Photo essay example with captions

One of the best ways to gain a better understanding of photo essays is to view some photo essay examples. 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.

Instead of simply reducing / restating what’s already obvious in the photo, strong captions — what we at Matador call “narrative” captions — give the viewer context, backstory, information that the viewer CAN’T see for him or herself. This includes things like: Backstory on the scene (example: at what point of the trip the shot occurred)

One last example of narrative captioning comes from Matador contributing editor Daniel Britt. Notice how the photographer’s descriptions imply not just his passing through the area but having spent significant time and developing a relationship with the culture. A street merchant bags a few grams of naswar — Afghan snuff — in Herat.

Behind-the-scenes photo essay: Behind-the-scenes photo essays are great ways to capture what goes into events from start to finish. With this type of photo story, you can see the working parts of a production and how it all moves together in harmony.