In writing the photo essay, while it was a very open-ended project; I had to find a specific topic to focus on and analysis while still telling a story. Mixing the facts in my narrative with having a beginning, middle, and end is not an easy task. Overall it was a ten step process that I used to write my paper and include the photograph to help tell my story. The first step was to find a topic that I enjoyed talking about and also a topic that people should know more about. The second was for me to understand what message I wanted to convey to my audience. The next was to create a broad outline of what I wanted my project to look like. Following, the fourth step was to develop a thesis statement related to step two and then to implement it in step three.

The fifth step was to find supporting arguments and fact to back up my ideas and thoughts on the topic. This next step, step six, can be very difficult to accomplish, but if done right can be extremely useful. What questions might your audience ask and then once you know those questions address them appropriately. For the photography within this paper, I needed to find and take pictures relating to my topic and then at times create a collage of photos in one space of the essay. Before I talked about how difficult it would be to incorporate the facts into the narrative, this is step eight. Second to last step, step nine is addressing why is my topic important. Finally, depending on the topic and because mine was on helping the Guatemalan people have a better quality of life, step ten was to address how people could help the situation.