Students will enter the project by analyzing how portraits and text communicate meaning beyond appearance, then practice first-round image making and critique with support from a local portrait photographer. They will leave Phase 1 with shared project expectations, an initial technical and conceptual baseline, and evidence about how visual choices and ethical decisions shape audience understanding.

Students will gather firsthand evidence about how people want identity, resilience, hope, and responsibility represented in photographs, connect those findings to Frankl-inspired themes, and turn interview and observation data into an empathy map and design brief starter that can guide later photo concepts.

Students will turn empathy research, text evidence, and early image observations into a focused photography design brief, generate multiple distinct concept directions, and choose one evidence-based direction for a photo story that communicates identity beyond appearance.

Students will create and test rapid portrait-story prototypes, gather stakeholder and peer feedback, revise through two documented iteration cycles, and present a refined exhibition-direction set that shows how user evidence, ethical choices, and Frankl-based themes shaped their design decisions.

Students will present their curated photograph series to an authentic audience, demonstrate how image and text choices communicate identity beyond appearance, and complete a final performance-based assessment through exhibition talk, audience interaction, and concise written reflection on revisions, ethics, and meaning.