dante Alighieri circa early 14th Century.

Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet, politician and author who is regarded as one of the greatest poets of all time and his magnum opus, The Divine Comedy, was the primary piece that gained him a lot of popularity . A little-known fact about Dante is that he was heavily involved in the politics of Florence, which led to his exile. This exile influenced a lot of his writing, particularly in The Divine Comedy , in which he depicts his political enemies suffering in hell. Dante also wrote in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, which helped standardize the Italian language and shape the cultural and literary landscape of Italy. Dante also authored several other important works such as De Monarchia , a treatise on secular and religious power, and Vita Nuova , which explores his idealized love for Beatrice Portinari and his poetic development. Alighieri’s writings also cover a wide range of topics, from ethics and politics to metaphysics. His writing also reflected a deep engagement with the philosophical and theological debates of his time, blending his political views with his spiritual and intellectual interests.​ His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”― Dante Alighieri .

13. Plato (428-7 B.C.E - 348-7 B.C.E.)

Head of Plato circa B.C. 428 - B.C. 248.

Plato was a student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers in Western history and a leader of Claslassical Antiquity. Aside from his contributions to philosophy, Plato founded the Academy in Athens, one of the earliest institutions of higher learning in the Western world, writing extensively on a variety of subjects, including politics, ethics and metaphysics. Most of his works often featured Socratic dialogues, a method of questioning designed to inspire critical thinking. His dialogues, such as The Republic , Phaedo and Symposium did not only examine political theory but also discussed the nature of reality, knowledge and the ideal state. Plato is often credited for the development of the Theory of Forms, a concept that proposes non-material abstract forms, or ideas, as the most accurate reality. This theory has had a lasting impact on subsequent philosophical thought. Also, his work Timaeus is one of the earliest detailed accounts of the natural world which combined philosophy and proto-science. Plato was heavily involved in politics extended beyond his theoretical writings because he intended to implement his philosophical ideas in the political realm, particularly in Syracuse, although these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful and led to his temporary imprisonment. His works are available at Hackett Publishing .

Famous quote: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”― Plato .

12. Sophocles (496 BCE- 406)

Sophocles was a Colonus-born playwright who was one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. Sophocles is best known for Ajax, Oedipus Rex and Antigone. He served as a general in the Athenian military and was active in public service, which influenced his writings on justice and themes of duty in his plays. Sophocles was immenseley talented, which led him to win reportedly winning 24 out of 30 dramatic competitions he entered. Sophocles was also a pioneer in stagecraft, introducing innovations such as the use of a third actor , scene painting, and stage machinery to create more elaborate and visually striking productions. His emphasis on character development and psychological depth marked a significant advancement in the art of storytelling and Greek theater. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.”― Sophocles .

11. François Rabelais (Approximately 1483–94- 1553)

Poet Francois Rabelais. Canvas from a anonymous French painter. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

François Rabelais was a French Renaissance writer and an avid traveler who is famed for his series of masterpieces called Gargantua and Pantagruel , which were published between 1532 and 1564. What many people don't know is that Rabelais was also a physician and a monk before he turned to writing. His works were often satirical and critical of the Church and society, which led to them being condemned by the Sorbonne, France’s prestigious institute for culture and academics. Rabelais’s background in medicine significantly influenced his writing, infusing his work with detailed anatomical and medical knowledge, often used to humorous effect. Rabelais was also known for his advocacy for education, echoing the intellectual spirit of the Renaissance. He promoted the idea that humans should be educated broadly in arts and sciences to develop fully. His works are available at Delphi Classics .

Famous quote: “there are more fools than wise men in all societies, and the larger party always gains the upper hand”― François Rabelais .

10. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)

Geoffrey Chaucer circa 1342-1400.

Geoffrey Chaucer is often hailed as the father of English literature, but a lesser-known fact is that Chaucer was also a diplomat and a civil servant, and this had a major impact on his life as a literary icon. Chaucer was born in London, but he traveled extensively across Europe, and like many writers, his travels influenced his literary works. His exposure to travel also inspired him to become fluent in several languages, including French, Italian and Latin, which added depth to his writing. Some of Chaucer’s notable works include The Canterbury Tales , which is considered one of the greatest poetic works in English. Chaucer’s career in public service was also impactful. As a civil servant, he held various positions, including courtier, diplomat and Member of Parliament, and many of his leadership roles gave him insight into the lives of ordinary people, much of which he vividly portrayed in his characters. His diplomatic missions took him to Italy, where he encountered the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, profoundly influencing his own literary style and themes. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained”― Geoffrey Chaucer .

9. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Virginia Woolf, circa 1902.

This list would be incomplete without Virginia Woolf. Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London, and devoted an enormous part of her career to becoming a major figure in the modernist literary movement. Her stream-of-consciousness writing style as exemplified in iconic bodies of work like Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse prove that Woolf was in a league of her own. The themes in her writing often included identity, time and the complexity of the human nature. Apart from novels, Woolf also explored essays, literary history, biographical writing and women’s issues. Woolf tragically died by suicide in 1941. Before her death, she founded her own publishing company, Hogarth Press, in 1917, but her work is available at Penguin Random House .

Famous quote: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” — Virginia Woolf .

8. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

Fyodor Dostoevsky, circa 1865.

Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, born in Moscow, had an approach to writing that stood out for its psychological penetration and exploration of darker themes. The short story expert had a list of impressive and critically acclaimed works, including Crime and Punishment , The Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed and The Idiot, all of which explored the human soul and moral dilemmas. Dostoevsky suffered from epilepsy throughout his life, which he uses as a source of inspiration for his writing by frequently depicting characters with epilepsy, and exploring the associated mental and emotional struggles that came with the condition. Outside of fiction, Dostoevsky often wrote extensiovely in letters and diaries about the anxiety that his epileptic seizures caused. After suffering successive seizures that resulted in three pulmonary hemorrhages, Dostoevsky passed away in 1881. During his lifetime as a writer, his writing style employed the use of gothic elements, chaotic storytelling and freeform storytelling. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect, he ceases to love.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky .

7. Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Illustration of British novelist Charles Dickens sitting in his study in Gads Hill near Rochester, ... [+] Kent, England, circa 1860.

After his interest in theater waned, Charles Dickens pivoted careers and chose to become a writer. It would be a decision that would earn him recognition as one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era. Known for his vivid characters and memorable depictions of social class, injustice and hierarchy, the Portsmouth, England-born journalist’s ability to create a broad array of characters is nothing like any other writer on this list. Some classics that Dickens wrote include A Tale of Two Cities , Great Expectations and the world-renowned Oliver Twist . His works often highlighted the plight of the poor and critiqued the class system. Dickens also wrote plays and engaged in journalism and travel writing. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” — Charles Dickens .

6. Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Illustrated portrait of Jane Austen.

Jane Austen, born in Steventon, England, is famous not just for her iconic books Pride and Prejudice , Emma and Sense and Sensibility ; she was also one of the trailblazers of the British novel. Her approach to the development of modern characters and her ability to make ordinary people extraordinary are what made her writing so popular and widely read. Austen’s contributions were not just to British writing alone but to the entire global landscape of emerging writers, past and present. Her writing offered doses of wit and acute commentary on societal issues like class and social status. Austen’s writing has been regarded as fundamentally grounded in burlesque, parody and free indirect speech. Her work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.” — Jane Austen.

5. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway , born in Oak Park, Illinois, was a prolific figure in American literature and a brilliant writer, hunter, sailor, former spy and explorer. He became known for his larger-than-life persona and distinctive writing style, which was marked by economical prose. Hemingway’s literary career was as adventurous as his personal life, and his works have always been a topic of discussion in literary circles and popular culture. Hemingway’s personal life, which influenced his writing, was as dramatic as his fiction. As an avid adventurer, he traveled extensively, engaging in big-game hunting in Africa, bullfighting in Spain and deep-sea fishing in the Caribbean. Some of his most notable works include For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea , which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953. Although he is best known for his fiction and non-fiction novels and short stories, he also wrote in other genres. His works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway .

4. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Writer Leo Tolstoy sitting at desk in his study.

Leo Tolstoy’s strength as a writer came alive through his exploration of philosophical themes and analysis. Born in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia, Tolstoy is best known for his iconic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina . Most of his writing showcases his mastery of realistic fiction and ability to create out-of-the-box plots. As a well-respected figure in Russian literature, Tolstoy’s literary influence extends beyond his novels to his essays on religion, non-violence and education. His work is available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous quote: “Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.” — Leo Tolstoy .

3. Virgil (70 BCE- 19 BCE)

Detail of a mosaic of Virgil.

Virgil, born Publius Vergilius Maro, is known as one of the most well-respected poets of ancient Rome. Despite his humble beginnings, Virgil received an excellent education in Cremona, Milan, and finally Rome, where he studied rhetoric, medicine and astronomy before focusing on philosophy and poetry. Virgil is renowned as one of ancient Rome's greatest poets and his most notable works include The Eclogues , The Georgics and The Aeneid , which stands out as a monumental epic that weaves together the journey of the Trojan hero Aeneas with themes of fate, duty and heroism, ultimately glorifying Rome and Emperor Augustus. Despite his illustrious career, Virgil struggled with health issues and led a reclusive life. His philosophical leanings towards Epicureanism subtly influenced his literary themes. Virgil died before he could complete The Aeneid to his satisfaction and requested that the work be destroyed on his deathbed, a wish that Augustus famously overruled. Virgil's influence endured through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which made his legacy even stronger as an oundational figure in Western literature​. Virgil’s works are available at Simon & Schuster .

Famous Quote: “ Audaces fortuna iuvat (latin)- Fortune favors the bold.”― Virgil .

2. Homer (Around 8th century BC)

A colorized engraving of Homer with eyes superimposed.

Homer, the quintessential ancient Greek poet, is credited with composing The Iliad and The Odyssey , two legendary poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature and the Western literary tradition. The Iliad focuses on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War, emphasizing themes of heroism, glory and the wrath of Achilles. The Odyssey follows the challenging ten-year journey of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, as he strives to return home after the fall of Troy. A major part of Homer’s mystique lies in the fact that very little is known about the Greek author’s life and most of his background is shrouded in mystique and mystery, it is generally believed he lived around the 8th or 9th century B.C. Multiple cities, including Smyrna, Chios and Ios, claim to be Homer’s birthplace, but that has been speculative. Homer is also one of the most influential authors in the widest sense, because of the two epics that he created that provided the basis of Greek education and culture throughout the Classical age. Homer’s works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “Out of sight,out of mind”― Homer .

1. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Colorized illustration (after a John Cochran print) of English playwright William Shakespeare.

There are a select few names that remain ever-present in history and never fade into the background. Names like Jesus Christ, The Beatles and Michael Jackson have a permanent presence on the world’s collective memory, and William Shakespeare falls into that timeless category as well. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, is often regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. His works include 38 plays, 154 sonnets and several narrative poems, all of which have had a permanent impact on literature and theater globally. Shakespeare’s repertoire does not only conform to a specific era, but has an such as enduring appeal that is relevant in works like Hamlet , Romeo and Juliet , Othello , King Lear and Macbeth continue to be performed and studied in institutions worldwide. Although Shakespeare’s early works were mainly comedies and histories, he is best known for his tragedies, which were written between 1601 and 1608 and explored complex themes of betrayal, love, ambition and the supernatural. His last plays, often categorized as romances or tragicomedies, include The Tempest , The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline . A lesser-known fact about Shakespeare is that he was also a businessman and a shareholder in the Globe Theatre. His works are available at Penguin Random House .

Famous Quote: “We know what we are, but not what we may be.”― William Shakespeare .

Bottom Line

This list highlights 101 wordsmoths across history, eras and time, from William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to George Orwell and García Márquez. It celebrates their undeniable and untainted contributions to human thought, covering various genres and reminding readers not just of their ageless legacies, but their quintessential impact.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Who are top famous romance novelists.

Jane Austen is one of the most well-respected romance novelists , celebrated for her keen social commentary and timeless love stories. Austen's works are renowned for their insight into  romantic relationships and the societal norms of 19th-century England.

Danielle Steel is a best-selling author in the romance genre, with over 190 books to her name. Steel's ability to market stories that are relatable and compelling has made her a modern-day fan-favorite in the genre.

Who Are Notable Female Authors?

Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize-winning author known for her impactful writings which explore race and impact. Her novels, such as Beloved and The Bluest Eye , explore the African American experience with depth and serious reflection.

Virginia Woolf is a key figure in modernist literature, known for her innovative narrative techniques and exploration of the inner lives of her characters. Her seminal works, including Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse , have influenced generations of writers and readers. 

Who Are Notable Black Authors?

Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist who autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings provided a seminal text into the exploration of identity, racism and resilience. Angelou's lyrical prose and powerful storytelling have left an incredible mark on literature and continue to inspire readers all over the world.

James Baldwin  was an influential writer and social critic whose writings honestly addressed the complex themes of race, sexuality and identity. His novels, which include Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room are celebrated for their eloquence and emotional depth. 

Who Are The Best 20th Century Novelists?

F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known for his novel The Great Gatsby , an important 20th century story about the American Dream gone awry. Fitzgerald's fictional, yet candid review of wealth, love and social change in the Jazz Age has made him a defining voice of 20th-century American literature.

George Orwell , author of 1984 and Animal Farm , is known for his acute critiques of totalitarianism and his honest criticism of social justice issues. Orwell's works are noted for their clarity, wit and relevance, making him one of the most important writers of the 20th century.

Who Are The Best 19th Century Novelists?

Charles Dickens is one of the most recognized writers of the 19th century who was known for his vivid characters and social commentary. Stories like A Tale of Two Cities , Great Expectations and Oliver Twist highlight Dickens' ability to combine compelling narratives with critiques of Victorian society.

Leo Tolstoy , the Russian novelist, is celebrated for his epic works War and Peace and Anna Karenina . Tolstoy's exploration of human experience, history, and morality in his novels has made him a cornerstone of world literature.

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How Congress Could Protect Free Speech on Campus

Shielding students from discrimination matters. So does preserving academic freedom.

Last year at Harvard, three Israeli Jews took a course at the Kennedy School of Government. They say that because of their ethnicity, ancestry, and national origin, their professor subjected them to unequal treatment, trying to suppress their speech in class and allowing teaching assistants and classmates to create a hostile climate for Jews.

Afterward, they filed a complaint with Harvard alleging a violation of their civil rights. In May, their allegations appeared in a federal civil-rights lawsuit. It cites their claims as evidence that Harvard “ignores and tolerates” anti-Semitism. Their professor, who is also Jewish, rejects that narrative and maintains that he taught the class appropriately.

What do colleges owe their Jewish students? Administrators, faculty, and members of Congress have debated that polarizing question in recent months. Soon, judges and juries may impose some answers. At least 19 lawsuits pending against institutions of higher education allege anti-Semitism that violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which mandates that no person shall, on grounds of race or national origin, “be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under” a program that receives federal funds.

Dara Horn: Why the most educated people in America fall for anti-Semitic lies

If you had to choose just one of these cases to illustrate their fraught implications, you couldn’t do better than the dispute at Harvard. The students make a strong case that they were subject to discrimination, strong enough that an outside attorney hired by Harvard to investigate agreed. At a minimum, I think they were treated unfairly.

Yet validating their claims would also mean rejecting their professor’s plausible defense of his pedagogical judgments, despite his indisputable expertise, undermining academic freedom.

More worryingly, Title VI doesn’t just guarantee equal treatment. It has been interpreted to mandate that colleges stop and remedy harassing behavior and prevent a persistently hostile climate. The lawsuit defines those concepts so expansively that, should all its arguments prevail, Title VI will conflict with free-speech protections more than it already does––and in doing so, the suit underscores the problem with Title VI, because its interpretation of the statute is plausibly consistent with the law’s vague and malleable text.

The way forward is to reaffirm equal treatment for Jewish students without undermining free speech or academic freedom. But we cannot rely on the justice system to achieve that balance. Congress should intervene, amending Title VI to add robust free-speech protections for all.

The course the lawsuit focuses on, “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” teaches graduate students how to be community organizers. Students form small groups and are asked to decide “Who are my people, what is our challenge, and how can we turn resources we have into the power we need to meet that challenge?” Then each group conceives an organizing campaign and shares it with classmates.

In the spring of 2023, the Israeli students, all mid-career professionals, teamed up in the 116-person class and proposed this plan: “Organizing a growing majority of Israelis, that act in harmony, building on a shared ethos of Israel as a liberal-Jewish-democracy, based on our mixed heritage and identities, being a cultural, economical, and security lighthouse.”

That idea drew complaints from Muslim and Arab students, according to Professor Marshall Ganz, who ordered it altered. Many “find the term ‘Jewish democracy’ deeply offensive because it limits membership in a political community to those who share a specific ethno-religious identity,” Ganz emailed one student, “whereas democracy is based on the equal worth of each person, regardless of race, ethnicity, and religion.”

The three countered that the idea of Jewish democracy is “woven within our identities as Israelis and as Jews.” In a class on learning how to mobilize others around ideas, they argued, “academic freedom is not served by silencing ideas” or “people from unpopular countries.” They refused to alter their campaign.

Later, two teaching assistants did a role-playing presentation for the class to illustrate how to recruit for a cause. They used “Palestinian solidarity” as their example––a choice the Israeli students felt was aimed at them––and, according to the lawsuit, the presentation included “a litany of aggressively anti-Israeli diatribes,” prompting other anti-Israel remarks from one student.

The Israeli students asked to respond with a different perspective. But Ganz rejected the request, the lawsuit states, saying they had “caused enough problems already.” Then the teaching assistants “organized a class photo wherein students posed wearing keffiyehs to demonstrate Palestinian solidarity.” This made the students feel “that they were not welcome” in the photo, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also alleges that the Israelis received lower grades than their classmates as punishment––grade inflation is so comically extreme in the Ivy League that they are pressing that claim even after receiving grades of a B+, a B+, and an A-. Ganz has contested the Israeli students’ narrative in an outside investigation, a Nation essay, and an interview with me.

By biography, Ganz, 81, seems an unlikely target of an anti-Semitism lawsuit. His father was a conservative rabbi. His grandparents fled pogroms. His great-uncle was murdered at Auschwitz. He dropped out of Harvard to volunteer with the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project, then became an organizer for United Farm Workers, helping Cesar Chavez unionize farm labor. At 49, he returned to Harvard, finished his degree, then completed a master of public affairs and a Ph.D. in sociology, and became a professor. “My life has been deeply rooted in Jewish values and traditions,” he wrote in his February essay for The Nation , which cast Exodus as the inspiration for his life’s work. “Each generation had to decide: Who are you with?” he wrote. “Pharaoh’s warriors trying to return the people to slavery? Or people trying to break free?”

Ganz was surprised, then angry, when a Title VI complaint, a precursor to the lawsuit, was filed with Harvard. “In my organizing years in the 1960s and ’70s in Mississippi and rural California, I was routinely called out as a Jew Communist outside agitator ,” he wrote in The Nation . “But now, I was being investigated at the Kennedy School? As an antisemite?!” He believes that he taught not just lawfully, but with sound pedagogy informed by decades of experience as an organizer and a teacher.

The outside investigator Harvard hired, an attorney named Allyson Kurker, reached a different conclusion. Her June 2023 report sided with the students in significant respects, finding that their free speech was stymied and that they faced a hostile learning environment based on their Jewish ethnicity. When Ganz rejected their campaign, he was motivated by “real concern” for “students and teaching fellows he viewed as members of a group oppressed by Israel,” she wrote, but the Kennedy School’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities emphasizes that the school should expose students to “even unpopular and controversial” ideas and encourage them to “talk openly” about “highly charged issues.”

Her report acknowledged that the First Amendment, a lodestar for Harvard free-speech policies, does give professors latitude to restrict speech to avoid controversy, if the restriction is limited to “legitimate pedagogical concerns.” So Ganz “could, perhaps, limit students from making hateful or inflammatory statements about Israel or Palestine that are unsupported by authoritative sources,” Kurker wrote. Still, she found “no pedagogical support” for forbidding the trio from calling Israel “a Jewish democracy,” because that is not a merely provocative, unsupportable view––it is a common, if contested, view held by some experts.

The investigation validated Ganz’s decision to allow Palestine-aligned students to express their views. Only the fact that Ganz passively permitted the exercise about Palestinian solidarity to go forward after “seeking to silence the voices of the Students who sought to organize ways to improve Israel as a liberal Jewish democracy” was deemed discriminatory.

In this telling, Ganz could have avoided trouble by letting everyone air their views, even when controversial, rather than hold students to different standards.

Overall, the investigation found that “Ganz treated the Students differently on the basis of their Israeli national origin and Jewish ethnicity,” limiting their ability to participate in the class. But Ganz called the investigation a “kangaroo court.” He told me that neither the investigator nor the lawsuit understands his class and its purpose. “The point of this assignment was for students to learn how to create an organizing space that welcomed others in to build social movements,” he said. “Using contested and inflammatory language conflicted with the purpose of the assignment.”

I asked if he would have objected to an organizing campaign on “Palestinian solidarity.” He answered no, because “creating solidarity as a goal is consistent with the goals of our course.” He added that “a project on advancing a certain state as a ‘Muslim democracy’ (or ‘Christian democracy’)” would have had the same issues as the Israeli students’ project.

Although I don’t think Ganz’s behavior was motivated by anti-Semitism, I do think everyone in the class would’ve been better served by airing and discussing controversial campaign ideas. The attempt to suppress controversial ideas to avoid distraction clearly failed. And if the Israeli students’ framing hurt their ability to organize, surely that taught them something.

That doesn’t mean that whatever ideas a student brings to a class must go unchallenged. I’d defend Ganz had he told the Israeli students, “The phrase ‘Jewish democracy’ will alienate some of your classmates. I need you to understand why, and then to consider: Are you needlessly alienating people? Or is this framing so intrinsic to your cause that you can’t alter it, because to do so would alter the core of your campaign?” But ordering them to change their campaign, having allowed other students to proceed with controversial subjects, makes me suspect that ideological bias distorts Ganz’s sense of what is framing versus substance, what constitutes an unacceptable distraction, and when it is necessary to tell offended students that they will face consequences if they derail a class, rather than preempting ideas.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. Ganz himself raised the important question of who decides when I asked him about the finding that he tried to suppress a contested idea rather than an unsupportable provocation.

“As a scholar in this field,” he wrote, “I have significantly more background and expertise on this matter than a lawyer,” and because the class taught how to organize by way of actually organizing other Harvard students, he reasoned that the three students’ framing “would not only be divisive, but isolate themselves from engagement with others, making it far harder for them to realize the learning the class had to offer.”

Though I question his approach, I am hesitant to advocate for federal courts or bureaucrats to second-guess the judgments of a longtime professor who has expertise in the field in a dispute where the ostensibly wronged students got good grades and course credit.

Title VI allows students who feel they’ve experienced unequal treatment to appeal to civil-rights bureaucrats and the courts for a remedy. Yet the mere possibility of Title VI complaints creates an incentive for colleges to maintain costly, invariably biased speech-policing bureaucracies. Most monitor and micromanage interactions among faculty, teaching assistants, and students, chilling pedagogy and speech that should be protected.

This particular lawsuit is a major clash that highlights and could exacerbate this broken approach. Harvard has more resources than any other university to defend itself, if it decides that publicly litigating the case is preferable to settling it. The nonprofit that filed the lawsuit, the Brandeis Center , is formidable too: It was founded and is led by Kenneth Marcus , a former Department of Education official who helped ensure that Jews were considered a protected class under Title VI. The lawsuit is likely to benefit from his expertise at spotting fact patterns that help expand protections of Jews.

Conor Friedersdorf: The wrong way to fight anti-Semitism on campus

The Brandeis Center does important work to challenge discriminatory double standards that disadvantage Jewish and Israeli students. “Harvard’s permissive posture towards antisemitism is the opposite of its aggressive enforcement of the same anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies to protect other minorities,” its lawsuit persuasively argues. If the courts follow the lead of Kurker’s report and resolve double standards by protecting everyone’s expressive rights, the precedent could help protect Jews from discrimination without restricting anyone’s speech.

But its lawsuit doesn’t merely argue for resolving double standards, like the one the students allegedly faced, by emphasizing everyone’s free-speech rights. It argues that some of the protected speech of their professor and of their Palestine-aligned classmates was unlawfully harassing.

And policing more speech on behalf of any group sets a community standard on campus. Colleges must then regulate all speech just as vigorously, or else deploy a double standard that invites lawsuits from members of groups who correctly see that they are treated unequally. Harvard’s past policing of microaggressions informs today’s anti-Semitism complaints. What will Palestinian students be owed in the future?

Rather than risk policing everyone’s speech more intensely, Americans should demand a reaffirmation of that most foundational civil right: the ability of everyone to speak freely. Safeguarding this right requires Congress to act. It should not repeal Title VI—the prohibition on discriminatory double standards should stand. Instead it should amend the statute to clarify that nothing in the law requires policing speech protected by academic freedom or the First Amendment.

Hip-Hop Needs a #MeToo Reckoning

C assie Ventura is not the first survivor of hip-hop’s abuse. Unfortunately, she will not be the last. In the months since Ventura filed a federal lawsuit against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs for rape and abuse in November 2023, six women survivors and one male survivor have come out against the hip-hop mogul with stories of alleged abuse and harm. Ventura’s brutal account, coupled with surveillance video released on May 17 by CNN of the singer being physically assaulted by Combs in 2016, has also reignited discussions about why hip-hop needs its own #MeToo movement. (Combs apologized for his actions on the video, but denied all other allegations. On June 22, People reported that Combs deleted all of his social media posts on Instagram, including his apology video to Ventura.)

Since Ventura’s initial filing against Combs, other people have come forward about the sexual and physical assault at the hands of other men in hip-hop. Musician and record producer The-Dream, for instance, was accused of sexual and physical assault by Chanaaz Mangroe, his former protege. (In a statement to The New York Times , The-Dream said “These claims are untrue and defamatory.”) But the pushback Ventura received by hip-hop’s elder statesman —like Akon, Uncle Luke, Slim Thug, and Stevie J, to name a few who chose to stand by Combs and discredit her claims— proved why, while Hollywood and other industries have broken some ground since the Harvey Weinstein allegations in 2017, a reckoning of gender violence has yet to transpire in the genre. 

It seems a culture of fear is governing hip-hop. And it’s about time we recognize it.

After the release of the footage, Slim Thug and Uncle Luke rescinded their support for Combs. But the majority of prominent men in hip-hop have remained silent about the truth—that their cowardly refusal to hold their peers accountable has resulted in the continued degradation of Black women’s safety and their lives. That their silence has become complicity. 

“Why is it so hard to believe Black women?,” ask Patrice Tillery and Christina M. Jones, Esq. in an article for BWJP , The Battered Women’s Justice Project. “Even in situations where sharing our truth benefits us in no visible way, and in many cases, makes something that is already incredibly challenging, exponentially harder. Why do we have to beg for the bare minimum?”

Misogynoir is, of course, not unique to hip-hop. These universal systems of oppression are prevalent in the lives of Black women. But what is unique about the hip-hop industry is that its leaders feel the need to defend the genre that made them—to protect it and gate-keep it, even at the cost of sweeping violence under the rug. This, as a result, has interwoven gender-based oppression into its DNA.

From its inception half a century ago, hip-hop has had to protect itself from law enforcement, the media, and political leaders. Oftentimes, those seen as its protectors were men. Hip-hop gave Black men access to wealth and resources that they had never seen. In turn, the Black women, who also helped to create the music and safeguard the culture, were subjected to dehumanization and humiliation from their male peers. That dangerous bargain has not only remained the same, but proved itself to be profitable for the men in charge.

Some of the genre’s earliest titans—like Russell Simmons, Dr. Dre, and L.A. Reid— were able to accumulate economic and social capital throughout the years, while reportedly assaulting the women who worked around them. On Feb. 13, for instance, a former Def Jam senior executive alleged that Simmons sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, after she went to his residence for approval on a music video. Model Keri Claussen Khalighi, writer Jenny Lumet, hip-hop pioneer Sherri Hines, music journalist Toni Sallie, actress Alexia Norton Jones , fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone , and former Def Jam Recordings executive Drew Dixon have also accused Simmons of sexual assault and harassment. (In an episode of In Depth With Graham Bensinger , Simmons said , “I've never been violent to anybody.” He continued, "Of course, I've been insensitive, but certainly never been forceful in any of my relationships, all of which I've had have been consensual.”) In November 2023, Dixon also accused Reid of sexual assault. (Reid denied her claims.) A few years before, in 2017, she accused the music executive of misconduct.

In 1991, Dr. Dre allegedly physically assaulted hip-hop journalist Dee Barnes at an industry party. Barnes sued Dre that same year and the lawsuit was settled out of court. In 2015, singer Michel’le Toussaint , Dr. Dre’s ex-fiancee, also alleged that Dre physically abused her during their relationship. Nicole Young , Dr. Dre’s ex-wife, alleged in 2021 that Dre was abusive to her throughout their marriage. (Dr. Dre denied Young’s claims of abuse. He also denies Michel’le’s claims. He spoke about Barnes’ alleged assault in The Defiant Ones, “Any man who puts his hands on a female is a f—ing idiot. He’s out of his f—ing mind, and I was out of my f—ing mind at the time. I f—ed up, I paid for it, I’m sorry for it, and I apologize for it.”) In spite of the accusations, Dr. Dre continues to be feted and held up in music and entertainment—from headlining the Super Bowl LVI halftime show in 2022, to receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2024, to performing alongside Kendrick Lamar at The Pop Out: Ken & Friends show this Juneteenth.

Read more: Dee Barnes: Women Are ‘Casualties’ of Straight Outta Compton‘s ‘Revisionist History’

Journalists, A&R executives, models; all of these women were seen as expendable. In the case of Barnes, her abuse was turned into profit by Dre and his associates. In the years that followed the alleged assault, Eminem and Dr. Dre turned her name into a punchline in their music. On “Guilty Conscience,” a single from the 1999 The Slim Shady LP , the hip-hop duo said, “You gonna take advice from somebody who slapped Dee Barnes?/ What you say?/ What's wrong? Didn't think I'd remember?/ I'ma kill you, motherf-cker.” Then, in 2007, fellow rapper Redman made another reference to Barnes on “Get ‘Em,” a track from Red Gone Wild: Thee Album. “You get slapped like Dee Barnes, Doctor, not Dre, And eating - but, I'm after the entrée!,” said the rapper. 

This cycle of abuse laid the groundwork for what was to come when Tory Lanez assaulted and shot Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. Shortly after news of her assault was made public, Megan Thee Stallion was ostracized. Internet bloggers, podcasters, and content creators promoted and distributed false narratives regarding the assault, accusing her of lying. To boot, hip-hop superstar Drake’s lyrics about the Houston rapper on “Circo Loco” — “This bitch lie 'bout gettin' shots, but she still a stallion”—contributed to the narrative. The shooting was referenced again by Eminem on “ Houdini ”:“If I was to ask for Megan Thee Stallion if she would collab with me, Would I really have a shot at a feat? (Ha!), I don't know, but I'm glad to be back, like”

Hip-hop and the people who support the industry have long used the harm and violence enacted on Black women as a way to promote their newest song for attention-grabbing headlines. But in the social and digital media age, that same harm and violence has turned into content. Only now, Black women aren’t the only ones subjugated to this type of harassment and mistreatment.

When producer Rodney ‘Lil Rod’ Jones filed a lawsuit against Combs for sexual harassment and sexual assault in February 2024, the response on social media was an influx of homophobic content, with the “No Homo” slur replaced by “ No Diddy .” Some people used Jones’ lawsuit—and the vitriolic response it inspired—to downplay the other lawsuits filed by women. 

Because misogynoir is rooted in the devaluation of femininity at large, LGBTQIA+  people are also susceptible to gender-based violence. And in a genre where Black toxic masculinity is a key to success, hip-hop does not create space for the Black queer experience to be celebrated. Despite the accomplishments of openly queer rappers such as Young M.A, Lil Nas X, and Saucy Santana, their success is often viewed as an anomaly, instead of the norm. 

Oftentimes, in fact, men in hip-hop enforce strict boundaries around race, gender, and femininity through their music. From the homophobic first verse on “Dior” by Pop Smoke to the reported mistreatment of artist ILoveMakonnen by Drake’s record label OVO Sound because of his sexuality, homophobia and masculinity are strictly enforced by hip-hop’s gatekeepers.

Hip-hop gave Black men access to wealth and resources that they had never seen.

Despite the efforts of many top artists, from Ice Cube to Killer Mike, to critique white supremacy, capitalism, and mass incarceration, there is a conspicuous silence when it comes to sexuality and gender. Even when artists like Kendrick Lamar feel as if they are protecting hip-hop from “colonizers” (in a recent case, Drake ), Black women become the inevitable casualties. During their weeks-long rap beef, both Lamar and Drake hurled allegations of gender-based violence against one another. From intimate partner violence to inappropriate conduct with minors, every woman and child that was affiliated with the pair became subjugated to intense scrutiny and surveillance online. Although it was the men who were being accused of physical and sexual abuse, that did not stop the public from turning their scrutiny to the women they allegedly abused.

Read more: A Recent Timeline of the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar Beef

It’s interesting that a through-line in their exchange of diss records was the bold proclamation of who inflicted more harm toward women and which harm was greater—like points on a scoreboard. This laissez faire approach to violence against Black women and girls in hip-hop is the reason why some people still believe Lanez. Why people still don’t believe Ventura.

A common refrain when survivors like Ventura come forward is that the woman in question is doing this for financial gain. That the easiest way to make money as a woman in hip-hop (outside of producing a child) is to accuse a man of sexual assault. But this couldn’t be farther from the truth. In a recent Rolling Stone article, the majority of Combs’ survivors said they were pursuing legal action against him not for financial exploitation, but for themselves—to find some semblance of peace and warn other women and girls currently in Combs’ life.

Journalist August Brown, who has reported on Combs for the Los Angeles Times , spoke about the financial and legal implications that prevent survivors from coming forward on a March 2024 episode of the podcast What A Day : “One thing that he [Combs] was very effective at, that we learned in our reporting , is using NDAs to kind of lock people into his ecosystem and feel like they can’t speak up,” he said. “Someone with that much money and that much power within the industry, it takes a lot of gumption to go up against him and either break an NDA or find a way to speak out in spite of one. Up until the Cassie suits, I think a lot of people still to this day probably remain afraid of him in some capacity.”

Troubling, too, is the release of Ventura’s video via CNN, which poses other questions about the cyclical nature of gender-based violence. Did Combs not receive an influx of followers after his apology video was published on Instagram following the release of the video? Did he not receive engagement from every click, like, and subscribe off of this video–off of a survivor’s pain? Was the video not re-traumatizing for Ventura and other survivors of Combs’ violence? That is misogynoir in practice, adapted for the digital age.

So, what drives survivors to come forward? Why would Ventura, Jones, Liza Gardner, Joie Dickerson-Neal, and a woman who identified as Jane Doe break their silence at a point when Combs remains so powerful not just in hip-hop, but pop culture at large? 

It is the humanistic belief that there is a better way forward. After the release of the surveillance video by CNN in May, Ventura said the following in a statement on Instagram: “My only ask is that EVERYONE open your heart to believing victims the first time...It takes a lot of heart to tell the truth out of a situation that you were powerless in.”

It is possible for a reality to exist where Combs and men like him are not in power to inflict harm and violence. There is no golden rule that states that hip-hop, and men in hip-hop, must operate like this and continue the proliferation of violent attitudes and behaviors. But it must be done in unison. Change cannot be enacted or sustained by a singular artist, fan, or critic. Change requires multiple artists, fans, and critics to bring forth equitable policies and practices in hip-hop to create a healthier environment for everyone.   

With intention, hip-hop can dismantle racial and gender oppression. But in order to make this a reality, we must abolish the very systems that encourage men like Combs to perpetuate them in the first place. If hip-hop is meant to survive another 50 years, it cannot continue like this. This is the watershed moment we’ve been waiting for.

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