Researching the Visual

When describing photo documentation, Rose describes photo-documentation as a researcher taking ‘a carefully planned series of photographs which are then discussed in an interview with a researcher’. This makes me think about being in history lessons when I was younger, being told that photographs were not reliable sources of information. I think photography is an incredible medium and can be used to spread a narrative effectively, but there’s always an element of photographer’s bias. 

The description for photo-elicitation, asking participants to take photographs, brings to mind the trend in couples opting for their guests to have disposable cameras, over hiring a wedding photographer. This in turn makes me think of one of the earlier readings in which Arthur Berger writes ‘We all do research, all the time’. One doesn’t naturally connect the idea of wedding photography being a form of research.

In the section about photo-documentation, Rose writes about gentrification and the changes of places over time. This made me think of my home town. With the changing nature of the high street, shops come and go but their memory remains. I recently went home for the weekend and spoke with my mother in the market square, pointing out where less than ten years ago the Woolworth's used to stand, another spot where was a wishing well I’d throw money into as a child, all while sitting in a café which up until a few months ago didn’t exist. I’ve only just turned 20 and already I have multiple maps comprised of mental images of the same space. 

 In the section about photo-elicitation I find the switch of control between the researcher and the photographer really interesting. Beforehand they would have been told what kind of things to photograph and been a tool for the researcher. After the photographs are taken the balance of power completely changes, the photographer is the only one who can tell them what they’re looking at in the photographs and what it means.