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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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How to Create an Engaging Photo Essay (with Examples)

Photo essays tell a story in pictures. They're a great way to improve at photography and story-telling skills at once. Learn how to do create a great one.

Learn | Photography Guides | By Ana Mireles

Photography is a medium used to tell stories – sometimes they are told in one picture, sometimes you need a whole series. Those series can be photo essays.

If you’ve never done a photo essay before, or you’re simply struggling to find your next project, this article will be of help. I’ll be showing you what a photo essay is and how to go about doing one.

You’ll also find plenty of photo essay ideas and some famous photo essay examples from recent times that will serve you as inspiration.

If you’re ready to get started, let’s jump right in!

Table of Contents

What is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a series of images that share an overarching theme as well as a visual and technical coherence to tell a story. Some people refer to a photo essay as a photo series or a photo story – this often happens in photography competitions.

Photographic history is full of famous photo essays. Think about The Great Depression by Dorothea Lange, Like Brother Like Sister by Wolfgang Tillmans, Gandhi’s funeral by Henri Cartier Bresson, amongst others.

What are the types of photo essay?

Despite popular belief, the type of photo essay doesn’t depend on the type of photography that you do – in other words, journalism, documentary, fine art, or any other photographic genre is not a type of photo essay.

Instead, there are two main types of photo essays: narrative and thematic .

As you have probably already guessed, the thematic one presents images pulled together by a topic – for example, global warming. The images can be about animals and nature as well as natural disasters devastating cities. They can happen all over the world or in the same location, and they can be captured in different moments in time – there’s a lot of flexibility.

A narrative photo essa y, on the other hand, tells the story of a character (human or not), portraying a place or an event. For example, a narrative photo essay on coffee would document the process from the planting and harvesting – to the roasting and grinding until it reaches your morning cup.

What are some of the key elements of a photo essay?

• Tell a unique story – A unique story doesn’t mean that you have to photograph something that nobody has done before – that would be almost impossible! It means that you should consider what you’re bringing to the table on a particular topic.
• Put yourself into the work – One of the best ways to make a compelling photo essay is by adding your point of view, which can only be done with your life experiences and the way you see the world.
• Add depth to the concept – The best photo essays are the ones that go past the obvious and dig deeper in the story, going behind the scenes, or examining a day in the life of the subject matter – that’s what pulls in the spectator.
• Nail the technique – Even if the concept and the story are the most important part of a photo essay, it won’t have the same success if it’s poorly executed.
• Build a structure – A photo essay is about telling a thought-provoking story – so, think about it in a narrative way. Which images are going to introduce the topic? Which ones represent a climax? How is it going to end – how do you want the viewer to feel after seeing your photo series?
• Make strong choices – If you really want to convey an emotion and a unique point of view, you’re going to need to make some hard decisions. Which light are you using? Which lens? How many images will there be in the series? etc., and most importantly for a great photo essay is the why behind those choices.

9 Tips for Creating a Photo Essay

Credit: Laura James

1. Choose something you know

To make a good photo essay, you don’t need to travel to an exotic location or document a civil war – I mean, it’s great if you can, but you can start close to home.

Depending on the type of photography you do and the topic you’re looking for in your photographic essay, you can photograph a local event or visit an abandoned building outside your town.

It will be much easier for you to find a unique perspective and tell a better story if you’re already familiar with the subject. Also, consider that you might have to return a few times to the same location to get all the photos you need.

2. Follow your passion

Most photo essays take dedication and passion. If you choose a subject that might be easy, but you’re not really into it – the results won’t be as exciting. Taking photos will always be easier and more fun if you’re covering something you’re passionate about.

3. Take your time

A great photo essay is not done in a few hours. You need to put in the time to research it, conceptualizing it, editing, etc. That’s why I previously recommended following your passion because it takes a lot of dedication, and if you’re not passionate about it – it’s difficult to push through.

4. Write a summary or statement

Photo essays are always accompanied by some text. You can do this in the form of an introduction, write captions for each photo or write it as a conclusion. That’s up to you and how you want to present the work.

5. Learn from the masters

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Making a photographic essay takes a lot of practice and knowledge. A great way to become a better photographer and improve your storytelling skills is by studying the work of others. You can go to art shows, review books and magazines and look at the winners in photo contests – most of the time, there’s a category for photo series.

6. Get a wide variety of photos

Think about a story – a literary one. It usually tells you where the story is happening, who is the main character, and it gives you a few details to make you engage with it, right?

The same thing happens with a visual story in a photo essay – you can do some wide-angle shots to establish the scenes and some close-ups to show the details. Make a shot list to ensure you cover all the different angles.

Some of your pictures should guide the viewer in, while others are more climatic and regard the experience they are taking out of your photos.

7. Follow a consistent look

Both in style and aesthetics, all the images in your series need to be coherent. You can achieve this in different ways, from the choice of lighting, the mood, the post-processing, etc.

8. Be self-critical

Once you have all the photos, make sure you edit them with a good dose of self-criticism. Not all the pictures that you took belong in the photo essay. Choose only the best ones and make sure they tell the full story.

9. Ask for constructive feedback

Often, when we’re working on a photo essay project for a long time, everything makes perfect sense in our heads. However, someone outside the project might not be getting the idea. It’s important that you get honest and constructive criticism to improve your photography.

How to Create a Photo Essay in 5 Steps

Credit: Quang Nguyen Vinh

1. Choose your topic

This is the first step that you need to take to decide if your photo essay is going to be narrative or thematic. Then, choose what is it going to be about?

Ideally, it should be something that you’re interested in, that you have something to say about it, and it can connect with other people.

2. Research your topic

To tell a good story about something, you need to be familiar with that something. This is especially true when you want to go deeper and make a compelling photo essay. Day in the life photo essays are a popular choice, since often, these can be performed with friends and family, whom you already should know well.

3. Plan your photoshoot

Depending on what you’re photographing, this step can be very different from one project to the next. For a fine art project, you might need to find a location, props, models, a shot list, etc., while a documentary photo essay is about planning the best time to do the photos, what gear to bring with you, finding a local guide, etc.

Every photo essay will need different planning, so before taking pictures, put in the required time to get things right.

4. Experiment

It’s one thing to plan your photo shoot and having a shot list that you have to get, or else the photo essay won’t be complete. It’s another thing to miss out on some amazing photo opportunities that you couldn’t foresee.

So, be prepared but also stay open-minded and experiment with different settings, different perspectives, etc.

5. Make a final selection

Editing your work can be one of the hardest parts of doing a photo essay. Sometimes we can be overly critical, and others, we get attached to bad photos because we put a lot of effort into them or we had a great time doing them.

Try to be as objective as possible, don’t be afraid to ask for opinions and make various revisions before settling down on a final cut.

7 Photo Essay Topics, Ideas & Examples

Credit: Michelle Leman

• Architectural photo essay

Using architecture as your main subject, there are tons of photo essay ideas that you can do. For some inspiration, you can check out the work of Francisco Marin – who was trained as an architect and then turned to photography to “explore a different way to perceive things”.

You can also lookup Luisa Lambri. Amongst her series, you’ll find many photo essay examples in which architecture is the subject she uses to explore the relationship between photography and space.

• Process and transformation photo essay

This is one of the best photo essay topics for beginners because the story tells itself. Pick something that has a beginning and an end, for example, pregnancy, the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the life-cycle of a plant, etc.

Keep in mind that these topics are linear and give you an easy way into the narrative flow – however, it might be difficult to find an interesting perspective and a unique point of view.

• A day in the life of ‘X’ photo essay

There are tons of interesting photo essay ideas in this category – you can follow around a celebrity, a worker, your child, etc. You don’t even have to do it about a human subject – think about doing a photo essay about a day in the life of a racing horse, for example – find something that’s interesting for you.

• Time passing by photo essay

It can be a natural site or a landmark photo essay – whatever is close to you will work best as you’ll need to come back multiple times to capture time passing by. For example, how this place changes throughout the seasons or maybe even over the years.

A fun option if you live with family is to document a birthday party each year, seeing how the subject changes over time. This can be combined with a transformation essay or sorts, documenting the changes in interpersonal relationships over time.

• Travel photo essay

Do you want to make the jump from tourist snapshots into a travel photo essay? Research the place you’re going to be travelling to. Then, choose a topic.

If you’re having trouble with how to do this, check out any travel magazine – National Geographic, for example. They won’t do a generic article about Texas – they do an article about the beach life on the Texas Gulf Coast and another one about the diverse flavors of Texas.

The more specific you get, the deeper you can go with the story.

• Socio-political issues photo essay

This is one of the most popular photo essay examples – it falls under the category of photojournalism or documental photography. They are usually thematic, although it’s also possible to do a narrative one.

Depending on your topic of interest, you can choose topics that involve nature – for example, document the effects of global warming. Another idea is to photograph protests or make an education photo essay.

It doesn’t have to be a big global issue; you can choose something specific to your community – are there too many stray dogs? Make a photo essay about a local animal shelter. The topics are endless.

• Behind the scenes photo essay

A behind-the-scenes always make for a good photo story – people are curious to know what happens and how everything comes together before a show.

Depending on your own interests, this can be a photo essay about a fashion show, a theatre play, a concert, and so on. You’ll probably need to get some permissions, though, not only to shoot but also to showcase or publish those images.

4 Best Photo Essays in Recent times

Now that you know all the techniques about it, it might be helpful to look at some photo essay examples to see how you can put the concept into practice. Here are some famous photo essays from recent times to give you some inspiration.

Habibi by Antonio Faccilongo

This photo essay wan the World Press Photo Story of the Year in 2021. Faccilongo explores a very big conflict from a very specific and intimate point of view – how the Israeli-Palestinian war affects the families.

He chose to use a square format because it allows him to give order to things and eliminate unnecessary elements in his pictures.

With this long-term photo essay, he wanted to highlight the sense of absence and melancholy women and families feel towards their husbands away at war.

The project then became a book edited by Sarah Leen and the graphics of Ramon Pez.

Picture This: New Orleans by Mary Ellen Mark

The last assignment before her passing, Mary Ellen Mark travelled to New Orleans to register the city after a decade after Hurricane Katrina.

The images of the project “bring to life the rebirth and resilience of the people at the heart of this tale”, – says CNNMoney, commissioner of the work.

Each survivor of the hurricane has a story, and Mary Ellen Mark was there to record it. Some of them have heartbreaking stories about everything they had to leave behind.

Others have a story of hope – like Sam and Ben, two eight-year-olds born from frozen embryos kept in a hospital that lost power supply during the hurricane, yet they managed to survive.

Selfie by Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer whose work is mainly done through self-portraits. With them, she explores the concept of identity, gender stereotypes, as well as visual and cultural codes.

One of her latest photo essays was a collaboration with W Magazine entitled Selfie. In it, the author explores the concept of planned candid photos (‘plandid’).

The work was made for Instagram, as the platform is well known for the conflict between the ‘real self’ and the one people present online. Sherman started using Facetune, Perfect365 and YouCam to alter her appearance on selfies – in Photoshop, you can modify everything, but these apps were designed specifically to “make things prettier”- she says, and that’s what she wants to explore in this photo essay.

Tokyo Compression by Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf has an interest in the broad-gauge topic Life in Cities. From there, many photo essays have been derived – amongst them – Tokyo Compression .

He was horrified by the way people in Tokyo are forced to move to the suburbs because of the high prices of the city. Therefore, they are required to make long commutes facing 1,5 hours of train to start their 8+ hour workday followed by another 1,5 hours to get back home.

To portray this way of life, he photographed the people inside the train pressed against the windows looking exhausted, angry or simply absent due to this way of life.

You can visit his website to see other photo essays that revolve around the topic of life in megacities.

Final Words

It’s not easy to make photo essays, so don’t expect to be great at it right from your first project.

Start off small by choosing a specific subject that’s interesting to you –  that will come from an honest place, and it will be a great practice for some bigger projects along the line.

Whether you like to shoot still life or you’re a travel photographer, I hope these photo essay tips and photo essay examples can help you get started and grow in your photography.

Let us know which topics you are working on right now – we’ll love to hear from you!

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Ana Mireles is a Mexican researcher that specializes in photography and communications for the arts and culture sector.

Penelope G. To Ana Mireles Such a well written and helpful article for an writer who wants to inclue photo essay in her memoir. Thank you. I will get to work on this new skill. Penelope G.

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Writing a pictorial essay

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A pictorial essay is a type of educational article that aims to provide both textual and visual portrayals of a topical issue. It usually consists of a short unstructured abstract, brief introduction, subheadings to organise the material and a summary. The number of references is limited to a few key articles, typically, eight to 15, or fewer. The text is usually short, often approximately 1,000 to 2,000 words in length, with much of the message contained in the figure legends. This type of article allows for a large number of figures, typically up to 20 figures or 30 figure parts. The main criteria for publication are currency, educational value and high quality of illustrations.

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What is a Pictorial Essay? How to Write It Effectively?

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Penned down by an experienced essay writer in our team, this article defines a pictorial essay and gives a complete guide to writing a pictorial essay:

What is a Pictorial Essay?

A pictorial essay is a creative and unique way to convey your message. It is unique in the sense that pictures are incorporated into the content to disseminate the message. You may have heard the phrase that a picture is worth thousands of words. It is a befitting depiction in the case of the pictorial essay. Traditionally, you write to convey your sentiments, events, ideas, and thoughts to others by choosing the best possible words. However, you can also use pictures in your traditional essays, but it will not be a pictorial essay. It will be a kind of illustration to support your writing.

In contrast, the pictorial essay is a set of organized images to make your point across. Furthermore, here the role of writing is reversed, and it is used to support and describe pictures. The most intriguing moment of the pictorial essay is that it offers the visualization that a written text can never provide. In the meanwhile, images remain the fundamental tool for writers. Now. It’s time to look at the nitty-gritty of the pictorial essay.

Some Tips To Write A Perfect Pictorial Essay:

The best achievers in your team have shared a few simple tips that you must at least review to write an essay of pictorial type that can amaze your audience.

Understand Your Topic:

Firstly, you have to get a firm grip on your topic of discussion. To write an excellent pictorial or traditional essay, it is crucial to know the nitty-gritty of the subject. Yes, writing down the words to express your thoughts is the last step in writing; however, knowing your purpose for writing and brainstorming ideas to get started are some of the preliminary steps. Though sometimes you cannot understand some concepts in the way they are, getting assistance from experts immediately is the most effective solution to this problem as well. Shortly, only after understanding the topic, the best pictures portraying the exact situation can be selected.

Target Your Audience:

The identification of the audience has been a vital part of the pictorial essay. It would be better if you knew the audience of your topic. For instance, if the audience of your pictorial essay is children, then it won’t be good to talk about common societal problems. A case in point is to portray a political issue would be futile for the children. They will immediately lose interest. Therefore, you need to make your presentation more colourful and joyful by incorporating the relevant elements into your essay. It would be best if you chose the difficulty level according to the targeted audience of your pictorial essay as well .

Define The Purpose Of Your Pictorial Essay:

It would be best if you define the purpose of your essay. You have to decide whether your essay will be persuasive, descriptive, narrative, or expository. For example, if you are persuading the audience to take specific courses of action, you have to select the pictures accordingly. You have to interlink elements to fulfil your unitary message. It also indicated that your essay must be comprised of unity. Similarly, your pictures must reflect your outlined purpose. The relevant images can only deliver your intended message. Therefore it also makes it a little bit more difficult than traditional essays. You cannot use long sentences to further explain your point of view though it can be reflected through images.

Take Some Extra Photos:

It is always a good idea to take some extra photos for your pictorial paper. It will allow you to have a broader range of options to add photos to your paper. A quarter of your photos are better than none at all. Even though some images may seem helpful while you’re preparing and collecting material, they may not be your best bet once you’ve completed the bulk of your essay. Therefore, having more photos will help you replace the bad ones with better ones. To avoid this, don’t be afraid to take a lot of photos before. If you have a hundred images, take your time and select a few dozen of them. Having as many images as possible increases the likelihood that your essay will be interesting and diverse to be appreciated by your audience.

Organize Your Photos To Structure The Paper:

The structure of any paper has paramount importance in increasing its readability. You need to arrange your photos in an organized way to make a storyline for your pictorial essay. You can use tools like word processing to prepare a presentation of your essay. It will be succinct and engaging for the audience.

Add Your Photos With Required Description:

Initiate the process by adding pictures to your site, and then immediately add descriptions and necessary ones to explain it. Keep in mind that the text should only be used to help the reader understand your view. Text description will basically come in handy if you see that some images are unlikely to reveal your background story.

Relate Your Pictures With The Topic:

One of the common mistakes is that people start writing the text part first. It leads to divergences and transgression of the topic. Therefore, you need to focus more on images than the written text. You have to identify the most relevant pictures to your topic to describe your general ideas. Furthermore, each photo must depict the concise and relevant point of your primary topic. Here, relevancy is the profound factor in the process of writing a pictorial essay. The factors like coherence and relevance also need to be taken into account at this stage.

Write Text To Support And Explain Images:

You need to ensure that the written text is supporting and explains images. So you have to write descriptions according to each picture of your pictorial essay. For instance, if some image is hilarious, you have to highlight what is hilarious about it by writing a text. Furthermore, you have to ensure a consistent tone and tenor throughout your essay, just like traditional essays. It is essential to make your essay coherent and focused on the topic.

How Long Is A Pictorial Essay?

The main formula for drafting a pictorial essay is to use images rather than words. However, both images and text (though brief) are important to be added in such essays. But it often does not exceed more than 1000 to 2000 words; rather, some of the messages are confined to the figure legends. In contrast to traditional essay writing tasks, where you have to write even 20,000 words with no more than 10 to 20 pictures, pictorial essays contain at least 20-30 pictures along with only 1000 words. Taking into account this requirement, it would not be wrong to say that pictorial essays require writers to pay more attention to graphics than words.

What Are The Types Of Pictorial Essays?

Adding pictures to explain your point of view is worth doing to help the audience easily digest even the most difficult or complex idea, but the same task can be completed in two different ways. Yes, pictorial essays are usually classified into two types, namely, thematic or narrative. Thematic essays help to design or collect photos that speak about a common point in one way or another. However, the narrative essay arranges photos that tell the story on its own.

What Is The Pictorial Format?

If you only have to add pictures to your essay, then it is quite obvious that the quality of your essay will be marked by the quality of all photos. Remember, only the best-quality pictures can evoke emotions and allow viewers to delve into the process. Usually, photos in any format can be added in pictorial essays, but JPG or JPEG means Joint Photographic Experts Group is the most recommended format.

What Is The Shortest Way To Pictorial Writing?

The very basic trick to deal with such tasks is to let your photos speak. However, detailed preparation is required to speak only by pictures. First, review the photo and know what it is trying to portray. Second, try to fix your ideas within the frame of the picture. Third, write short sentences or picture legends to clear the viewers’ doubts, if any. Keep following the same trick to end up with an exciting story.

The Bottom Line:

In short, you can convey a message creatively and effectively with the help of a pictorial essay. It also helps in removing the tedious factors by incorporating strong images or pictures into the essay. Furthermore, it is extremely important even for the layperson to understand your scholarly view due to the presence of graphics into it or a pictorial view. Likely, it can lead to more organic traffic to your essays as compared to traditional ones. You can deliver a more extensive and profound message in style. Therefore, you can also use the steps mentioned above to deliver your message effectively by appealing to the audience via pictures.

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Writing a pictorial essay

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ABSTRACT A pictorial essay is a type of educational article that aims to provide both textual and visual portrayals of a topical issue. It usually consists of a short unstructured abstract, brief introduction, subheadings to organise the material and a summary. The number of references is limited to a few key articles, typically, eight to 15, or fewer. The text is usually short, often approximately 1,000 to 2,000 words in length, with much of the message contained in the figure legends. This type of article allows for a large number of figures, typically up to 20 figures or 30 figure parts. The main criteria for publication are currency, educational value and high quality of illustrations.

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Teaching the Photo Essay

A picture is worth 1,000 words.

Your students, if they’re anything like mine, love to communicate through images—photos on Instagram , GIFs shared in a text, photo stories on Snapchat. And yet, so much of our conversation in school revolves around words. Understanding text is critical to students’ success now and in the future. But do we also help students identify, read and understand images in order to become literate in the visual language that is all around us? The photo essay can be a great middle or high school assignment that will have strong appeal and grow your students’ writing skills.

What Is a Photo Essay?

For those who aren’t familiar with the term “photo essay,” have no fear. A photo essay, in its simplest form, is a series of pictures that evokes an emotion, presents an idea or helps tell a story. You’ve been exposed to photo essays for your entire life—possibly without even knowing it. For example, you may have seen Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother:

An iconic image of the Great Depression, this picture, along with Lange’s other gripping photos, helped Americans better understand the effects of poverty in California as well as across the nation. Migrant Mother is one of countless photographs that helped persuade, influence or engage viewers in ways that text alone could not.

Photo essays can feature text through articles and descriptions, or they can stand alone with simple captions to give context. The versatility of photo essays has helped the medium become a part of our culture for centuries, from the American Civil War to modern environmental disasters like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. This versatility is also what makes the photo essay a great educational asset in classrooms today; teachers can use them in any content area. Math students can use them to show a geometric concept in real life. Science students can document a chemistry process at home. Auto students can photograph the technique—and joys and frustrations—of learning a new procedure.

So, where does a teacher begin? Read further for tips and ideas for making photo essays a part of your teaching toolbox.

Start With Photos

Introducing photo essays as a means of changing lives and changing society can hook student interest in the medium. Begin by simply showing pictures and letting students discuss their reactions. Consider this famous photo of the field at Antietam during the Civil War. Share some of the photos from this collection from CNN of 25 of the Most Iconic Photograph s or this list of 50 Influential Photographs That Changed Our World .

Each of these photographs stirs emotion and sends our minds searching for answers. As a warm-up assignment or series of assignments, have students choose (or assign randomly) a photograph to write about. What’s the story? Why did this happen? Who was involved?

DIY Photographs

Before giving a formal photo essay assignment, give students an opportunity to practice and receive feedback. Consider presenting students with several open-ended, ungraded challenges like “For class tomorrow, take a photo that depicts ‘Struggle.’” Other possible photo topics: chaos, frustration, friendship, school. Have students email you their photo homework and share it as a slideshow. Talk about the images. Do they convey the theme?

You can give examples or suggestions; however, giving too many examples and requirements can narrow students’ creativity. The purpose of this trial run is to generate conversation and introduce students to thinking like photographers, so don’t worry if the photos aren’t what you had in mind; it’s about getting feedback on what the student had in mind.

Technique 101

Even though the goal of a photo essay is to influence and create discussion, there is still benefit in giving students a crash course on simple photography concepts. Don’t feel like you have to teach a master-level course on dark-room development. Even a simple overview on the “Rule of Thirds” and the importance of perspective can be enough to help students create intentional, visually stirring photographs.

You can teach these ideas directly or have students do the work by researching on their own. They have most likely seen hundreds of movies, advertisements and photos, so these lessons are simply labeling what they’ve already experienced. Having some knowledge of composition will not only help students improve their visual literacy, it will also help empower them to take photos of their own.

Choose Your Purpose

Are students telling their own stories of their neighborhoods or their families? Are they addressing a social issue or making an argument through their images and text? A photo essay could be a great assignment in science to document a process or focus on nature.

If you are just getting started, start out small: Have students create a short photo essay (two to five images) to present a topic, process or idea you have been focusing on in class. Here’s a Photo Essay Planning Guide to share with your students.

With pictures becoming a dominant medium in our image-filled world, it’s not a question of if we should give students practice and feedback with visual literacy, it’s a question of how . Photo essays are a simple, engaging way to start. So, what’s your plan?

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What is Pictorial Photography?

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The origins of the pictorial photography genre lie back in the early 20th century when photographers tried to incorporate the effects achieved by painters into their images. All sorts of techniques were tried to simulate the work of skilled artists. Among these were smearing camera lenses with vaseline to achieve a soft-focus effect, the use of filters of various types, and countless darkroom procedures and tricks.

The advent of digital photography, and the arrival of image-manipulation software such as Photoshop , has vastly expanded the possibilities and and techniques available. A click of a mouse button can now produce "watercolour" effects, posterization etc etc.

The principal objective of a pictorial photographer is to create an aesthetically pleasing, eye catching image. The image does not have to represent the reality of the world, neither must it be divorced from it. It just has to have wide appeal as a consequence of pleasing the eye of the viewer.

A wide-open definition such as this is hardly a definition at all. Indeed, pictorial images can be found in every genre of photography. A pictorial photographer is skilled at finding ways to portray subjects in the most interesting and pleasing manner, but the subjects may be human, landscapes, wildlife or almost anything else. Nevertheless, a good pictorial image is difficult to achieve. It is the result of hard work, skill ans long experience. Excellent images are not created accidentally. Lighting, exposure, angle of view, composition, depth of field and choice of subject all play a vital part..

The pictorial genre is not easy to define or handle because it inevitably overlaps almost all other genres. A pictorial image may also be categorized as a landscape, a sports image or a portrait. All good glamour images might reasonably be described as pictorial although several other categorizations might also be valid.

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Pictorial meaning, language, tradition: notes on image semantic analyses by Kristóf Nyíri

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• Published: 20 August 2021
• Volume 73 , pages 459–473, ( 2021 )

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The iconic revolution changing the routine of everyday communication is gradually leading to the creation of a linguistic structure that combines visual and verbal tools in both formal and semantic aspects. Computer and mobile applications today enable high-tech imaging that ensures the spread of iconic communication in mundane interactions and the possibility of a creative combination of verbal and iconic codes for language users who navigate in a world of images in an increasingly confident manner. The iconic revolution that accompanies this expansion of new communication technologies thus leads to serious changes in language use, thereby enhancing the transmission of verbal and iconic language to become a key element of mundane communication. This article argues that this turn in communication technology guided the attention of Kristóf Nyíri, an eminent figure in contemporary Hungarian philosophy, to the problem of the relationship between icon, language, and tradition. The aim of the present essay is twofold: to shed light on the relevance of Nyíri’s analysis and thoughts on the relationship between tradition and language in the history of communication, and to identify, using Nyíri’s model of pictorial meaning as a starting point, the relevant aspects of the conception of technological determinism in answering questions from the philosophy of language and mind.

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Introduction

Investigation on the social, cultural, and psychological processes guiding the use of digital technology sheds new light on the hypothesis that great turns in communication technology can change the structure and content of our thinking. Importantly, this assumption in the history of communication, which provides grounds for technological determinism today, has serious philosophical relevance, by courtesy of authors such as Marshall McLuhan, Harold A. Innis, Walter J. Ong, Eric A. Havelock, Jack Goody, Ian Watt, and many other philosophers and philologists often cited by them, such as Oswald Spengler, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bronislaw Malinowski, Milman Parry, and, to mention but a few Hungarian theorists, Menyhért Palágyi, Béla Balázs, István Hajnal, and József Balogh. This extraordinary list of names would not be complete without one of the key figures of Hungarian contemporary philosophy: Kristóf Nyíri. Today, his views on the philosophy of communication, language, and mind serve as guidelines for many in proving the basic tenets for the above assumption. To follow the line of thought in this direction, Nyíri relies heavily on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s writings, whose philosophy of language is deeply influenced by his peculiar interest in a distinctive communication technology. Nyíri, starting out from a few Wittgensteinian questions of the philosophy of language, targets questions in the light of technological determinism such as tradition, private language, or pictorial thinking (Nyíri, 1992 ,  1996/97 , 2003 , 2011 , 2019 ). In his works, statements targeting the mental and linguistic effects of the use of communication technology become the subject of philosophical analysis from the perspectives of the philosophy of language and the mind. His works on this topic is especially relevant for understanding the problem of the effect of communication technology on linguistic and mental representation, enabling this question to be investigated at the epistemological level and reinterpreted in a wider, more comprehensive framework. The aim of the present study is to show how Nyíri’s concept of tradition influenced the history of communication and to delineate, relying on Nyíri’s model for iconic language, the dimensions of technological determinism in the philosophy of language and mind.

Language, tradition, and communication technology

When studying the history of human culture, it becomes increasingly evident that, when a new type of communication technology becomes predominant, this is always followed by the emergence of a new linguistic and cognitive galaxy. This explains why and how the milestones of the history of human culture such as the appearance of writing, printing, or electronic media could have a significant impact on the structure of the mind and on our image of ourselves and of the world. The acquisition of new communication technologies restructures our inner and our social life, because beyond generating changes in the mental world of an individual, it also serves as a process of the history of culture, contributing to the transformation of the inner structure of social interactions and to the modification of our concept of community and tradition.

As Nyíri points out in his book Tradition and Individuality , these turns in communication technology that have shaped our cultural history have radically changed the relationship between humans and culture, and the role of tradition and its conceptual representation (Nyíri, 1992 ). Nyíri argues that, although following and handing down traditions plays an important role in modern society as well, this role is radically different from that played in premodern societies (Nyíri, 1992 ). Tradition, he claims, has become an institutionalized and unquestionable form of information transmission, determined by the aspects of understandability and easiness to remember in the world of orality and, as such, plays a key role in preserving knowledge and information that is important for communities. Hence, he calls traditions that exist in the framework of orality and dominant communication technology “essential.”

However, in the new communication context created by literacy, the primary role of the ritualized form of creating traditions, where there is no reflection on the act of passing down traditions, might fade and eventually disappear. Primary traditions are gradually taken over by “margin traditions” that evolve in the framework of literacy and that can become the subject of critical reflection, possibly being reconsidered and changed. This is because traditions have their own function in the linguistic and noetic galaxy of literacy as well, for example, in learning processes, but their role is by no means as deterministic as it is in cultures that rely on the oral tradition in information transmission.

However, as Nyíri points out, in the age of electronic communication, new structures evolve for the transmission and reception of knowledge and information without reflection. He calls these secondary traditions. Considering the relation between primary and secondary traditions, Nyíri suggests that we:

distinguish between primary and secondary traditions, and say that secondary traditions contain and convey, in an abbreviated and perhaps emotionally bolstered form, information which could in principle though perhaps only with a loss of convenience, be communicated also in a purely discursive fashion. (Nyíri, 1992 , p. 52)

As Nyíri emphasizes, the information mediated in primary traditions

cannot be separated from the way in which it is handed down, or rather it can be thus separated only within a context different in kind from that in which these traditions were originally functioning. (Nyíri, 1992 , p. 52)

The new culture of communication relying on sources such as the radio, television, internet, and mobile phones is characterized by a nearing of the semantic and grammatical worlds of orality and literacy, leading to the birth of a new, iconic language. This newly organized linguistic culture, although significantly facilitating the processing of the quick flow of large quantities of information, also somewhat counteracts the process in the sense that it inhibits the instant reflection on the message communicated, reviving certain forms of ritualized information transmission.

In this process, where electronic communication technologies gradually gain more ground, Nyíri primarily emphasizes the perils leading to the fragmentation of the world view of humans receiving information in such a way, and the vulnerability of a coherent, unified world of knowledge. In his later publications on multimedia communication, however, he calls the attention to the fact that the convergence of communication technologies can make information transmission more effective and faster, thus contributing to the creation of a higher-level cohesion in societies and communities. As he writes,

[m]ultimedia messaging, the synchronous-complementary transmission of speech, text, pictures seems to me be not just a social activity sustaining those very types of human communication that make up genuine communities. (Nyíri, 2003 , p. 184)

Nyíri, as is apparent from the above-quoted study, defines the appearance and expansion of new forms of traditions in the light of the renaissance of pictorial communication, pointing out that communication in pictures is more genuinely characteristic of human nature than thinking and communicating with words (Nyíri, 2003 , p. 183). He argues that we must return to these basic forms of communication, and in doing so we can rely on multimedia-based electronic devices such as mobile phones capable of sending MMS. This trait makes them an extremely effective tool for communication, as they “combine images and words—words spoken and written” (Nyíri, 2003 , p. 183).

Nyíri’s views above, just as his model on the transmission of traditions, are motivated by Wittgensteinian sources. He himself suggests this when he talks about Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the interaction between oral and pictorial language, and the intertwined nature of their functioning. Nyíri has attempted to show in several of his studies that Wittgenstein’s later work contains an early version of the theory of pictorial meaning (Nyíri,  1996/97 , 2001 , 2002 , 2003 , 2011 , 2019 ). Wittgenstein, as Nyíri shows, while attributing different logic to oral and pictorial language functions, is also keen to understand the reciprocal relationship of these two logics. Wittgenstein’s writings are motivated by the rediscovery of the possibilities of interpretation provided by pictorial language, which, as Nyíri underlines, sometimes brings along blurry definitions of the concept of the primacy of pictorial thinking and of pictorial communication. Nyíri claims that Wittgenstein’s attraction to pictures mostly stems from his dissatisfaction with forms of written expression and written contexts.

As Nyíri points out, the problem relating to written language, the preference for orality, is obvious in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. One sign of this is the argumentation starting from the negation of the so-called private language, defined as the language that directly expresses the inner mental experiences of the individual. This tenet, known as the “private-language argument,” suggests the primacy of a language for communication that gives no possibility of conceptual reflection on the content of the message. Compliance with the rules of language is only possible through a reflection on them, that is, through the conscious awareness of these rules themselves, which, however, in Wittgenstein’s view only leads to the illusion of rule-following and, therefore, to the birth of a language that is nonintelligible to others. Nyíri believes that this Wittgensteinian approach is a sign of the philosopher’s preference for orality. Of course, Wittgenstein was never aware of this biased tendency in his writings; at least, we find no reference in his writings to the philosophical significance of the differences between written and spoken language. Indeed, Nyíri claims that Wittgenstein does not really differentiate these two forms of language; his claims concern both written and oral language.

Nyíri claims that this peculiar, not conscious, attraction to the linguistic worlds of primary traditions is due to the special conservative stance apparent in Wittgenstein’s writings. As he writes:

Wittgenstein’s oral bias, his interest in primitive societies, his authoritarian views on education, his traditionalism, his use-theory of meaning, and his argument against the possibility of a private language together make up a coherent outlook. (Nyíri, 1992 , p. 112)

Nyíri, through a close examination of critical writings on Wittgenstein’s works, draws conclusions that also enable him to investigate the orality–literacy paradigm in a context of the philosophy of language and mind. This approach is apparent in Nyíri’s writings that deal with linguistic and epistemological changes that emerge as a result of the revolution in today’s communication. Hence, Nyíri introduces or re-considers several concepts that help us understand not only semantic, conceptual changes typical of electronic communication, but also the linguistic and mental processes brought along by more general, great turns in the technology of communication. Pictorial language belongs to this conceptual domain. In the next section, I elaborate on this concept, which also receives a lot of attention in Nyíri’s writings, to reveal the aspects of this issue that are relevant relevant for the philosophy of language and mind.

Pictorial language and convergence of language use

Nyíri believes that, since electronic media (television, internet, MMS, and text messages (SMS) services on mobile phones) represent a fruitful ground for the combination of pictorial and verbal communication, our everyday exchange of information can become more effective than ever. In the background of this claim, we find the above-mentioned notion that communication in pictures stems from deeper layers of human nature, deeper than oral forms of communication and thinking, because the images “are the primordial stuff of thought” (Nyíri, 2003 , p. 157); in other words, images “form the main content of our thoughts” (Nyíri, 2003 , p. 158). As Nyíri suggests,

in the course of human phylogeny and ontogeny it was the language of gestures , and not verbal language, which introduced conceptual order into the episodic imagery of pre-linguistic thought. Verbal language, pervaded by metaphor, builds on the meanings and semantic relationships created by the language of gestures. (Nyíri, 2003 , p. 157)

As primordial elements of thought, images are fundamentally related to the world of objects on a similarity basis. The external images show, of course, that this similarity is not imprint-like. There are also many levels of abstractions in the images, which, as Nyíri claims, raises fundamental philosophical questions about the relationship of tradition and pictorial similarity. At the same time, the relationship between images and the order formed by them is also peculiar, spatial, and analogous. The signs, or the inner, mental images, and the things they signify, have the same relationship, a systemic connection: what is similar in the world is similar in our heads.

This view stems from theories of authors such as Price ( 1953 ), Arnheim ( 1969 ), Paivio ( 1971 ), and Gombrich ( 1972 ), to which some recent models (Lakoff & Turner, 1989 ; Lakoff & Jonhson, 1999 ; Abell & Currie, 1999 ; Westerhof, 2005 ; Lakoff, 2008a , 2008b ; Kulvicki, 2010 ) contributed with new perspectives targeting the relation between picture, language, and thought. One of these models is Jan Westerhof’s structuralist theory of the logical relations between pictures (Westerhof, 2005 ). Westerhof argues that such logical operations as conjunctions, disjunctions, and negations of pictures correspond to natural cognitive operations employed when we think about pictures. As Westerhof claims, “these logical operations are closely related to, or may even be identical to basic cognitive operations we naturally employ when we think about pictures” (Westerhof, 2005 , p. 605). John Kulvicki puts the problem of the special epistemic place of images in an interesting light, when he argues that we

can reason with images rather than just decoding them and reasoning about their contents, in the sense that perceptual abstractions from their determinate details can lead us to conclusions about their contents. (Kulvicki, 2010 , p. 309)

As Kulvicki notes, this is because images can be quite reliably and intimately related to their content because they rely on the sources of perception available to examine the world as a whole. These resources are tried and true, which is what most of us are.

Another important recent contribution to the picture theory of the relation between thought and language is the conceptual/image metaphor theory that can be regarded as a key component of some contemporary semantic models in cognitive linguistics. As George Lakoff claims, conceptual metaphors are everyday expressions that have a conceptual domain in their background, in other words, a source domain that helps us understand more abstract phenomena that he calls target domain (Lakoff, 2008a , 2008b ). This correspondence is done through simple notions we encounter in our everyday experience. Metaphors like this, he says, are not isolated linguistic tools with a decorative function, but rather enable humans to grab more complex concepts, and thus form mundane expressions that structure their knowledge (e.g., the “foundations of one’s theory,” the “building of arguments,” etc.). Metaphor, in this approach, is therefore, primarily conceptual, and at a secondary level linguistic and visual. Metaphoric thinking, he says, the metaphorical understanding of situations of action, is an ability independent of language.

The simplest elements of narratives in everyday communicative situations are the conceptual relations that form when two basic bodily experiences are realized regularly and simultaneously. These components are named primary metaphors by Lakoff ( 2008a ). They take action when we understand goals as goal destinations. Our everyday bodily experience is the basis for our empirical experiences that connect our realized goals (e.g., get a book) with the arrival to goal destinations (e.g., go to the library). The most basic components of the network of body metaphors are, therefore, primary metaphors that become elements of complex conceptual metaphors and that are born as a result of real interaction through the bodily experiences of the world. This is why we can see all our conceptual metaphors as results of embodied cognition. Lakoff and Johnson ( 1999 ) point out that the acquisition of simple metaphorical thinking takes place long before language acquisition; therefore, it is independent of language, and has an important role in the formation of grammatical forms. Primary metaphors based on everyday bodily experiences and complex conceptual metaphors formed as a combination of these thus play a key role in everyday meaning construction and in the organization of narrative structures that determine mundane communication. These metaphors can become the building blocks of narratives because they themselves constitute schematic event structures as conceptual representations of situations of action. Therefore, they facilitate the use of conventional narratives of mundane motives and their application in mundane situations, for example, in science, politics, or art. Event structure schemes in metaphors become elements of constants that have a key role in organizing everyday bodily and community experiences into scientific, political, and artistic narratives.

Since metaphors are based on a mental image, for the efficient application of a metaphor, we need an active contribution of mental pictures. As Nyíri points out, Lakoff and Johnson introduce the concept of image metaphor on the basis of this concept; they

on the one hand argue that our language and thinking are deeply and thoroughly metaphorical; and, on the other hand, that the source of those metaphors is the human body itself – its parts, postures, and movements. (Nyíri, 2003 , p. 167)

Regarding the conceptualization of the relations between metaphors and mental pictures, the authors argue that this kind of metaphor is a cognitive pattern by which the words develop pictures that represent special, conventional knowledge. As Nyíri emphasizes, this theory highlights the pictorial nature of the whole of language which is rooted in our bodily experiences and the concrete–direct facilities of our environment, and, of course, the pictorial nature of all metaphorics (Nyíri, 2017 ).

Accordingly, if we accept the hypothesis about the pictorial nature of our cognition, we can find the account plausible that verbal utterances rich in pictures are not only enhancing the efficiency of communication but also contribute to the strengthening of interpersonal relationships in real communities. In other words, efforts to make human communication more efficient act as forces that shape and organize communities. We can safely state that pictures that go together with words also themselves become tools for the creation of communities. Nyíri’s statement, however, raises a number of questions. One of these is the question of whether the newly born language for communication becomes pictorial only in the sense that we add pictures to the verbal, oral content in order to enhance efficiency of understanding. Do semantic changes that go hand in hand with the expansion of electronic communication make the words, phrases, sentences themselves “pictorial”? Are there semantic changes of this kind at all? If so, how can we describe them, and what effect do these have on our conceptual representations, on our thinking?

In order to suggest answers to these questions on the basis of Nyíri’s argumentation, we must go back to the general description of the culture of communication that emerges as a result of the spreading of new types of media, namely to the notion that the new culture of communication using novel electronic devices—contrary to previous periods in the history of culture—is not characterized by the predominance of one type of technology, but rather by the gradual merging and mutual influence of linguistic usage relevant for one or the other technology. When literacy became predominant, taking the place of orality-based culture and thinking, and with the emergence of book-printing, a new language emerged, a language with distinct characteristics from that of oral language in terms of its semantic and logical system. Written language, therefore, took the place of orality in the transmission of information and knowledge, which, in the long run, created the distinct segregation of the linguistic characteristics of written and spoken language. This turn in the technology of communication so important in the history of culture did not only trigger the emergence of a new type of grammar but also changed the structure and content of our thinking and has modified our schemes of perception. Literacy, especially writing with letters from the alphabet and the printing business that grew from this, eventually enabled us to perceive the object of our thinking in a holistic way, and to designate a perspective in time and space. Silent writing and reading led to the creation of the private sector of the mind, the notion of a distinct subject with cognition. Interestingly, the experience of literacy led to the distinction of parts of speech such as nouns and verbs, to the concept of meaning, or to the problem of the definability of meaning. Therefore, literacy, has brought along a new world of epistemology, with a new conceptual and cognitive background. This powerful shift was powered by the unfolding of a new system of language strikingly different from orality. This new, analytical language, with the spread of literacy, gradually moved further and further from the characteristics of oral communication.

The appearance of electronic media and its increased use however changes the situation. Between the frameworks of this new orality emerging as a result of widespread electronic communication and that of secondary literacy, the above-mentioned processes slow down and in fact, take opposite directions. The culture of communication where people gather and transmit their knowledge on the radio, television, and internet or with mobile phones integrating other forms of multimedia gradually moves in the direction of a dominance of a new medium that is characterized by the synthesis and nearing of the distinct languages of literacy and orality.

In the next part of this essay, I turn to the above-mentioned convergence of language forms and distinguish two levels of these. At the first level of the converging modalities, we see two basic forms of the synthesis of written and oral usage: the complete integration of vocalized language and pictures, and that of text and pictures. The first is mostly seen in radio- and television-based communication and is a communication technology known as secondary orality, by courtesy of Ong ( 1982 ), while the latter type is mostly found in the language of the internet also known as “netspeak,” so named by Crystal ( 2004 ). Although each of these two forms build on different mechanisms of the interaction between pictures and language, both encourage the integration and convergence of the grammatical and semantic aspects of written and oral language use, and with that, they strengthen the spread of different registers and sociolects spoken by different layers and groups in society, as opposed to that of literary language.

The language of electronic communication building new forms of communities was developed on two different levels of this convergence. The first is manifested in a new type of orality present in the language we use in telephone conversations and on radio and television, that gained more and more importance in the process of everyday exchanges of information beside printed, written forms of language use. This new form of orality was the first unquestionable and clear sign of the birth of post-literate culture that rejects the dominance of literacy. Ong’s secondary orality, the new form of media, therefore had a significant impact on our language and thinking (Ong, 1982 , pp. 135–138). This undoubtedly earmarked the birth of a new language adapted to build new communities, a language that incorporated features of “primary orality” from the times before literacy, and those of literacy as well. This new medium requiring the convergence of orality and literacy has become the basis for the appearance of new communities and new forms of attachment in them; its use gradually enhanced the blurring of boundaries between virtual and physical communities.

While the emergence of secondary orality brought along the convergence of orality and literacy, at the other level of the convergence of the language of electronic communication, we see the emergence of a completely new language, due to this synthesis. With the widespread use of the internet and mobile communication, multimedia communication referred to as “hypermedia” by Michael Heim has become a key component of common talk, which, due to its pictorial linguistic nature, accelerates the convergence of orality–literacy and makes that blend the basis of a new linguistic structure (Heim, 1996 , p. 2). This newly born language, however, is not simply a merged form of orality and literacy. This language is more than just a mixture of two ancient forms of communication; using Naomi Baron’s metaphor, it is more than a “centaur” of orality and literacy (Baron, 2000 , p. 248). This new form entails the existence of a new medium that enables the fast and efficient transmission of a great quantity of information through a new form of interaction between pictures, vocalizations, and written words. The language of communication mediatized by computers and mobile phones becomes a crucial tool in everyday communication and also acts as an engine for the convergence of orality and literacy in the form of a third medium, distinct from orality and traditional literacy. This new medium, referred to as Netspeak by Crystal in his comprehensive work entitled Language and the Internet , can become the basis for a new communication technology different from orality and literacy due to its multimedia-based features (Crystal, 2004 ).

The medium emerging in the framework of the internet and mobile communication is thus a language that determines common strategies of communication and with that, our expectations and imaginations concerning the functions of language, by combining the features of multimedia language transmitted by orality, literacy, and new technologies. We should not forget about secondary orality kept alive by radio, television, and telephone, which will not be replaced by Netspeak but rather enriched and completed with the new possibilities that Netspeak offers. Secondary orality brings along the ever-present interaction of picture and speech, while with Netspeak the continuous interaction of picture and text is observed. Therefore, the two different types of media are connected primarily by their pictorial nature. It is through this pictorial nature, their common ground, that this continuous interaction between secondary orality and Netspeak can take place in the matrix of a myriad of communication channels based on different technologies. This interaction points in the direction of the emergence of a language structure that represents a novel union of orality and literacy in the communicative instances of mundane human interaction.

This second level of the convergence of language forms facilitating the birth of new communities ensures the integration of speech, written language, and pictures in a very apparent and relevant way, from both the grammatical and semantic aspect. The simultaneous transmission of written, spoken, and pictorial language, where the three modalities continually complement each other, has become the cornerstone of everyday communication, and as such, naturally, has a striking impact on everyday language use. In the next part of this section, I reflect on the types of convergence of the different modalities of language use that enhance the reciprocal nature of the logic in the functions of pictorial language and orality in the practice of multimedia-based communication, and that lead to unknown patterns of linguistic creativity in written and spoken language.

The iconic revolution changing the routine of everyday communication leads to the creation of a linguistic structure that combines visual and verbal tools in formal and semantic aspects. The various forms of software appearing in the last decades, with their endless graphical possibilities, generated a new type of visual culture that triggers the emergence of forms of a creativity yet unknown in everyday, mundane language use. Computers and mobile phone applications used today, offering technological conditions of easy picture imaging, ensure that pictorial communication becomes widespread and that we can combine linguistic, visual codes in a creative way in the world of pictures with increasing ease. MMS, for example, enables the mobile phone user to edit pictures, to paste text into their own pictures (photos, or drawings), and to forward these in the form of a text message. In the linguistic world of new technologies, creativity does not only play a role as an enjoyable experience in common talk but also ensures efficient communication. Complementing verbal content with pictures in the visual dimension contributes to the increased efficiency of everyday communication, where new tools of linguistic creativity are used.

The iconic revolution visible in the expansion of new communication technologies thus lead to a convergence in the different forms of language use, where the transmission of orality and iconic language intensifies and becomes a key element of common talk. This, of course, significantly increases the role of linguistic creativity in the practice of everyday communication encompassing multimedia-based exchanges of information. Probably, this observation motivates many contemporary thinkers to portray linguistic creativity as a phenomenon of everyday language use, and not as a privilege of humans endowed with extraordinary knowledge and skills (Tannen, 1989 ; Cook, 1997 ; Crystal, 1998; Carter, 2004 ; Maybin & Swann, 2007 ). Creativity is a feature of language penetrating common talk, says Roland Carter in his book entitled Language and Creativity ; in other words, it is “not only a distinct feature of extraordinary people, and an extraordinary feature of ordinary people” (Carter, 2004 , p. 13). No wonder the notion of linguistic creativity gets novel interpretations and its ways of interpretation experience a sense of “democratization” in this novel framework of multimedia communication. With the spread of new communication technologies, language games, acronyms, humor, and picture–word combinations that are becoming increasingly popular encourage applied linguists to see everyday speakers of the language as creative designers of linguistic meaning.

The birth and spread of the new language of communication is, therefore, a result of a conscious decision by humans who have the necessary knowledge of the linguistic and conceptual elements of literacy, who believe that by using this type of language they can join the accelerating and global transmission of information more efficiently and can express themselves more clearly about common conceptual notions and emotions to the members of their local communities. The language of communication in today’s electronic media, therefore, integrates features of oral and written language. This is the primary reason for the distinct, pictorial nature of this new type of language use, which, of course, exhibits important semantic and syntactic characteristics.

Among these, probably the most important is the increasing use of linguistic elements semantically acting as “umbrella terms”: integrating several layers of conceptual connections from a wide range of associations, compressing these into “pictures” not analyzed at the conceptual level. The pictorial nature enhanced by the interaction of this secondary orality and Netspeak, however, does not simplify but rather further differentiates our linguistic trajectory, which therefore can, on the one hand, become a new tool for the mapping of new conceptual phenomena, while on the other hand speeding up the global transmission of information by enhancing the effects of semiotic globalization.

But where does the pictorial nature of these new forms of communication reside? What changes in grammar, lexicon, and semantics mirror the spreading of orality stemming from the interaction of Netspeak and secondary orality? Before answering these questions, we first need to clarify that whatever constitutes the medium of convergence of orality–literacy, be it secondary orality or Netspeak, the new linguistic forms represent a third type of usage, different from oral and written expression as well. Crystal also points this out; when defining Netspeak he emphasizes that, although Netspeak is a written language very similar to spoken language, we cannot claim that it is a type of spoken language, nor can it be identified with written language, because its core defining features incorporate the characteristics of both (Crystal, 2004 , pp. 24–25). As mentioned above, Crystal does not consider Netspeak to be a simple sum of the features of written and spoken language, but rather sees it as a completely new medium; That is, he does not agree with authors who advocate that Netspeak is a “centaur”-type, hybrid mix of spoken and written language but, on the contrary, supports the views of thinkers who see Netspeak as a new type of language in its own right, that emerged from computer use, and that is distinctly different from written and spoken language. Authors favoring this approach include Marilyn Deegan, who believes that linguistic changes in connection with the distinctive features of electronic texts (such as plasticity, intertextuality, etc.) are combined with specific features of spoken and written languages, thus making Netspeak a “third medium” in its own right (Deegan, 2000 ). As Crystal puts it, “I have found clear signs of the emergence of a distinctive variety of language, with characteristics closely related to the properties of its technological context as well as to the intentions, activities, and (to some extent) personalities of the users” (Crystal, 2004 , p. 225).

This also suggests, of course, that if new technologies are created that integrate the internet and other communicative situations, then a new form of convergence in linguistics takes place, to which new technologies ensure the necessary linguistic framework, just like we have seen in the case of the emergence of secondary orality, Netspeak, and the new orality from the interaction of these two.

The result of the convergence of languages leading to the birth of this new medium is that language becomes “pictorial,” which brings along its own semantic and grammatical distinctive features. In terms of semantics, this newly emerging language becomes “pictorial” because its lexicon contains more and more elements of complex conceptual nature, whose semantic domain is not based on a conceptual connection defined as the result of mental reflection but encompasses a wide range of associations of conceptual connections not directly reflected on. In other words, a new metaphorical language is being created, that is destined to “reflect” the world by showing it in the form of pictures, to use the Wittgensteinian expression, rather than analyzing and dissecting it with more novel concepts and categories.

The convergence of forms of language use presented above leads to the birth of a new linguistic medium with a peculiar synthesis of conceptual and pictorial thinking. As for semantics, this recently emerging language can be regarded as a new kind of medium of communication, because its lexicon contains more and more elements of complex conceptual nature, whose semantic domain is not based on a conceptual connection defined as the result of mental reflection, but which encompasses a wide range of associations of conceptual connections not directly reflected on. In other words, a new metaphorical language is being created, that is destined to “show” the world by putting it into pictures, to use the Wittgensteinian expression, rather than analyzing and dissecting it with more novel concepts and categories. By using it, individuals communicating in this language want to “make others see” and “imagine” the world around us, rather than determine and analyze the conceptual connections at hand. The intention of the language user here is very similar to that of preachers, poets, and philosophers from the times before literacy, with one slight difference also emphasized by Ong: that this language emerging in the times of electronic communication is a result of a conscious decision (Ong, 1982 , p. 136), with which humans in the era of secondary orality and Netspeak try to embed conceptual connections that have already been explored and mapped into an even more complex matrix of associations in a way to project and reveal the relationships and meaning connections with expressions of wide semantic domains, without breaking up complex associations. This process, of course, eventually leads to the simplification of grammatical structure, because the application of these expressions of complex semantic domains makes the use of more complicated, manifold complex sentential complements stemming from the conceptual analysis simply unnecessary.

These new semantic features of the novel forms of orality have thus contributed to the formation of a community of shared information at a global scale, representing the core of globalization. Obviously, this process has been significantly accelerated by computer use, and especially by mobile phones with their multimedia applications and tools accessible to even more people. The triad of text, picture, and sound offers a fruitful ground for the above explained semantic changes and for the globalization of these changes. Multimedia communication, its pictures and sounds that can be understood very efficiently by everybody, significantly contributes to the amplification of semiotic globalization and to the birth of a sign system that can be interpreted universally. This system of signs on the verge of globalization, mostly composed of images, in the framework of a new type of orality, accelerates the spread of global linguistic effects that influence the languages of nations, i.e., the processes of semantic globalization.

Conclusions

Apparently, a new language for communication is emerging in front of our eyes, the description of which is still to come. One thing we know for sure, however: that global language barriers and semantic changes through the use of electronic media point in the direction of a linguistic galaxy that can contribute to the creation and strengthening of higher levels of human relationships. With the appearance of semantic fundamentals of the new orality, the mental and linguistic conditions are given for the members of information society belonging to different cultures and languages to become the winners of globalization smoothly and without experiencing conflicts of serious crises of values. As a result of these semantic changes, the core conceptual fundamentals of openness and trust in society are created in the linguistic cultures themselves, hence a new form of community consciousness emerges that ensures the cohesion of information society.

The concept of pictorial language as understood by Nyíri can thus lead us back to his concept on the transmission of speech, text, and picture that characterizes multimedia communication, and to his thoughts on the corollaries of social cohesion. We must point out, though, that the notion of pictorial language as introduced by Nyíri can only become a reliable element of theories on mental and linguistic processes in electronic communication if it gets further analyzed in semantic and philosophical aspects. This concept, just like Nyíri’s several observations as well, have largely contributed to a new approach in which we can investigate the new technology of communication as a key component of our mental operations of knowledge and information processing, so that we can monitor what is happening to us while we cooperate by communicating with the given technology at hand.

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Gábor Szécsi

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Szécsi, G. Pictorial meaning, language, tradition: notes on image semantic analyses by Kristóf Nyíri. Stud East Eur Thought 73 , 459–473 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-021-09440-3

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Definition of pictorial

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Definition of pictorial  (Entry 2 of 2)

• graphical

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Word History

Late Latin pictorius , from Latin pictor painter — more at picturesque

1646, in the meaning defined at sense 1

1844, in the meaning defined above

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pictorialism

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Pictorial essay: Distal colostography

Mukund d rahalkar.

Department of Radiology, Sahyadri Hospital, Pune, India

Anand M Rahalkar

Dilip m phadke.

1 Department of Paediatrics, Sahyadri Hospital, Pune, India

Distal colostography (DC), also called distal colography or loopography, is an important step in the reparative management of anorectal malformations (ARMs) with imperforate anus, Hirschsprung's disease (occasionally) and colonic atresia (rarely) in children and obstructive disorders of the distal colon (colitis with stricture, carcinoma or complicated diverticulosis) in adults. It serves to identify/confirm the type of ARM, presence/absence of fistulae, leakage from anastomoses, or patency of the distal colon. We present a pictorial essay of DC in a variety of cases.

Introduction

Distal colostography (DC) is an important diagnostic investigation to delineate the altered anatomy of anorectal malformations and know the spectrum of associated fistulae between the blind rectum on the one hand and the bladder, urethra, perineum and vagina on the other. It remains a dependable test for a surgeon to plan surgical repair.

Anorectal malformations (ARMs) occur with an incidence of 1 in 5000[ 1 ] and their management is now well established, with immediate neonatal diverting colostomy in the high type of anomalies or anoplasty in the low type of anomalies.

About one month after colostomy or before the reparative surgery is planned, distal colostography (DC) is essential. It serves many purposes;[ 2 ] it helps the surgeon to:

Blind end of rectum with faecal residue. The rectum is greatly distended and extending above the level of ischial tuberosities and so suggestive of an intermediate type of ARM. It is also significantly loaded with meconium / faecal residue (arrow marks rectum)

• Judge the distance of the blind rectum from the marker placed at the expected site of the anus (pouch-to-perineum distance)

Recto–bladder neck fistula (arrow). The distal colostogram shows that the distal colon opens into the bladder neck and so this is a high type of ano-rectal malformation. (R: rectum and B: bladder)

Recto-perineal fistula: The distal colon is opening at the base of a hypospadiac penis (marked by an arrow). A metallic marker was placed over the base of penis on dorsal aspect (marked by arrowhead). This is associated with a low type of ARM. (P: penis)

Cloaca in a female child. The DC shows rectum and uterus opening into a common chamber of cloaca marked by an arrow head. The contrast filled the common chamber and vaginal cavity (marked by an arrow), while it was not filing bladder retrogradely. The urethral opening was also noticed to be inside the cloaca

Pouch colon with cloaca. At surgery, the entire colon was absent except for a rectal pouch, into which the terminal ileum was opening. Hence an ileostomy was performed. Only a single opening of the cloaca was noted. The ileostomogram instead of a distal colostogram in this 2-year-old female child opacifies the common chamber of the cloaca (thick arrow) and shows the fistula (arrowhead) (P - pouch colon). The terminal ileum is seen as well (thin arrow)

Recto-prostsatic urethral fistula. The DC shows that the distal colon is opening into the prostatic urethra. The contrast is refluxing proximally into bladder and also getting micturated. This is associated with a high type of ARM. (R: Rectum, B: bladder and arrow points to recto - prostatic urethral fistula)

Recto-vaginal fistula. The DC reveals that the distal colon is opening into upper end of the vagina, making this a high type of ARM. Anteroposterior view shows opacification of the fornices. Arrows in 4A mark the vaginal fornices. (R: rectum, V: vagina)

Recto- (bulbar) urethral fistula. The DC shows that the distal rectum is communicating with bulbar urethra and distal urethra is opacified. The urethra is kinked acutely at the site of fistula (marked by an arrow). This is an intermediate type of ARM

Recto-vaginal fistula. The rectum is opening into lower part of vagina (marked by an arrow) and so is associated with an intermediate or low type of ARM

According to Durham,[ 5 ] Keiller was the first to describe the DC technique of injecting barium sulphate to visualize the distal blind end. He advised washouts of the distal colon and removal of the accumulated meconium before injection of contrast. Later, along with others, Cremin[ 7 , 8 ] established the technique of DC in 1972. He insisted that the injection of contrast should be pressure-augmented. Gross[ 9 ] also stressed the value of the augmented pressure technique, where continued pressure is to be applied during injection to ensure that the fistula is opacified.

The technique followed by us is as follows:

• A marker is placed over the anal dimple or expected position of the anus. Another marker is placed at the point where urine or fecal material is seen to be discharging.
• After passing an indwelling catheter through the stoma leading to the distal colon, its balloon is inflated and it is pulled back during injection of the contrast to avoid any spillage. The distal blind end of the colon gets filled progressively and pressure is maintained till the contrast fills the fistulous tract.
• Water-soluble contrast is used.
• Images are obtained under fluoroscopy.
• The colostogram is obtained in the lateral position, with the femora overlapping as perfectly as possible, to determine the level of the blind end of the rectum and identify the type of ARM.

In practice, DC is a very useful technique since it has a high specificity. Its sensitivity can be increased if proper care is taken to demonstrate the most distal end of the blind rectum and the fistula.[ 10 ]

Hirschsprung's disease

Some surgeons perform a defunctioning colostomy for the management of the aganglionic colon. DC confirms the earlier diagnosis and helps in planning the further course of action [ Figure 10 ].

Colostomy for Hirschprung's disease. Some pediatric surgeons carry out colostomy in early management of Hirschprung's disease. DC in a child in whom colostomy was carried out for a significantly narrow aganglionic segment (marked by an arrow) confirmed the diagnosis. Note that the proximal colon looks small after defunctioning colostomy

Recto sigmoid obstructive disorders

In dealing with strictures due to chronic colitis or complicated diverticulosis and malignant tumors of the rectosigmoid region a defunctioning colostomy and resection with anastomosis are undertaken. DC is useful to check for any leakage from the site of anastomosis before closure of the colostomy [ Figure 11 ].

DC for checking the lumen of distal colon. : DC shows leakage of contrast from the site of anastomosis after resection of a malignant growth of recto sigmoid in an old person. Based on this observation the closure of colostomy was deferred for some more time

Source of Support: Nil

Conflict of Interest: None declared.