From blindly deciding to make a photo essay for one of my experiments to fully executing it as my final project, the conclusion and summation of this piece represents a major point of growth and pride for me as writer. Every student has had the five-paragraph essay structure engrained in him or her since the start of elementary school. Taking the writing skills that underlie simply fitting a format and applying them to an entirely different project, however, truly tests what one can make and who he or she can influence with this knowledge.

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         I entered the creation of this photo essay convinced that the path from start to finish couldn’t be cleaner. There was absolutely no room for hiccups – it will be as simple as asking a few questions, typing up the answers directly as they’re given, and putting them into a word document with some photos. In fact, if I do describe the process to someone right now, it wouldn’t differ too dramatically from just that. Though they did ultimately encompass the meat of this project, there were some tricky choices I had to make along the way.

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         Before I began interviewing anybody, I had to make sure that I was clear on the specific population I wanted to interview. I initially intended on only asking my friends, all also in college, simply because I knew the likelihood of them opening up to me and being comfortable with answering these questions beyond a superficial level was higher. Though this was true, I did not plan on centering the entire structure of this photo essay around the specific age group who I was asking about fears. The project title ended up being “The Mid-College Crisis: Sophomore Fears,” showing that in a backwards way, the process of making this photo essay helped shape its function.

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         The next choice I had to make in writing this photo essay was what its central goal was. This was what took the longest to fully decide on, as the goal shapes how I present all of the photos and texts to begin with. It wasn’t until I realized that there were various repeated themes across the provided answers that I knew how to cohesively summate all of the content I had gathered. This too was a situation in which I had to look at all that I had until I could really explain any of it. I ended up introducing the photo essay with my personal connections to the central topic of fears, and concluding it with an almost “call to action” style line in which I ask readers to reflect on their own fears.

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         Additionally, the medium which I ultimately put my project on, the photo-essay-based site Exposure, acted as both a blessing and a curse when it came down to working with it. I initially put my photo essay on a simple word document with adjustments in the page color and font styles (this is the draft represented in my experiment 2 sample), however couldn’t feel satisfied with any visual version of this. When I put all of the content on Exposure, the visual layout was far more practical and easier to navigate, however I had to adjust a lot of the text (cutting, editing, rearranging) in order to frame it into the limited flexibility of the site format. Since the photo size was non-adjustable on the site as well, I struggled with receiving a photo from each individual that was high enough quality or was of practical dimensions. Luckily after sufficient searching, I was able to locate photos that worked for each individual and have them approved for use on my project. Though I sacrificed the freedom that a simpler layout would have given me, I am happy with how I was able to work with the Exposure format to create this final product.

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         One of the biggest surprises that I realized I completely failed to account for earlier in the interviewing process was that even when working with close friends, it is important to explicitly emphasize all nuances of your work and where it will ultimately end up. Luckily I realized the impact of this mistake early on, and was able to make adjustments quickly for the majority of my future interviews. Additionally, I did not foresee how similar some of the answers I would be receiving would be, and ultimately taught myself how to quickly adjust my interviewing process so that it more directly asked for personal and individualistic details. This allowed each answer to have a unique tone and distinguished component or anecdote that sets it apart. 

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         My first breakthrough came along in this project when I realized that I can spin the repeated themes of fears into a positive for my work. This gave me a central goal and method to cohesively tie together all of the aggregated content. It also supported the idea that students in the same age group may be concerned about some of the same things, as this is a difficult time of change and discovery for everyone breaking into their full, adult selves.

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         What may not be known about this project from first glance is how tricky it can be to interview someone and log all of the repeated answers as accurately as would be liked. Though I considered using a recording device in the beginning, this wasn’t possible for most of the interviews as many were conducted over the phone. The most challenging part of this was preserving the integrity of the writer by keeping original phrasing, while still cutting out superfluous terms and repeated points. I ultimately developed a technique in which I was able to bullet central points and phrases, later using those to frame the response to fit both how the writer wanted to presented him or herself and the formatting limitations of the website. I was also careful to make sure the speaker approved of the final changes I made and was comfortable with the responses and photos being online.

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         Now that my project is complete, I am very happy with how the photo essay came out and am proud of having worked out all of the small missteps along the way. I think that the overall structure and flow of the project are cohesive, and I am excited to look back on it in the future and see how both the fears of my friends, as well as my own, have evolved. Going forward, a major goal that I have for myself for the coming semesters before the capstone course would be working on simplifying the density of my writing style while still preserving my voice and tone. I have long held up the misconception that writing with simpler phrasing insinuates creating lower quality work, however I’ve learned this semester how false that is.

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         Reflecting on the creation of my Eportfolio, I can definitely say that my lack of prior experience with the medium of Wix made the process of it rather challenging. I didn’t foresee how many choices had to be made in the process and how overwhelmingly many options there were. Though I can see how this is practically beneficial for a professional using the site to market him/herself or a product, it was challenging to figure out exactly how I wanted everything to be laid out and whether I wanted each page to have a uniform or distinct theme. After playing around with all of the options for several days, however, I was able to fit everything together onto my site and am happy with the choices I made in the process. I am particularly glad that I chose to type up many of the 5-minute-freewrites from this semester and include them on the site, as they add a personal and distinctive touch of my voice that is unrelated to the sole topic of fear. Though the process of creating my Eportfolio was not easy, I am glad that I had this incentive for making a version of my own website as it is unlikely I would have made time for this under any other circumstances. I am grateful to have this artifact recording all of my work from this semester, and like the final project itself, am excited to look back and reflect on it.

 

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