I love photography, more so I love the stories they tell. This week we are tasked with completing 12 stars of visual assignments. That being said I decided to start with a four and a half star assignment called story map.

This assignment asked…

Using Knightlab’s Story Map, create a map telling a story of a trip you took or would like to take. Include pictures. They can be your own, or from flickr (just give them credit).

Before I get into the nitty gritty of the story map I created I first want to say that I love how this assignment allows for individuals to tell a specific story through essentially the use of pictures.

The instructions for this assignment said to use Knightlab’s Story Map. This is a website where you can easily create interactive maps. When creating your map you can import photos, headlines, captions, stories, and more. The best thing about this site is that it is super user friendly being so simple to work. I have had to create other maps for previous classes with this application so when the assignment asked for me to use this I was more than thrilled due to my experience.

I decided to tell a story of a trip I took. Ultimately I was brainstorming a vacation where I traveled to several places, by doing so it would make my map more interesting to look at. If there were limited locations it would certainly be boring. However I have never been out of the country and I believed a trip like that would be great to document due to all the different places people usually go.

After some thought I decided to map my family trip up north to the New England area this past summer. I figured this would be best because of the numerous places I went while traveling. So with that I created a map telling the story of my trip to New York City, Providence and Newport Rhode Island, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The map I created titled “New York, Rhode Island, and Cape Cod Oh My!” is one that tells a story of a small piece of my Summer. I mapped out a total of ten different locations. With each location I attached a photo and an explanation of what occurred, what was seen, done etc. I ultimately wanted viewers to be able to experience my trip even though they weren’t on it with me.

This type of visual story is effective in my opinion because of the realness that comes with it. It’s an interactive way to immerse yourself in something and in some peoples cases possibly get lost in what you’re doing. While I was creating this map I was taken back to my trip, reliving every moment, almost feeling as if I was back up north again.

Once I finished I thought to myself this would be something really cool to show my family who took the trip with me. I feel as if they’d appreciate it as it would in some ways serve as a memory album of our time spent together. My biggest take away from this assignment is that photos indeed do tell stories whether it’s the photos I attached in my specific map or the map itself. While words serve as a great purpose in storytelling, photos act as voiceless stories, still just as effective.