Special Assignment - Photo Spreads

PHOTO SPREAD ASSIGNMENT

A spread is a large page layout of photos that tell a story. Such a page often is referred to as a photo page, a photo story, a picture story or a photo essay.

This assignment is intended to give you experience in conceiving and executing a photo spread for newspaper publication. You may select one of the following general concepts for your photo spread:

ß Covering a major event

ß Exploring a topic or trend

ß Profiling a personality

ß Telling a story

ß Displaying objects/places

Like a good essay, a good photo story must be planned.

ß A picture story requires a central idea or theme before shooting starts.

ß While serendipitous results might come from haphazard shooting, experience teaches that good picture stories are not stumbled across, but developed carefully.

Hereπs how to create a good picture story:

ß Plan the story first, then shoot it.

ß Choose a dominant picture.

ß Avoid the cluttered look from crowding too many pictures into the available space.

ß Use a caption with each picture and an overall headline to tie the package together.

ß Limit captions to a maximum length. Readers like to leap from picture to picture, so captions should be short.

ß A caption can be related to its picture by proximity, by key letter or number, or by an arrow. Proximity is best.

ß Donπt put a caption far from a photo. The readerπs eye moves repeatedly from photo to caption and to photo.

ß Arrange similar captions to have the same width, type and number of lines.

ß Avoid those so-called ≥rivers of gray≤ caused by captions meeting irregularly near the same level.

ß You must focus on the individual pictures while exhibiting a continuity from photograph to photograph. You can create that continuity with a central block of story copy that describes the pictures as a group.

ß Face pictures toward the related text.

ß Focus simultaneously on a subject or personality as well as a theme or mood.

This assignment is due no later than March 18, 2004. In addition to photos, include a headline, text block and captions. For submission, lay out and paste up your photo spread on a standard newspaper broadside-size paper sheet ≠ 13" wide by 21" deep.