Losing <p> and </p> tags

Hi,
I am new to word press and working on a simple static page in Atahualpa.

I want to have an image, then, on a new line, a description.
Then on the next line, another image, and then on the fourth line, another description, etc.

I tried this using the visual box on my page editor and it looked perfect -- but then in preview everything piled up on top of each other.

I then inserted <p> and </p> before and after each image and line in the html editor, but it had no effect in the preview, and everything piled up on top of each other again.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get it to keep the paragraph returns and have the text under each image?

Thanks!