Activity 1.1: Photo Essay Ideas

After familiarising yourself with a range of photo essays from industry, write down 2 of your own photo essay ideas on you process blog. Provide feedback on your classmates’ thoughts on the discussion forum, which you can access via the link at the bottom of the page or in the left-hand navigation menu.

Activity 1.2: Photo essay story angle

Based on feedback from your classmates and lecturer, choose your most robust essay idea and develop a story angle by brainstorming the subtopics within your story idea.

Activity 1.3: Process blog

Post the results from the above activities, along with a brief reflection, on your process blog. Make sure to include thoughts on what you learned, along with the challenges you faced. When completed, post a link to your blog post on the Discussion Forum on the Blackboard LMS portal.

Activity 1.1: Photo Essay Ideas

As you can see from my image, my idea started forming Last October when my daughter announced she was Pan sexual. Being Bisexual myself it wasn’t a great revelation but I did need to research what Pan-sexuality was. This particular photo was taken in February on Mardi Gras Fair Day 2020 on Sydney.

Pansexuality is defined on Wikipedia as “Pansexuality, or omnisexuality, is the sexual, romantic or emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pan sexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others.”

My initial thought was National Geographic but I’m researching pitches to LGTBQI publications as well.

Activity 1.2: Photo essay story angle

My idea to document her journey from My little girl to Baby Gay started when we attended her first local pride day in November at Parramatta Riverside Park, and when i knew we were doing Media and documentary for first trimester, i slowly began over the summer holidays to think about how i could make a cohesive story out of this life event. Other thoughts had been to do a day at Hospital with her as she has chemotherapy for Crohns Disease and Rheumatoid arthritis every 8 weeks for the last 3 years, she was diagnosed at 9 years old with Severe fistulating Crohns and gets ulcers from her mouth to her anus through her entire GI tract. The rheumatoid was diagnosed as an additional Auto Immune disease late last year, around the time she came out as Pansexual. Her cousin also has Crohns and Cystic Fibrosis is being investigated for her. Auto Immune diseases often come in multiple disorders, but i wanted something uplifting and colorful that represents my daughter, shes not a disease or a disability or a sexuality she was Simply BORN THIS WAY which is the title I’m working with.

Activity 1.3: Process blog – Reflections

My thoughts so far…..how do i distill over 900 images so far into a 10-25 image photo essay……what is my exact narrative..do i include hospital photos too?

After tossing ideas around in class i felt somewhat clearer that my idea was a great one but i was still left with the dilemma of how to tell her story. That’s my goal over the next 12 weeks… to tell Stella’s story and have it be authentic to her and how she was BORN THIS WAY!