What is pictorial photography?

Answer 1

Pictorial photography was a movement, peaking in the early part of the 20th Century, which tried to emulate painting and etching. Many pictorialists used soft focus, filters, Vaseline on the lens, various darkroom manipulations and processes to get a "painterly" look. Alfred Stieglitz (1864 - 1946) is a good general representative of the pictorialists. The movement is by no means dead, and many photographers working today still try to get a look that is sometimes anything but "photographic" in the sense of, say, Ansel Adams and the f/64 school, which emphasized very "straight" Photography with crisp focus and infinite detail.

Answer 2

Pictorial essays, also called photo essays, tell a story through photographs and text. The text typically has a journalistic feel and helps tell the story, but the primary locus of the pictorial essay is the photographs themselves. A pictorial essay typically has a title and focuses around a single theme, whether it is a subject such as war, or a pictorial essay about a particular state. Pictorial essays are often personal and can be an effective way for you to create a personal message to share with family, friends or even for publication.

Answer 3

One dictionary defines the word essay as:

# a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative. # anything resembling such a composition: a picture essay. Thus, a photo essay is a series of photographs on a theme. An example might be a series of photographs on the drowning of New Orleans, or a series on homelessness, or a series on row houses, or flowers, or pretty much anything at all. Photojournalists often create photo essays, either on assignment or as self assignments. Anyone with a camera can create a photo essay on any subject imaginable. I have seen examples where kids have been given disposable cameras and told to document anything they choose. The youngsters come up with some very interesting, even exciting photo essays all on their own.

Answer 4

It's basically a novel told in the form of pictures. It could be a graphic novel, like with Cartoons.