Nearly six months ago, Northeastern University journalism professor Jeff Howe told me about Exposure.co, a wonderful site that provides storytellers with an opportunity to construct beautiful photographic narratives. More images than text, Exposure held a lot of promise. I love taking photos but I struggled to figure out what kind of package I wanted to put together.
Then life got in the way. Time passed and Exposure slipped my mind, save for the occasional we-miss-you and “new features” emails that I’d receive.
The former Lawrence Manufacturing Company. Photo by Steve Daly.
On Wednesday I decided to give it a try. I’ve been shooting a lot of photos around Lowell lately and also had dozens from previous shoots. Given my abundance of photos and, as a nearly lifelong resident, a pretty good handle on its history, a photo spread of Lowell seemed like a logical choice.
I decided to go with black and while photos – I’ve always been partial to that type of shot and I knew that a lot of what i had shot would work well in that format. The trick was whittling the selection down to a manageable number. I selected what I thought was the best 11 shots and built the page, inserting text providing background for each of the shots and calling it “Lowell in Grayscale: Black and White Photographs from Around the Mill City.”
I love the way it turned out and I’ll definitely be using Exposure more. You can build three stories at no cost but if you want more you’ll need to subscribe. At $5 per month for the Plus plan or $9 per month for Pro (there are options to pay for the year in a lump sum as well), it’s pretty affordable, especially since there’s no limit to the number of stories you can post.
Looking up through five flights of stairs at Western Avenue Studios. Photo by Steve Daly.
One drawback: WordPress.com does not allow iFrames, Exposure’s choice of display, so I can’t upload it to this blog. But you can reach it by clicking on the above image or right here.
Wednesday night, about seven hours after I published “Lowell in Grayscale,” I received an email from Exposure saying it had chosen to feature my post in the Historic section on the site.
Not bad for a first effort.
Framed By History 