Writing my first university essay EEK

we recently got given the task to write a 750 word essay based off a photograph we were given. Now I was freaking out as soon as I got the task just simply because I have never wrote an essay before and simply believed I wouldn't be able to do it. My photograph was the classic Helmut newtons "le smoking" which I was incredibly grateful to have as this is one of my all time favourite photographs.

Post freak out about writing, I started to brain storm about the image and get down on paper what the first thoughts that came to my head were when I looked at the image. This started off a complete brain dump on paper but as I was sure I had thought of all of the words I could I started to take them into deeper meanings. I would pick up things like what her suit could be a metaphor for or why the front woman was positioned that way. I took all this analysis and made the plunge to start the essay. I always find that actually starting it is the hardest part. As I stared at the underlined title my fingers were hovering over the keyboard waiting for my mind to kick in. With a bit of self motivation I just let my mind run free and give my honest interpretation on what I thought it was all about. I simply took all my previous analysation and expanded onto it, to show you what I mean I will insert some of my essay:

"Another view could be based on the role of woman in the 1970s. After looking into this period of time, I have found that it was significant time regarding the change in women’s rights. For example, strikes for women’s equality and other protests took place in the 1970s. Not only would nakedness have been deemed unacceptable, but a woman wearing a suit would have been extremely controversial due to it being considered ‘male clothing’"

For me I really wanted to be personal with this essay and let it come from my own opinion but with a combination of research. So I made sure I highlighted things that stuck out such as feminism in the photograph and the powerful image of two strong women and backed it up with factual information.

At first I faced a wall with this task but eventually really enjoying being able to analyse such an incredible image and I learnt to not be so hard on myself when it comes to writing tasks I just need to believe in myself.