Visual Research: A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually [2 ed.] 1032101784, 9781032101781

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Visual Research

Visual Research: A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually, Second Edition, provides an accessible introduction to doing visual research in the social sciences. Beginning with ethical considerations, this book highlights the importance of thinking visually before engaging in visual research. Further themes involve creating, organizing, and using images and are presented so as to help readers think about and work with their own visual data. This fully updated second edition includes new case studies, updated discussions regarding the ethics of social media and online content, new technology, and an expansion to include new material on museum, public, and applied work. Concise and highly focused, Visual Research is an invaluable resource for visual, media, and communications students and researchers, and others interested in visual research in the social sciences. Jerome W. Crowder is Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Behavior and Social Sciences at the Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine at the University of Houston, USA. He is a former president and board member of the Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA). Jonathan S. Marion is a former president of the Society for Visual Anthropology and the Society for Humanistic Anthropology and now works as a transformational life coach, consultant, and educator.

Visual Research

A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually Second Edition

Jerome W. Crowder and Jonathan S. Marion

Designed cover image: Jerome W. Crowder Second edition published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Jerome W. Crowder and Jonathan S. Marion The right of Jerome W. Crowder and Jonathan S. Marion to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Bloomsbury Academic 2013 and Routledge 2020 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9781032101781 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032101798 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003214083 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083 Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

List of Figures vii Acknowledgments xvi Case Study Contributors xviii Introduction

1

SECTION 1

Image Basics

7

1 The Ethics of Images

9

2 Starting to Think Visually

22

3 Thinking of Images as Data

40

SECTION 2

Making Images

53

4 Cameras in Social Science Research

55

5 Photography

68

6 Video (with Eric Weissman)

90

7 Multimedia (with Eric Weissman)

115

8 Using Images

130



vi Contents SECTION 3

Organizing Images

153

9 Organization and Storage (with Michele Reilly)

155

10 Images, Metadata, and Research (with Michele Reilly)

177

Conclusion

194

Appendix 1: Glossary 197 Index 201

Figures

0.1 Art and Athleticism in Action: World and Blackpool Professional Latin Finalists, and U.S. National Professional Latin Champions, Slavik Kryklyvyy and Karina Smirnoff, are seen here performing at Dance Legends 2016, in Manhattan, NY, USA. © Jonathan S. Marion. 5 0.2 Family at the Edge of the City: El Alto, Bolivia. ©1993 Jerome Crowder. 6 1.1 Rapport: U.S. Professional Rhythm National Semifinalist at the time, this image shows F.J. and Catherin Abaya at home shortly after having competed at the 2004 Seattle Star Ball. The rapport and trust built over the years earned the photographer access to record this post-competition reward of downtime for the Abayas. They spent this time in front of the television with their dogs and with two dozen donuts, earned through three weeks of strict dieting and extra practices leading up to the competition. ©2004 Jonathan S. Marion. 11 1.2 Performance: This image was taken at the Rumah Pirata Collective’s DIY music venue where local, regional, and international punk bands come to perform. Taken in 2018 by an undisclosed photographer and used with permission from the Rumah Pirata Collective. 17 1.3 Diptych-1: (Left): Sunlight falls on the porch of the house where I was staying, Kashmir, August 2019. (Right): A patient reflects during a counseling session in a drug de-addiction clinic in Srinagar, Kashmir. September 2018. ©2019 Gaurav Datta. 19



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2.1 Self-Portrait: This image, taken in Picuris, New Mexico, in 1957, is an excellent example of a creative means for photographing cultural material that is both an aesthetically pleasing portrait and ethnographically rich image (i.e., chockfull of ethnographic information, providing much potential for further inquiry). This photograph was made as part of a longer series of cultural inventories of homes in the area, part of a study of Picuris Pueblo carried out by the late Dr. Bernard Siegel of Stanford University. These recordings of home interiors were a systematic evolution of the earlier FSA/OWI (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information) images of homes. Photo by John Collier, Jr. (r7138). (Black-and-white original.) 26 2.2 Girl Dancing: Both this image and Figure 2.3 demonstrate the multiplicity of approaches images can take on. This image, taken in Vicos, Perú, is strong because the subject fills the frame due to its low angle, and creates a strong sense of energy and movement. It also includes a great deal of ethnographic information, including clothing, behavior, skills, interaction, and the new school building in the background. At one level, it could be considered photojournalism as it concisely tells a story within one frame, but also art as well as ethnographic due to its composition and content. Photo by Mary E. T. Collier, 1955 (n10353-3252-5d). (Black-and-white original.) 27 2.3 Woman in Home with Portraits: This intriguing image, taken in Peñasco, New Mexico, uses the rule of thirds (see Chapter 5) to bring various subjects into relation with each other while being in an intimate setting. The image is ethnographically rich as well, with content on material culture, economics, technology, dress, and cultural aesthetics, and a very rich potential for use in photo elicitation. Photo by John Collier, Jr., 1943 (r0594, also LC-USW3-013688-C). (Black-andwhite original.) 28 2.4 Framing: Salome washes her family’s clothes on the patio of their house in El Alto, Bolivia. The top image is shot at a focal length of 16 mm (on a full-frame DSLR), while the bottom image is shot at a focal length of 35 mm. Wide angles are excellent for establishing shots and providing context, and while both images are made with wide angles, the distance to the subject determines just how much context is captured in each photograph. Both images are taken from the same location, with the same equipment. ©2011 Jerome Crowder. 29

Figures 

2.5 Composition and Angle/Perspective: U.S. Professional 9-Dance Champions Peter and Alexandra Perzhu, seen here competing at the 2011 United States Dancesport Championships in Orlando, Florida. While both images show the exact same element in the Perzhus’ cha-cha routine, the composition on the left is much busier, with several other couples, judges, and audience. Likewise, from this angle/perspective, Alexandra’s body blocks most of Peter, and the three-dimensional shapes made by both cannot be seen. The angle/perspective of the image on the right, however, depicts the Perzhus’ dynamic positions, while the composition largely isolates the Perzhus against the floor while still showing other couples in the background. © 2011 Jonathan S. Marion. (Color originals.) 2.6 Lighting (ambient versus flash): Luis builds a door inside his uncle’s carpentry shop, located in the Urbanization Bautista Saavedra, El Alto, Bolivia. The top image is exposed with available (ambient) light, while the lower image benefits from the flash filling in the shadows. ©2011 Jerome Crowder. 2.7 The Camera in the Action: When the camera is immersed in the event, the story unfolds within the field of view. “If you are press, you belong on the other side of the fence and get there right now,” the offi cer tells the camera, held by Bishop, who is next in line to be busted. Film frames from Choose Life, a fi lm by John Bishop and Robbie Leppzer 2.8 Pre-visioning: This image shows Dominico Soale and Gioia Cerosoli’s signature scissor-kick opening to their quickstep routine at the 2005 Embassy Ball Dancesport Championships, Irvine, California. This is the type of image that depends upon pre-visioning based on ethnographic understanding. © 2005 Jonathan S. Marion. 3.1 Fieldwork Sketch: Standing Bear’s tent. October 1, 1881, as drawn by Alice C. Fletcher in her fieldwork diary, during her first fieldwork, and reproduced in her manuscript Camping with the Sioux: Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher (see www​.nmnh​.si​.edu​/naa​/fletcher). Used by permission of the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (NAA 10000184). (Pencil and paper.)

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30

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34

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x Figures

3.2 Context, Content, and Detail: This image shows a ballroom gown being produced by Doré Designs in Cape Coral, Florida, in August 2007. Top left: The first frame shows the dress itself—the primary focus of this sequence—on a mannequin. Top right: The second frame shows the details of the individually hand-placed Swarovski crystals on this dress. Bottom: The third frame shows the process in action (on the left side of the frame) while also showing the bins of differently colored crystals (on the back wall) and the glue (front left) used to place each and every crystal. ©2007 Jonathan S. Marion. 3.3 Fieldwork with Images: Two research assistants engage paisa coffee farmers in Riseralda, Colombia in the Rich Games methodology. ©2019 Karl Frost. 3.4 Langtang Village: A Langtangpa man named Dindu walking through the rubble of the avalanche that buried Langtang village, stopping near the space where his mother’s home used to be. Langtang, Nepal. ©2015 Austin Lord. 4.1 Chapter Timeline: This timeline depicts some of the key contributions (and contributors) to visual research and ethnography mentioned in this chapter. This diagram is not intended as a comprehensive history of the subdiscipline or related fields. Rather, it helps illustrate the content of this chapter while also serving as an example of how visual representations can be used to augment textual materials. 4.2 Brian Dodge, 2010. Eight years into geared-to-income housing, after a life of crime, drugs, prison, and homelessness, Brian rejoices at the opening of the “Edwin” Hotel, a supportive housing program in Toronto for other men who were experiencing homelessness. Behind him are photos of the renovation of the 100-year-old hotel. “It’s like me,” he joked. “Reinvented.” ©2010 Eric Weissman. (Color original.) 4.3 QR CODE for Ethical Traces. 5.1 Ch’alla in Juli, Perú: November 2003: David Onofre and his family sit on the floor of their house during a misa blanca offering ritual. We met the diviner (yatiri), who appears in the lower right-hand corner, in a small village near Lake Titicaca, and invited him to David’s family’s home in Juli to perform a cleansing ceremony. This photo serves as a strong image for photo elicitation at a later date because one could discuss the various family members present and the space in which the ritual occurred, as well as the paraphernalia (coca leaves, llama fat, wine, etc.) used during the ceremony. Everyone is smoking in order to purify the space before the ritual continues. © 2003 Jerome Crowder.

44 46

48

57

63 64

70

Figures 

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5.2 Photographic Intent: All four of these images were taken at the 2007 British Open Dancesport Championships (perhaps most widely known as the Blackpool Dancesport Festival in Blackpool, England). All four were shot from the first balcony level but with very different intent: the general setting and busy floor of morning-time practice, including (relatively) informal outfits (top left); the congested floor of early rounds of the competition (top right); the spectacle of the final rounds of this prestigious competition, from the more open floor to the spotlights to the formally attired spectators (bottom left); and the focus of all of these other elements, the best dancing by the best couples in the world, in this case, Blackpool and World Professional Ballroom Finalists, Vitor Fung and Ana Mikhed (bottom right). © 2007 Jonathan S. Marion 72 5.3 Marathon des Sables, Sahara Desert, Morocco: April 9, Amy Palmiero-Winters’ carbon fiber prosthetic leg was specifically designed for use with a wide variety of terrain changes. Here she competes in the Marathon des Sables, an ultramarathon through the Sahara Desert. © 2019 Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times. 74 5.4 Apertures. 76 5.5 Depth of Field: These images show a competition ballroom dress decorated by Doré Designs in Cape Coral, Florida. Using a very shallow depth of field, focused on the foreground, one image (left) draws attention to the design and detail on the hem of the dress being decorated. The other image (right), in contrast, uses a wider depth of field, focused on the midground, to highlight the person and the process of placing the rhinestones on individual dots of dress glue. As these images illustrate, DOF can be used to deliberately direct attention to specific elements. © 2009 Jonathan S. Marion. 77 5.6 Sensor size comparison chart illustrating various popular sensors, from full-frame (35 mm format) to a typical smartphone sensor. Larger sensors allow more pixels per square mm, one factor in increasing resolution and lightgathering capacity. 78 5.7 Daytime Flash Outdoors: Crowder made this image while riding in a tricycle taxi in Puno, Perú. Although there is plenty of light, the flash fills in the shadows cast on the driver’s face and upper torso by the canopy, balancing the exposure. This image also provides another example of the previsioning discussed in Chapter 2, as Crowder had seen this image in his head for months and then worked to find the appropriate driver willing to be photographed. © 2005 Jerome Crowder. 83

xii Figures

5.8 Rule of Thirds: Notice the difference between the cropped version of the woman walking by and the full version of the same image. The bricks and beams of the wall in the full image suggest the imagined grid of the rule of thirds and connote a fuller sense of the atmosphere and movement than the cropped version of the image seen on the right. This image also provides another example of previsioning (Chapter 2) in that Crowder, having previously noticed how the late afternoon light fell on this wall in El Alto, returned to the location and waited for someone to walk by. Although walking in the opposite direction than anticipated, Crowder framed the image placing the Bolivian woman in the leftmost third of the image to imply movement. © 2000 Jerome Crowder. 85 5.9 British in Arcadia: “When critically ill, I moved to be near my mum in France. Now, with two of my ‘babies’ I’m building a new life in the countryside.” © 2021 Terence V. Wright. 87 6.1 Hands-on Training: Flight crew members interact with the ventilator as the instructor watches them. Image capture from video. ©2012 Elizabeth Cartwright. 95 6.2 Stabilization and Sound: Videographer Michael Brims (Associate Professor of Communication and Digital Media at U. Houston—Clear Lake) is seen here stabilizing his video rig by holding his elbows close to his body and his feet spread wide—effectively creating a “tripod” with his arms and torso—during a hand-held shot in Fallbrook, CA. He follows the couple by pivoting at his waist, not turning his arms, to keep the shot steady and smooth. The two people walking past him are wearing wireless lavalier microphones to capture their discussion. The high tones of their voices are balanced with the mounted shotgun mic, which picks up the lower frequencies. All audio is fed into a multichannel field mixer (in his shoulder bag) and then into the camera, which he monitors with headphones. ©2012 Jerome Crowder. 98 6.3 Microphones and Pick-up Patterns: Some of the more common microphones you can use in your filming, and their respective pick-up patterns. 99 6.4 Sound Matters: Joanna Casey shoots video from a ladder while soundperson Kimbra Smith raises the boom mic with Zeppelin attached to capture the sounds of the craftsman working on a boat. North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort, NC, SCRM 2008. ©2008 Jerome Crowder. 101

Figures 

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6.5 Non-Verbal Signaling: Cameraman Jonathan Marion communicates with soundperson Courtney Carothers while shooting a boat builder at the North Carolina Maritime Museum speaking with a patron. Their faces have been blurred to protect their identity because we (a) take our ethical obligations seriously (as per Chapter 1), and (b) do not have consent forms from these persons. North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort, NC. SCRM 2009. ©2009 Jerome Crowder. 102 6.6 Gimbal and smartphone: Using a gimbal with a smartphone in order to steady the shot. Gimbals for phones and cameras help with focus tracking and allow for greater manual control during recording. © 2023 Michael Brims. 105 6.7 Practice First: Three professors attending the Short Course in Research Methods Video Analysis course practice singlecamera interviewing before going into town. Here, for instance, they try using a pad of large white paper as an improvised reflector to help light the subject’s face. Fuji Lozada, Maris Gillette, Scot Lacy. SCRM 2008. ©2008 Jerome Crowder. 107 6.8 QR code to access Mihai’s film: I am a Whisper, My Dear. 110 7.1 Talking about Images: Conversation with researcher holding photos taken weeks earlier and having the participant comment on them. Titilaka, Perú. © 2003 Jerome Crowder. 119 7.2 Multimedia in Research: Screenshot of data displayed using Carto, depicting the geographical location of the farm, corresponding interview, and map legend illustrating ways the land is utilized. © Sarah Franzen 2018. 126 8.1 Community Research: Photovoice participants give feedback on each other’s images. Cafal, Cantanhez National Park, Tombalí, Guinea-Bissau. © 2014 Joana Roque de Pinho. 132 8.2 Research in Action: Images taken from Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) were stitched together to make this composite of a Fulani homestead, farmland, and herds. Villagers could then discuss and explain aspects of the images, helping researchers better understand how inhabitants interpret their landscape. Ghana. © 2018 Mark Westmoreland. 134

xiv Figures

8.3 Documenting Traditional Garifuna Drum-Making: The Austin Rodriguez Drumshop is an educational center regarding traditional Garifuna drum-making in Dangriga Belize. A faculty-led applied visual research class in the summer of 2014 worked with the family craftspeople to create an updated poster to illustrate the multiple phases of drum-making, replacing a well-used version they had shared with visitors for years. Shown is the delivery of the new collaborative documentary poster, laminated to protect it from the seaside elements. Why-Not Island, Dangriga Town, Dangriga, Belize, January 2015. Images courtesy of Jonathan S. Marion. 136 8.4 Sharing a Bench: Tanah Abang market, Jakarta, Indonesia. Photography, as Bateson and Mead once argued, often reveals patterns of behavior and bodily comportment easy to miss with the naked eye. © 2019 Brent Luvaas. 141 8.5 Ethnographic Terminalia: Reception for Audible Observatories in SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA. © 2012 Lara Rosenoff Gauvin. 143 8.6 SouthTube Meet-Up: YouTubers create a mock press conference at a grass-roots, in-person YouTube meet-up called SouthTube, in Marietta, Georgia, U.S. This image illustrates how a researcher wielding a camera at a YouTube meet-up becomes a participant and overtly co-creates the action being recorded. The researcher becomes one of the mock “paparazzi” that amplifies the importance of the “message” of a YouTuber who playfully uses a gourd as a “microphone.” © 2007 Patricia Lange. 146 8.7 QR code for Patricia Lange’s film: Hey Watch This! Sharing the Self Through Media. 146 9.1 RAW→JPEG: This flowchart illustrates the steps involved in taking a RAW image from your camera (or phone) through the process of making it into a JPEG for publication. 157 9.2 Key Tag: A simple key tag can identify the contents on a flash drive. 159 9.3 Folders Within Folders: This graphic shows one process for naming folders and (re)naming images in subfolders. 160 9.4 Organizational Integrity: This screen capture illustrates the tree-like structure of a good filing system, including the mother folder (directory) with the daughter folder (subfolder) that contains the images. Such nesting of folders is an appropriate means for keeping all of your images/videos organized within one main folder (locally or in the cloud). 162

Figures 

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9.5 Organizational Levels: This simple graphic illustrates a straightforward approach to organizing your images, refining them to a select number that represents the best within that file. 164 9.6 Protecting your Images: Basilia makes chuño in Tiwanaku, Bolivia. This watermark includes the copyright symbol and date, shown at 75% opacity. © Jerome Crowder 2007. 166 9.7 Folder Structure: This graphic illustrates the folder structure Reilly developed for organizing her literature review documents. 172 10.1 Accessing Metadata: Right-clicking on a file will bring up the “properties” box. This example window has the “details” tab selected with the “tags” field highlighted; place your general codes here and they will auto-populate the next time you add codes to another image. 180 10.2 Viewing Metadata in a Folder: This screenshot illustrates the “Documents” folder where the image files are kept. Clicking the “View” tab and then toggling the “Details pane” will show the thumbnail and metadata for each image in the folder. 181 10.3 Specific Image Metadata: This screenshot illustrates how the search for “chuño” brings up this image because it is tagged with that word in the metadata. 184 10.4 Desktop Management: This screenshot illustrates the ACDSEE desktop with images “tagged,” “ranked,” and sorted with a “color” stripe, denoting the selection process. 185 10.5 Desktop Management Detail: Screenshot of desktop with specific images selected, ranked, and color-coded. 186 10.6 ExifTool GUI Metadata Extractor: In this example, Reilly shows the process she developed for organizing her files as well as the metadata she collected for the images in her research. ExifTool allows her to see different levels of data simultaneously. 187 10.7 Basic Metadata Organization: The simplest way to organize metadata is to create a spreadsheet. Use columns to account for descriptive fields while the rows represent each image, video, or audio file. 188 10.8 “Daily Stuff” (Donald’s Medical Bills): As part of his research in East Houston with elderly residents, Crowder asked participants to photograph the things they liked about their lives and what they wanted to change. Donald took this image of the medical bills he had received over the period of a few months, which his insurance was not going to pay. Courtesy of Donald. 2007. 190

Acknowledgments

There are many people who deserve thanks for their contributions and support in crafting the second edition of this book. In particular, it has been exceptional to build off of a strong first edition and the work of those who made that original volume possible. We appreciate the feedback and suggestions from our readers, students, and colleagues who were kind enough to share with us their experiences using the first edition in order to improve our text. Throughout the process of revising this book, we have had the continued support and encouragement of our colleagues (especially those attending the Society for Visual Anthropology’s annual Visual Research Conference) and our students—both on campus and in our workshops. All have influenced our thinking about the issues at the heart of this text. Because the ideas presented here are about visual research, broadly understood, we are especially appreciative of our colleagues who contributed glimpses into their own projects for the case studies in each chapter of this book: John Bishop, Elizabeth Cartwright, Gaurav Datta, Sarah Franzen, Austin Lord, Mariangela Mahi, Steve Moog, Michele Reilly, Joana Roque de Pinho, Mark Westmoreland, Eric Weissman, and Terence Wright. Their projects demonstrate the many facets of visual research, expanding our understanding of the technical, ethical, and ethnographic boundaries we explore. Several colleagues have made significant contributions to this volume, appearing as co-authors and advisors on chapters throughout the text. Eric Weissman, who used the original edition in his classes, helped us update and adapt Chapters 6 and 7 to convey the changing ethical and technical landscape of video and multimedia for early adopters of visual methods. Technology’s rapid evolution required us to reconsider our original content on data management, and long-time colleague and collaborator Michele Reilly (who mentored us in the first edition) brought her extensive knowledge and experience to once more advise on and co-author Chapters 9 and 10. We also want to acknowledge Michael Brims, Liz Cartwright, and Ryan Christopher Jones, who brought their photographic and teaching experience to our text by providing insightful feedback and suggestions. Their input is woven throughout



Acknowledgments 

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the chapters. As a book about visual research, we appreciate our colleagues who submitted their research images to be included in this volume, including Karl Frost, Brent Luvaas, and Patricia Lange. We are greatly indebted to Joanna Cohan Scherer and the staff at the National Anthropological Archives for suggesting historical images to include (Figures 3.1 and 4.2), and to Malcolm Collier, for identifying and securing the rights to his parents’ images in Chapter 2 (Figures 2.1 and 2.2). Besides the many names who appear throughout this volume as contributors, we recognize Arlene Macdonald for her thoughtfulness and skill in editing and consultation throughout the project. She has brought clarity and precision to the complicated and technical issues we tackle. We also want to acknowledge the incredibly accommodating and professional staff at Routledge. From submission through review, and from copyediting through to cover design, the team at Routledge has made the production of this book as easy as possible, all while providing helpful input and feedback along the way. Any errors that remain are solely our responsibility. Jerome Crowder would also like to extend his utmost gratitude to Alicia Krouse for her continual support and understanding throughout the process of making this book a reality. Finally, we must thank all of our research participants and collaborators who have allowed us into their lives, even—and especially— when we showed up with cameras in hand. It is only through their generosity that our own projects and thinking about visual research have and continue to develop.

Case Study Contributors

John Melville Bishop Independent Filmmaker (USA) In addition to producing his own films in anthropology and folklore, Bishop has worked as a freelance cameraman, editor, archivist, oral historian, and writer. He has filmed in Africa, the Himalayas, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, and most of the United States. After teaching for 12 years in the Department of World Arts and Culture at UCLA, he retired to Portland, OR, where he continues making videos and films (www​.media​-generation​.com/). Elizabeth Cartwright Professor, Department of Anthropology, Idaho State University (USA) Cartwright has expertise in structural vulnerability and health among immigrant and ethnic populations in the USA, Mexico, Perú, and Bolivia. She focuses on systematic ethnographic methodologies that use text-based narratives, visual data, and community-based participatory research to improve the lives of farmworkers in the USA and South America. She has developed courses for the Nation Science Foundation and others on visual research methods (www​.isu​.edu​/anthropology​/people​/elizabeth​-cartwright/). Gaurav Datta Postdoctoral Researcher, Neuroscience, University of North Dakota (USA) Datta is a neuroscientist who combines elements of microscopy and still photography. His research focuses on HIV/AIDS and substance use both from biomedical and transcultural perspectives. Considering the social determinants of health, politics, and autoethnography, Datta brings a visual approach to understanding living with HIV/AIDS and recovery from substance use.



Case Study Contributors  xix

Sarah Franzen Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University (USA) Franzen has worked extensively with African American farmers and farm cooperatives as a researcher, filmmaker, and participant. Her research focuses on the diverse ways of knowing embedded in practices associated with farming, examining how these practices can be used to retain culture, foster environmental relationships, build institutions, or generate social change. Franzen uses film to better understand the tacit, embodied, affective, and sensory aspects of these practices (www​.lsu​.edu​/ga​/people​/faculty​/sarah​ -franzen/). Austin Lord Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto (Canada) Lord is an environmental anthropologist who studies disaster, climate change, water and energy conflicts, and their associated infrastructures and politics. His work focuses on the Himalayan bioregion. His scholarship is guided by a commitment to multimodal and collaborative processes of knowledge production and memory work, engaging communities in photography, mapmaking, and ethnographic filmmaking (www​.environment​.utoronto​.ca​/people​/directories​/postdoctoral​-fellows​/austin​-lord). Mariangela Mihai Postdoctoral Fellow, Culture & Politics Program, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University (USA) Mariangela Mihai is a Romanian political and visual anthropologist and filmmaker whose work builds on decolonial, feminist, and sensory ethnographic methods to understand Indigenous resistance in borderlands of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and China. She is co-founder of Ethnocine, an ethnographic filmmaking collective committed to pushing the boundaries of non-fiction cinema through intersectional, decolonial, and feminist lenses (https://genderjustice​.georgetown​.edu​/gji​-fellowship​/mariangela​-mihai/#). Steve Moog Visiting Faculty, Wake Forest University (USA) Moog’s research focuses on enactments of do-it-yourself ethics and anarchist philosophies in the punk scenes of Indonesia. He implements collaborative visual methods and anarchist approaches to ethnography (www​.stevemoog​.com).

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Michele Reilly Professor/Digital Projects Coordinator, University of Arkansas (USA) Reilly brings visual artifacts into conversation with the broader issues of digital libraries, humanities computing, and data management planning and sharing issues. Her research centers on assessing digital repository systems, objects, and workflows, as well as on emerging technologies that facilitate the discovery and use of digital cultural heritage materials (https://libraries​ .uark​.edu​/about​/personnel​/faculty​-directory/​#reilly). Joana Roque del Pinho Researcher at the Center for International Studies (CEI), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Portugal) As an ecologist and environmental anthropologist, Roque del Pinho’s research examines experiences and understandings of socio-ecological dynamics among West and East African rural communities. She is passionate about engaging local land users as collaborative researchers through visual methodologies such as participatory video and photovoice. Eric Weissman Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick (Canada) Weissman has been developing and applying a lived-experience form of visual scholarship to the study of homelessness, housing, mental health, and substance use in Canadian and U.S. cities, drawing on his own recovery from serious addictions and episodic homelessness. He utilizes visual ethnographies and visual studies to support innovative approaches to social problems like addictions and homelessness (www​.ethnolab​.ca). Mark Westmoreland Associate Professor of Visual Anthropology, Leiden University (the Netherlands) Mark has written extensively on the interface between sensory embodiment and media aesthetics in ongoing legacies of contentious politics, in conjunction with the use of participatory and experimental visual methods. He is currently developing a new multimodal and collaborative research agenda to attend to wounded landscapes through interventions that prioritize a collective process of problem-solving and result in artistic visualizations and actionable citizen science research (www​.universiteitleiden​.nl​/en​/staffmembers​/mark​-westmoreland/).

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Terence Wright Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts, Ulster University (Northern Ireland) Wright’s research applies a systematic approach to visualization whereby photography becomes one of many ways of representing the visual world. This provides the basis for analyzing media, health, and humanitarian issues. He has researched both media and self-representations of various migrants, including refugees on the U.S./Mexican border and in northwestern Thailand/ Myanmar.

Introduction

This introduction: • Explains why this book was written. • Provides an overview of the structure and design features of this book. • Introduces the idea of “thinking visually.”

Overview When Visual Research: A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually was first published in 2013, it responded to a long-standing need within the social sciences generated by the rapid expansion of digital technologies. Such technologies have not ceased to expand and evolve, generating the need for this revised edition. Specifically, the tremendous evolution of cell phone technologies, the proliferation of multimedia, and the ability to then store, post, and share such imagery online all offer tremendous opportunities for facilitating social research. The seemingly ever-present nature and availability of images enabled by digital technologies often mask the reality that they are all too often deployed with little technological proficiency and even less theoretical and ethical consideration. Where early uses of visual equipment were limited by their sheer size, cost, and need for specialized technical knowledge, this also meant that careful attention, planning, forethought, and judgment were involved in a way that is no longer required. Being able to shoot hours of digital footage or thousands of digital images from a cell phone, much less a handheld camera, without changing film can be tremendously advantageous. Doing so also allows for far less critical awareness or attention than was imposed by limited quantities of expensive media such as film. This book bridges that gap, explaining how to take advantage of ever-evolving modern tools while thinking critically about all stages of image creation and dissemination. It provides essential guidance for students and scholars embarking on almost any research project involving a visual dimension. DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-1

2 Introduction

While almost all of the information we present has already appeared elsewhere, this information is typically (1) spread across numerous sources and (2) written for other specialists, using concepts and language often inaccessible to newcomers. The most important ideas are often least accessible to those who need this information the most. Unlike other texts, this book is written to familiarize the reader (that’s you) with significant theoretical, methodological, ethical, and procedural considerations in a concise and highly accessible format. Designed to be a one-stop guide for working with images that anyone interested in doing research on or with visual media will find extremely helpful, we explain key issues relating to how to use cameras in research (including both ethical and technical considerations) organized into short, focused chapters. This second edition of Visual Research: A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually is a book for anyone wanting to learn how imagery—whether photos, video, or multimedia—can enhance their work. We begin with a discussion of the ethics of making and using images. This is crucial to how researchers engage with the people around them and has important consequences for how images are taken, understood, used, and distributed. We emphasize that thinking about images’ ramifications before engaging in visual research is fundamental to capturing the most useful images—both literally and figuratively. Building on such considerations, the rest of this text is designed to help you think about and work with your own visual data, including creating, organizing, storing, and sharing it. Based on our experiences working with, producing, evaluating, and teaching about visual data, we use examples from various professionals, highlighting the “dos” and “don’ts”—along with the “whys” and “hows”—to help you become a competent visual researcher, gaining the understanding, experience, and proficiency to successfully integrate visuals into your own research. This book is NOT about teaching you how to do the visual research we have done but rather uses our research to help you understand and accomplish the types of visual research that are best suited to your own work. Focusing on broad ideas and the most common media (i.e., photography, video, and multimedia), we provide an overview and model that can be used for more specific and specialized domains (such as graphs, architecture, murals, paintings, etc.) without attempting to be all things to all people. Designed to provide you with significant theoretical, methodological, ethical, and procedural considerations in a concise, focused, and highly accessible format, basic concepts are addressed in order to make this text useful to students and readers from diverse personal, professional, and academic backgrounds. Our goal is to provide a broadly applicable way of thinking about and doing visual research rather than describing the numerous sub-types of such work. Ultimately, then, you can expect this small book to create BIG

I ntroduction 

3

changes in how you approach, think about, and implement visual methods in all of your fieldwork. Design Features and Overall Structure Based on our experiences working with, producing, evaluating, and teaching about visual data—especially the “Photography for the Field” workshops we have taught at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) national meetings—we have designed and written this book to be a one-stop guide for working with images (whether film, photo, or multimedia), explaining key issues relating to how to actually use cameras in research, including both ethical and technical considerations. Key features and helpful tools include: • Bullet points at the start of each chapter stating the main ideas covered in that chapter. • Brief boxed case studies that complement each chapter—written by a wide array of international scholars (from Portugal, Canada, England, France, Romania, India, and the United States) from various disciplines (e.g., anthropology, sociology, visual studies, communications, and neuroscience), each illustrating specific issues, concerns, and considerations from their own work. Chapter summaries that highlight how the basic concepts (perspective, exposure, framing, organization, etc.) can be applied across different fieldwork scenarios, with guides to further readings and resources. In Section 1, “Image Basics,” we introduce the fundamental ideas involved in thinking visually, providing an overview of key issues and possibilities central to working with visual imagery. Since ethics are fundamental to all responsible social research, we begin this section with “The Ethics of Images” in Chapter 1, featuring case studies by cultural anthropologist Steve Moog based at Wake Forest University (U.S.) and neuroscientist Gaurav Datta at the University of North Dakota (U.S.). In Chapter 2, “Starting to Think Visually,” we consider different models of thinking about and achieving “good” images, featuring a case study by U.S.-based documentary filmmaker and photographer John Bishop. Rounding out this section, Chapter 3, “Thinking of Images as Data,” outlines how to use images to ask—and answer—research questions; it features a case study by visual anthropologist and community activist Austin Lord currently at the University of Toronto. Building on the concepts of the first section, Section 2, “Making Images,” is about doing visual research. Featuring a case study by Canadian-based ethnographer and filmmaker Eric Weissman (University of New Brunswick), Chapter 4, “Cameras in Social Science Research,” provides an overview of cameras, from film-based cameras first used in social science research to the

4 Introduction

implications of the now widespread availability and use of digital equipment. Chapters 5–7, “Photography,” “Video (with Eric Weissman),” and “Multimedia (with Eric Weissman),” deal with the advantages, disadvantages, and specific considerations of these areas, respectively, featuring case studies by the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) based visual art scholar and photographer Terence Wright (Chapter 5), by Idaho State University (U.S.) based applied medical anthropologist Elizabeth Cartwright and Georgetown University (U.S.) based feminist filmmaker and anthropologist Mariangela Mihai (Chapter 6), and Louisiana State University (U.S.) based cultural and visual anthropologist Sarah Franzen (Chapter 7). Chapter 8, “Using Images,” considers the use of the images produced with those varied modalities, exploring and explaining what to do with images in order to maximize their current and future research value; the case studies of environmental anthropologist Joana Roque de Pinho (Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal) and visual anthropologist Mark Westmoreland (Leiden University, the Netherlands) are illustrative. Finally, Section 3, “Organizing Images,” explores and explains how to organize, optimize, and store the images for current and future projects. Written with data scientist and librarian Michele Reilly of the University of Arkansas (U.S.), Chapter 9, “Organization and Storage (with Michele Reilly),” explains how images are only truly useful when they can be managed to enhance the research and features a case study by Reilly. Chapter 10, “Images, Metadata, and Research (with Michele Reilly),” explores how properly organized images can be revisited for a variety of uses. The case studies featured in each chapter help highlight a crucial issue: there is no such thing as “the right way” to do visual research. As the range of case studies illustrates, context matters, and equally strong visual research can look very different depending on the topic, location, and approach. Equally important, however, is that across a broad range of contexts, each case study also reflects careful attention to and consideration of the underlying issues involved. Although most of the authors’ visual research has been done in very different settings and with very different people—Marion focusing on issues of performance, body, image, and identity in the translocal culture and community of competitive ballroom dance (e.g., Marion 2008, 2010, 2012; see Figure 0.1) and Crowder investigating urbanization and migration in the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes (e.g., Crowder 2013, 2016, 2017; see Figure 0.2)—we easily teach and write together. The underlying point is that the issues and ideas presented in these pages are neither a list of magical ingredients nor a set of paint-by-the-numbers guidelines for doing visual research. What this book does is provide you with a clear and concise introduction to key concepts and issues, from the theoretical to the technical, involved in doing visual research. The book you are now reading is designed to show you how to start thinking visually so that you can design and do the research you want to do—in an ethical, informed, and productive manner.

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5

Figure 0.1 Art and Athleticism in Action: World and Blackpool Professional Latin Finalists, and U.S. National Professional Latin Champions, Slavik Kryklyvyy and Karina Smirnoff, are seen here performing at Dance Legends 2016, in Manhattan, NY, USA. © Jonathan S. Marion.

6 Introduction

Figure 0.2 Family at the Edge of the City: El Alto, Bolivia. ©1993 Jerome Crowder.

References Crowder, Jerome. 2017. “Visualizing Tensions in an Ethnographic Moment: A Systematic Analysis of Images and Intersubjectivity.” Medical Anthropology 36, no. 6: 584–601. ———. 2016. “Photo Elicitation as Social Science Research.” In The Photography Handbook, 3rd edition, edited by T. Wright. Media Practice series. New York: Routledge. ———. 2013. “Becoming Luis: A Photo Essay on Growing Up in Bolivia.” Visual Anthropology Review 29, no. 2: 107–120. Marion, Jonathan S. 2012. “Circulation as Destination: Considerations from the Translocal Culture of Competitive Ballroom Dance.” Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement 17, no. 2. https://jashm​.press​ .uillinois​.edu​/17​.2​/marion2​.html ———. 2010. “Photography as Ethnographic Passport.” Visual Anthropology Review 26, no. 1: 24–30. ———. 2008. Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance. Oxford: Berg Publishers.

Section 1

Image Basics



Chapter 1

The Ethics of Images

In this chapter, you will learn about: • The importance of ethics for responsible research and good research. • Seven key issues in visual ethics. • The complexity and centrality of these issues in highly varied, real-world research settings.

Introducing Visual Ethics More than just pretty or ugly, images are among the most potent communicative symbols. Not sure? Think about all the money spent on print, online, and on-screen advertising campaigns (including TV, tablet, and smartphone ads). Ask yourself why businesses pay thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, to consultants, set designers, photographers, videographers, and the like. Why do they pay, repeatedly, to get these images in the public eye? Because images have an impact. Unlike narratives—which unfold progressively—images can present “everything” at once. This allows images to convey lots of information, including complex content and relationships, very quickly. Perhaps even more importantly, images can affect us more quickly and more powerfully, in ways that words alone may not (e.g., Barthes [1979] 2010; Biella 2009; Bourdieu 2012; Douglas 2003; Sontag [1973] 2001). Because images surround us, it is easy to overlook the work that makes and produces them—work that always embeds particular viewpoints. However, as responsible social scientists, it is vital to consider the full range of ethical considerations and implications involved in making, using, and disseminating images. Because images always represent a particular view, images do not depict “reality.” Just as we recognize that research informants and researchers themselves embed their opinions and perspectives in what they say and write, so too with the images they choose to produce. Just as you decide what questions to ask in an interview, you also decide which images to take. Just DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-3

10  The Ethics of Images

as you must determine which answers are essential to quote, you also decide which images to display. The key to doing good social research is (a) having clear research questions and (b) choosing appropriate research methods to answer your questions. Ultimately, this book helps you do both, with the later chapters focusing on what types of visual data and organization will be the most useful in your work. However, before we deal with more extensive theoretical and practical concerns, we want to discuss the most crucial idea in conducting good social research: ETHICS COME FIRST! Regardless of any other consideration, we have obligations to those we work with, and these must take precedence over “getting the best shot” or any other such choices. Usually, however, ethical research also ends up being the best research. Here is an example: pretend you research a religious ceremony and think that visual data may provide helpful documentation. But what if the faith group prohibits taking photographs of this ceremony? Some people may consider using the micro-cameras available, the “spy” style cameras that can look like keychains and pens. And yes, you may get such devices into sensitive ceremonies, secure areas, and private meetings where a larger camera would never be allowed. But at what cost? You have violated people’s trust and contemptuously disregarded their wishes. Maybe they never find out, but that certainly does not make it right. At the least, you will not be able to talk about the images and have them explained to you by the participants themselves (more on photo-elicitation in Chapter 8). And what if you are discovered? You will have lost people’s trust, will probably lose access to lots of future research, and may very well lose your welcome in the community altogether. Your cameras may be confiscated or even destroyed, and you may be threatened or even physically assaulted. And for what? Now imagine that you followed the community’s wishes and kept all cameras far from the ceremony. At the least, people continue to answer your questions and, likely, feel they can trust you that much more. As people learn that they can trust you—over time and across various situations—the most compelling data emerges. Building rapport is crucial to social research; no image is worth more than building and maintaining good rapport. Careful consideration of the people (and other living things) involved in our research projects and settings is the right thing to do. As the proverbial frosting on the cake, however, it also typically facilitates the best research (see Figure 1.1). Things can get much more complicated in real-world research. What if you are working in a community, and instead of being told not to photograph or video a religious ceremony, one group wants you to and one does not? What if one group has more spiritual authority than the other, more political power, or more significant financial resources? What if one group is hosting you? What if you’re doing contract work and the funding organization wants something different in terms of the images? Deciding what to do in such

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Figure 1.1 Rapport: U.S. Professional Rhythm National Semifinalist at the time, this image shows F.J. and Catherin Abaya at home shortly after having competed at the 2004 Seattle Star Ball. The rapport and trust built over the years earned the photographer access to record this post-competition reward of downtime for the Abayas. They spent this time in front of the television with their dogs and with two dozen donuts, earned through three weeks of strict dieting and extra practices leading up to the competition. ©2004 Jonathan S. Marion.

situations is often difficult precisely because legitimate perspectives and values can compete. There cannot be one-size-fits-all solutions to such complex circumstances. Yet, many helpful resources are available, such as the codes of ethics produced by organizations such as the American Anthropological Association, the American Sociological Association, the International Visual Sociology Association, and many others. Some of these resources are more specific to working with visual data than others, but all provide valuable guidelines for thinking through these complex issues.1 Seven Key Issues in Visual Ethics We use the term visual ethics not to differentiate these from other ethical considerations, but to show you how ethical principles of social research apply to working with visual materials and data. To provide a basic example, think about voice recording and writing down the content of an interview or a political speech. How could you keep the identity of these people

12  The Ethics of Images

confidential? Now think about photographing or video recording the same event. Now how could you keep identities confidential? The point is that the same ethical principles may involve different essential considerations when working with visual data at all stages of the research process, from design to implementation to dissemination. The following seven issues represent what we believe to be the key ethical considerations in visual research. As you read and think about these issues, realize that this is not intended as an “ingredient list” for ethical research. It is not a recipe you can simply follow. Instead, each is an issue for you to consider carefully regarding your research and all relevant parties. We follow the presentation of these critical issues with an illustrative example and a related case study. 1. Who holds representational authority? Who controls the perspectives from which images are created? Should researchers get to decide how to depict those with whom they work? Should it be up to those being displayed? What about interested audiences (such as funding agencies or the often-cited “public right to know”)? Such choices involve a triadic research relationship between three groups: researchers, subjects/participants, and audiences (Crawford and Simonsen 1992, 3). And each of these groups may contain a range of perspectives. Should you—as the researcher—get to decide how to depict something about a group of people or a particular site? Should the people themselves get to decide, regardless of your research goals? Does an outside “public” (e.g., a research sponsor) have the right to choose which people and activities get recorded and which do not? 2. Decontextualization/circulation of images (and the problem of lack of control). Once created (a) how and where does an image get used, and (b) who controls this? If you post something on a research-specific website, who has access? If only a limited audience, what about ethical guidelines regarding the importance of publicizing research findings? If publicly posted, what about outside parties who can now copy and disseminate images that could be personal, private, or even sacred? What about the fact that such further circulation and use of images may well take place out of context?2 3. Presumed versus actual outcomes of image display. Since people can perceive them differently, images can generate different results than initially intended. Before using an image—whether as part of the research or reporting process—try and step away from how you think about and see it and ask how others could see the same image. How might friends of those depicted view it? Family members? Political rivals? Enemies? What if an audience misses your intended point? What if people with a

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different background do not “see” the same nuances you do and focus instead on what they consider unenlightened, superficial, or even barbaric practices? What if the people involved in your research see themselves as being ridiculed? What if outside viewers see your images as confirming their beliefs about “less developed” foreigners, the impoverished, or the disenfranchised? 4. Relations with and responsibilities toward research subjects/communities. We all begin research with particular agendas, usually of answering a specific set of questions. Getting answers, however, is never the only or even the most critical consideration in the field. Instead, because we are working with human subjects (or even non-human subjects), we have responsibilities to them that must come first. As noted earlier, taking the wishes of research subjects/communities into account helps maintain good rapport for current research and future researchers. Even if this is not the case, why should our academic projects trump the wishes of others? Our research contexts are the circumstances of people’s lives, and it is essential to remember that the repercussions of our actions can last long after we leave the field. 5. Balancing privacy versus publicity (depending on subjects’ wishes). One tenet of ethical research is to publicize research work and findings, not simply hoard such knowledge for oneself. At the same time, some information can be sensitive, whether for personal reasons, professional reasons, or something else. Whether to protect confidential data, avoid embarrassment, or respect others’ beliefs, our decisions about reporting our research findings need to be informed by careful consideration and respect for subjects’ wishes. 6. The importance of communication with and consent of subjects/communities at every stage of the research process. While the idea of informed consent is now well established in the social sciences, it is critical to remember that research subjects typically do not have the same academic background. “So what?” you may ask, “As long as they consent, isn’t that good enough?” In a word: NO. Do they understand how, where, and why their images will be used? Do they know who will have access to these images? If not, it is not informed consent. Do your subjects realize that they can say “no” without adverse consequences? What if your subjects’ culture considers it improper or hostile to deny a request? And what if people say, “Yes, feel free to take pictures of me at work/with my family” but then change their mind? Do they understand that they can withdraw their consent on the spot, after a night’s sleep and consideration, the next week, or later yet? Once you know what images you plan to use and in what ways, have you informed your subjects and confirmed that you still have their consent? What about people who insist on you using an image you would prefer not to? What about images of

14  The Ethics of Images

sick or dying persons who do not have the capacity to consent (see Datta 2016 as an example)? 7. The collection and dissemination of visual materials within the context of globally expanding media savvy and presence. You need to consider the previous six issues in relation to modern technology and circumstances. In years past, research photos and video footage were typically published on the other side of the planet and in a language completely foreign to the people they depicted.3 Now, however, and especially with internet access, people regularly have access to a vast range of materials. Ever-expanding digital awareness and online access can have significant repercussions that must be considered part of conducting responsible research. Sometimes it is easy to know what the right (or wrong) thing to do is. However, most real-life situations are more complicated, meaning these issues will play out differently in various situations and contexts. Rather than just reiterating the importance of these ethical considerations, here are some concrete examples of how the concerns described above played out in actual research. Ethics in Application Marion’s study of competitive ballroom dancers demonstrates that image matters in many ways (Marion 2008, 2013). More precisely, dancers’ competitive success depends on their portrayal of an image. Although the activity is physical, competitions get judged visually. Dancers thus care a great deal about how they are depicted and portrayed. Indeed, it was because the visual element of ballroom culture is vital to dancers that Marion started thinking about and pursuing visual anthropology. As Marion (2010) points out, photography provided him with a recognized and valued role within the ballroom world, facilitating his research. At the same time, however, precisely because dancers’ images are so significant, Marion had to think about and evaluate various ethical considerations in his research. For instance, in preparing the photos for sociologist Julia Ericksen’s (2011) book, the image used on the cover was a substitution from Ericksen’s original choice for an image preferred by the couple depicted (Issue 1). Similarly, while Marion had explicit permission to take photographs at all the locations shown, specific people chose not to be photographed at one studio (Issue 4). Marion also secured explicit consent from those depicted in each image before he allowed the use of each image in publication (Issue 6).4 Visual research on competitive ballroom dancing presents other challenges precisely because the visual matters so much in this world. For example, what should Marion do when he wants to use an image to help explain mistakes or point out things that dancers might not want to have associated with them?

T he Ethics of Images  15

While each specific situation is different, given intersecting considerations (Issues 2, 4, 5, and 7), Marion’s working rule of thumb has been twofold: 1. Not to publish such images (either in print or online) where (a) people are identifiable and (b) access to the image is then out of his hands. 2. Only to use such images in classroom or conference presentations where (a) dancers are unlikely to be recognized (thus helping maintain anonymity) and (b) audiences do not have access to the images after their presentation. Ultimately, however, ethics matter for one simple reason: IMAGES HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Whether sharing images with a colleague for a conference paper or publication, posting an image online, or including them in your own work, there can be serious and significant consequences. In Marion’s research, the most telling example of the enduring ethical implications and responsibilities of working with visual media concerns Larinda McRaven, a four-time U.S. National Professional Open Smooth Finalist with partner Steven Hevenor. Having already known Larinda through www​.Dance​-Forums​.com, where both were staff members, Marion had interviewed her and Steven in June 2004 at the Yankee Classic in Boston, Massachusetts. Arriving in Hollywood Beach, Florida, for the 2005 United States Dancesport Championships, Marion received an e-mail from the Hartford Courant (Larinda and Steven’s local newspaper) asking for images to use in a story about the couple. Thinking he was doing them a favor and partially paying them back for their interview, Marion e-mailed the newspaper one of the few images he had on his laptop in Florida. Waking up the following day, Marion soon learned that his image accompanied the front-page headline and story: “Assault Claim Divides Dancers” (Hartford Courant, September 6, 2005). While Larinda remains a friend to this day, that was a powerful lesson about carefully considering the actual outcomes of how his images were used and viewed (Issue 3 especially, but also 1, 2, and 4). We all make mistakes—and this was a major one on Marion’s part. However, because Marion was careful about how his images got used, dancers continued to let him bring his camera “behind the scenes,” trusting him as an anthropologist, photographer, and friend. In short, and as pointed out earlier in this chapter, ethical research produces good research. The following case study by Steve Moog further explores the ethics of collaboration and consent in visual research. Moog shares his experience navigating academic publication norms with the anarchist and mutualist values of the punk collective he was working with. To respect their positionality, Moog worked collaboratively to find distribution avenues that provided insight into the group’s punk ideologies and aligned with the movement’s ethics and priorities.

16  The Ethics of Images

Case Study: Punks v. Academic Publishing Steve Moog Wake Forest University, United States The American Anthropological Association’s principles of professional responsibility suggest anthropologists should both make our results accessible and maintain respectful and ethical professional relationships. I struggled to reconcile those two principles while conducting a collaborative visual ethnographic project with a punk collective in Bandung, Indonesia. To those unfamiliar with the broader movement, punk is often conceptualized as a brash music genre. In reality, punk is a global cultural phenomenon based on interpretations and enactments of do-it-yourself (DIY) ethics. What “doing-it-yourself” means is highly contested, with various implementations practiced within the same localized scene. For the punks at the collective I worked with, DIY is practiced anarchism. I discovered anarchist values and practices do not always conform to the norms and expectations of academic production. As I became familiarized with DIY as practiced anarchism, collaboration quickly emerged as a cornerstone of my project. What does collaboration mean to a group of anarchist punks? Largely, the punks formulated their expectations for collaboration around principles such as mutuality, non-hierarchical organization, and anti-capitalist sentiments. Because of their emphasis on performance and the cultural salience of visual representation, visual ethnographic methods were a fundamental research tool. I donated camera equipment to the collective with no strings attached from the outset. Based on their ethic of mutuality, we agreed that the media produced would be used to create a zine for the collective with images and videos also made available for academic purposes. The collaborative project was a resounding success, yielding valuable insider-produced materials and insights culminating in a globally distributed photo-book/zine. A major issue arose, however, with publication in academic journals. The collective wholeheartedly permitted me to use our collaboratively produced media for academic purposes. In fact, the collective values education and are fully onboard with scholarly publishing. But academic journals insist on signed consent for image usage. That is a problem. The collective is anarchist, meaning no one is “in charge.” Who would sign such a document? Indeed, the collective goes out of its way to not exist on paper. Certainly, circumstances arise when formalities are needed, and they have several workarounds that could be employed. But requesting them to find and utilize such workarounds seemed

T he Ethics of Images  17

utterly disingenuous to both the collective’s ethos and my commitment to maintaining respectful and ethical “professional” relationships. As such, and quite unfortunately, I would have to bypass a fundamental communal value to share the brilliant work that adds so much to ethnographic understandings concerning the collective. Yet, I would consider it more regrettable and ultimately unethical to sacrifice the punks’ anarchist ethics to placate publishing conglomerates’ lawyers. Balancing the competing ethical obligations to disseminate work created explicitly to be shown and staying true to the ethos of the people I work with has proven to be a daunting task (Moog 2021). The collective has entrusted me to find avenues to share their media that align with their principles. To hold significant power within a community that detests hierarchy is an awkward position; however, I am considered to be a contributing member of the collective, a role I take very seriously. In fact, I have many photographs I took with my own equipment that I will not publish in certain places because I consider them to be the collective’s work. Nevertheless, I am eager to share our images when opportunities arise where the collective’s ethics are not compromised, such as in this book (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 Performance: This image was taken at the Rumah Pirata Collective’s DIY music venue where local, regional, and international punk bands come to perform. Taken in 2018 by an undisclosed photographer and used with permission from the Rumah Pirata Collective.

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Conducting Research in Sensitive Areas Sensitive areas such as conflict zones pose additional concerns regarding access and research ethics than those found in peaceful geographies. Conflict zones are distinct in putting both the researcher and research participants in precarious situations, perhaps the reason most ethnographic projects are initiated in post-conflict zones (such as refugees in transit) rather than in actively destabilized regions. For research in active conflict zones, both access and safety are difficult to navigate, and almost impossible to navigate unless the researcher has started fieldwork before the conflict started, already has some knowledge, and has taken the time and effort to develop a relationship with potential contacts and sources (Datta and Uzma 2022). While this posits the researcher as somewhat of an “insider” (with its inherent bias), having an “outsider” perspective supposedly grounded in a position of “neutrality” could have extremely dangerous consequences. Conflict zones have always drawn journalists and writers with most of them working for breaking news; in this respect, care must be taken that the ethnographic project does not give in to one-dimensional portrayals of people or popular cliches borrowed from other conflict zones. For this reason, having started the research preconflict cannot be emphasized enough. As ethnographers and visual researchers in conflict zones, two of the most important issues are gaining access and obtaining consent.

Case Study: Conducting Visual Research in Sensitive Areas Gaurav Datta University of North Dakota, United States This case study draws from my experience in Kashmir, a “disputed” territory between India and Pakistan, where there are approximately 10 armed personnel for every civilian. While not an active war zone, the territorial conflict over Kashmir’s independence almost always spills over to local civilians and bystanders. In 2018, I decided to visually explore narratives of addiction and recovery from substance use in Kashmir, mostly concentrated in a substance use clinic. I wanted to understand the process and meaning of recovery in substance use and the factors (cultural, local, and global) influencing it, from the viewpoint of the users, clinicians and policymakers, and society. Photographs seemed to me the best way, perhaps the only way, to present the complex, multilayered narratives of the experience of substance use and recovery in Kashmir and the broader context of regional geopolitics that undoubtedly shaped these practices.

T he Ethics of Images  19

As a non-Kashmiri Indian, an outsider with some insider perspective, I gained access that might otherwise have been impossible. However, my work with people in a doubly vulnerable situation— substance users in a conflict zone—meant multiple layers of ethical precaution. In addition to ethics approval from affiliated hospital ethics committees and drug addiction center administration in Kashmir, I decided to pursue my research as a self-funded project to avoid conflict of interest situations. I also decided against using identifying photographs and audio clippings, even with informed consent. Instead, I asked my interlocutors to provide written answers to my interview questions and then photographed what they wrote. Sometimes I photographed personal belongings they always carried with them, at other times their silhouettes. I employed street photography using my phone (it’s not advisable to go around in Kashmir openly carrying a camera), which not only relieved the ever-present tension of an intensive situation, but also helped provide the backdrop for my interlocutors’ narratives. Midway through my project, the socio-political situation in Kashmir rapidly deteriorated, the COVID-19 pandemic flared, and I could no longer travel for fieldwork. Having to rely on phone conversations and messages away from the field allowed me space to reflect on how deeply entangled I had become with my project, personally as well as professionally. That entanglement has become part of the research story I tell in published photo essays (Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3 Diptych-1: (Left): Sunlight falls on the porch of the house where I was staying, Kashmir, August 2019. (Right): A patient reflects during a counseling session in a drug de-addiction clinic in Srinagar, Kashmir. September 2018. ©2019 Gaurav Datta.

20  The Ethics of Images

Summary We start with ethics because ethics must always come first. Ethical considerations are essential both for doing responsible research and for doing good research. Next, we identified the following seven key issues for working ethically with visual data: 1. Negotiating representational authority, including the triadic research relationship between researchers, subjects, and audiences. 2. The decontextualization/circulation of images (and the problem of lack of control). 3. Presumed versus actual outcomes of image display. 4. Relations with and responsibilities toward research subjects/communities. 5. Balancing privacy versus publicity (depending on subjects’ wishes). 6. The importance of communication with and consent of subjects/communities at every stage of the research process. 7. The collection and dissemination of visual materials within the context of globally expanding media savvy and presence. Recognizing that these are not steps to be followed but issues to be thought about and addressed, we presented our own examples and case studies by Steve Moog and Gaurav Datta, highlighting how these ethical issues arise in different fieldwork scenarios, how researchers address them, and the ethical and research repercussions of their choices. Ideally, you should think through the ethical issues of your research as you are designing your project—i.e., before you ever start—but always remember to revisit these issues as your research progresses, complications crop up, and new issues arise. Further Readings and Resources Essential statements and codes of ethical practice in visual research. • Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association (November 2012) • https://ethics​.americananthro​.org​/category​/statement/ • American Anthropological Association Ethics Resources • www​.americananthro​.org​/ethics​-and​-methods • International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) Code of Research Ethics and Guidelines (Papademas and the IVA, 2009). • https://visualsociology​ . org​ / wp​ - content​ / uploads​ / IVSA​ - Ethics​ - and​ -Guidelines​.pdf • British Sociological Association—Statement of Ethical Practice (2017) • www​.britsoc​.co​.uk​/media​/24310​/bsa​_statement​_of​_ethical​_practice​. pdf

T he Ethics of Images  21

Notes 1 See Perry and Marion (2010) for an overview of visual ethics in anthropology and allied disciplines. 2 For example, think of the use, dissemination, and circulation of personal images through social networking (e.g., Facebook, Twitter). 3 See Lutz and Collins (1993) for a critique of many earlier examples of such work. 4 See Marion (2011) for a more comprehensive discussion of the ethical considerations involved in preparing the images for Ericksen (2011).

References Cited Barthes, Roland. [1979] 2010. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang. Biella, Peter. 2009. “Visual Anthropology in a Time of War: Intimacy and Interactivity in Ethnographic Media.” In Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work, edited by Mary Strong and Laena Wilder, 141–179. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2012. Picturing Algeria. New York: Columbia University Press. Crawford, Peter Ian, and Jan Ketil Simonsen, eds. 1992. Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Tradition: Proceedings from NAFA2. Aarhus, Denmark: Intervention Press. Datta, Gaurav. 2016. “The Lives of Terminally Ill People with Neuropsychiatric Complications of AIDS.” Medicine Anthropology Theory 3, no. 3: 170–178. Datta, Gaurav, and Uzma Qureshi. 2022. “The View from the Other Side: Memory and Mourning in Kashmir.” Anthropology and Humanism 47, no. 1: 147–158. Douglas, Mary. 2003. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge. Ericksen, Julia. 2011. Dance With Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy. New York: New York University Press. Lutz, Catherine, and Jane Collins. 1993. Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marion, Jonathan S. 2008. Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance. Oxford: Berg Publishers. ———. 2010. “Photography as Ethnographic Passport.” Visual Anthropology Review 26, no. 1: 24–30. ———. 2011. “Introduction to Photographing an Emotion.” In Dance With Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy, edited by Julia Ericksen, 1–5. New York: New York University Press. ———. 2013. Ballroom Dance and Glamour. London: Bloomsbury. Moog, Steve. 2021. “Collaborative Visual Ethnography as Anarchist Anthropology.” Collaborative Anthropologies 14, no. 1: 21–43. Papademas, Diana and The International Visual Sociology Association. 2009. “IVSA Code of Research Ethics and Guidelines.” Visual Studies 24, no 3: 250–257. Perry, Sara, and Jonathan S. Marion. 2010. “State of the Ethics in Visual Anthropology?” Visual Anthropology Review 26, no. 2: 96–104. Sontag, Susan. [1973] 2001. On Photography. New York: Picador.

Chapter 2

Starting to Think Visually

In this chapter, you will learn: • Different approaches to and histories of working with and using images: i.e., photojournalism, art, and ethnography. • The “vocabulary” of images (e.g., framing, composition, angles, lighting) and how these elements fit together. • What makes a “good” (research) image.

Introducing Visual Literacy As you read through the materials in this book, we want to emphasize the idea of visual literacy and the overall importance of thinking visually in the social sciences. A term coined by John Debes in 1969, visual literacy refers to a person’s overall competence in discerning and interpreting visual cues (from symbols to behavior) that lie at the heart of all visual learning and communication (Debes 1969, 27). Unfortunately, despite the ongoing bombardment of images in TV, movies, print, and online media, all too often researchers are not trained to think critically about the images they see, let alone how to use visual media as part of their research. This deficit is particularly unfortunate as access to cheaper and more portable digital devices results in more and more researchers deciding to “snap some shots” or “get some footage” as part of their research but with minimal forethought or understanding of imagery and image-making. That is one reason we wrote this book: to help you—the reader—think through, understand, and incorporate visual research most usefully into your work and interests. Different Approaches to Working with and Using Images The adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” highlights the advantage of thinking about and working with images as data (the topic of Chapter 3). At DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-4

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the same time, this is also the challenge of working with images—images can communicate “a thousand words” because what they convey is often quite open-ended.1 Think about a flag for a minute. Which flag did you visualize? Would everyone visualize the same flag? More importantly, would your flag mean the same thing to everyone else? What about a dog? It could be taken to be a pet, a companion, a protector, a threat, a weapon, or food—to name just a few possibilities. The same image of a dog does not depict the same thing for everyone. But what each person sees is not random. What an image conveys arises from a particular perspective. This perspective involves each person’s history and background, but much also derives from how something gets displayed. For example, what if the image was of a big snarling dog? Does the dog fill the whole image, or is it farther away? Are its eyes looking toward the camera or somewhere else in the frame? Is the dog at eye level, just above us, or far below us? Is it in a field of flowers or a junkyard? Similarly, what is the nature of the image itself: realistic or impressionistic; black and white or color; a painting, photograph, or video? Is the image in a newspaper, on a website, or in an art gallery? Is it on thin grainy paper, photo paper, canvas, online, or an LCD or plasma screen? Is it in a book, magazine, or film? Is it on a boardroom wall or a billboard? Is it in a frame, and, if so, what color is the frame, and is the frame made of wood, metal, or plastic? Is the image presented with any additional context or captioning? Is it alone or with other images, and if so, which? The point is that images can be made and presented in lots of different ways, and their presentation impacts the ways the image is perceived. We thus want to differentiate between three of the more recognized models of working with and using images—photojournalism, art, and ethnography—and detail how these approaches think about and utilize images. Photojournalism Timely and accurate illustration of current news events is the defining hallmark of photojournalism. Although they share early roots (Riis [1890] 1997), we view photojournalism as somewhat distinct from documentary photography (which typically involves a more longitudinal approach and is rooted in social activism).2 Strongly influenced by technological developments, modern photojournalism can be said to have started in the mid-1930s with the introduction of the 35 mm camera (the easily portable Leica). For the first time, photographers could go wherever the story was and then follow unfolding events. Newspapers and news magazines (e.g., Life) started relying on timely images to illustrate current events, often including prominent image-based (versus text-based) news stories. Eminent photojournalists of the day became household names and founded the Magnum agency in 1947 to represent photojournalists’ interests (such as retaining copyrights to their images). The profound legacy and current impact of photojournalism are evident; images are expected for and integral to most major news coverage today.

24  Starting to Think Visually

Today, the most popular example of photojournalism with an ethnographic bent is by far National Geographic Magazine.3 In line with other examples of photojournalism, National Geographic tells stories using a few very “good” photos; in fact, its reputation is built upon its strong images. Remember though, its purpose is primarily to sell magazines, and it uses pictures that may objectify their subjects without telling the entire story.4 Additionally, the articles’ writers may not even accompany photographers on assignment. Art In contrast to photojournalism’s focus on accuracy, art represents the “nonutilitarian elaboration of a thing or act” (Heider [1994] 2007, 124). In other words, the elements of an act or object that do not contribute to its functionality are its artistic components. Photographic images produced as art are not concerned with accuracy alone; they invite, welcome, and often expect interpretation. In fact, the artist’s perspective is not essential to appreciating art: what the audience brings to art is part of the exchange.5 Exchange is a key concept here because, if anything, art effuses intent. Subtle or dramatic, it is always present. Like all forms of expression, fine art photography deliberately uses the camera to capture and distort (in the loosest sense) various details in order to help us rethink assumptions and social ideas. Art comments on life and society, and those who use cameras in their art do so for various reasons, including reproducibility, distribution, accuracy, accessibility, and expense. There are many subgenres of art photography including (but not limited to) portraiture, landscape, abstract, still life, and street photography. These subgenres take varied perspectives and directions, but in each, the artist prods the viewer to see the world in a new way, through patterns, moments, lighting, expression, and even the media itself, like black and white (grayscale). Much like an academic research question, art photography explores multiple facets of an issue and creates commentary, embraces advocacy, or elevates awareness. Certainly, the boundaries between art photography and other approaches to images are fluid; paying attention to how art photographers make their images can inform what we do with a camera as visual researchers. Books, websites, and festivals highlight the contributions of a multitude of art photographers across subgenres. A very limited list of classic, well-known art photographers whose work is informative includes Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Lee Friedlander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Alfred Stieglitz. An equally circumscribed catalog of more contemporary photographers whose work has impacted our zeitgeist includes Annie Leibovitz, Jeff Wall, Sally Mann, Wolfgang Tillmans, Raghubir Singh, and Cindy Sherman. Reviewing the work of others is one of the best ways to

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develop your own approach to image-making; familiarizing yourself with varied styles, modes, subjects, and presentations helps you define your intent for your own work. Ethnography Photography has a long history in anthropology (Edwards 1994). Franz Boas (widely regarded as the father of American anthropology) used both photographs and film as part of his fieldwork with Kwakwaka’wakw (then known as the Kwakiutl) as early as 1894 (Jacknis 1984). Unlike art historians’ studies of images—and as Boas’s work demonstrated early on—ethnography uses images as both (a) a means of study and (b) of (re)presentation. In 1896 FélixLouis Regnault used film to begin a cross-cultural study of movement, and in 1898 Alfred Haddon used video as part of the Torres Straits Expedition (see Rony 1992; Haddon 1890). In 1914 Edward Curtis produced In the Land of the Head Hunters (since renamed In the Land of the War Canoes), which served as a model for the first feature-length documentary, Robert Flaherty’s 1922 film Nanook of the North. The work of Bateson and Mead in Bali and New Guinea is probably the best known and most extensive early use of photography (1942) and video (e.g., 1952, 1954a, 1954b) in genuine ethnographic research. Despite such early and important precedents, photography remained under-theorized and underutilized in mainstream anthropology, with film and then video receiving somewhat more widespread appreciation in the other social sciences. Section 2 of this book, “Making Images,” provides more specific information regarding using cameras in social science research. What is most important here is recognizing what has differentiated ethnographic image use from other approaches, such as photojournalism and art: a commitment to embedded research and the use of visual media as part of generating—and only then presenting—more profound and nuanced research. What should be clear at this point is that images do not simply “say” any one thing and that different approaches to imagery stem from different values and genres. However, in all cases, visual codes color our “reading” of an image.6 Of course, there is not an indelible line separating photography/film as art from photojournalism or ethnography. Powerful ethnographic images, for instance, are considered “artistic” because of their composition and intent to relate a feeling or commentary. Likewise, art photos or films can share documentary characteristics, even while rooted in social commentary or personal expression (see, for example, Figures 2.1 and 2.2). The Vocabulary of an Image Mise-en-scène, a term taken from theater and film production, refers to the entire spatial organization of an image, including framing, composition,

26  Starting to Think Visually

Figure 2.1 Self-Portrait: This image, taken in Picuris, New Mexico, in 1957, is an excellent example of a creative means for photographing cultural material that is both an aesthetically pleasing portrait and ethnographically rich image (i.e., chockfull of ethnographic information, providing much potential for further inquiry). This photograph was made as part of a longer series of cultural inventories of homes in the area, part of a study of Picuris Pueblo carried out by the late Dr. Bernard Siegel of Stanford University. These recordings of home interiors were a systematic evolution of the earlier FSA/OWI (Farm Security Administration/ Office of War Information) images of homes. Photo by John Collier, Jr. (r7138). (Black-and-white original.)

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Figure 2.2 Girl Dancing: Both this image and Figure 2.3 demonstrate the multiplicity of approaches images can take on. This image, taken in Vicos, Perú, is strong because the subject fills the frame due to its low angle, and creates a strong sense of energy and movement. It also includes a great deal of ethnographic information, including clothing, behavior, skills, interaction, and the new school building in the background. At one level, it could be considered photojournalism as it concisely tells a story within one frame, but also art as well as ethnographic due to its composition and content. Photo by Mary E. T. Collier, 1955 (n103533252-5d). (Black-and-white original.)

angle, lighting, and perspective. There are numerous books and articles available about each of these topics, and we revisit some key considerations in Chapters 5 and 6.7 However, our primary purpose here is to help you start recognizing and thinking about these elements in the images you see and create. Let us begin with some fundamental definitions: • Framing: what shows up in the image, i.e., what actually appears in the viewfinder or frame (Figure 2.3). • Composition: the arrangement of objects in an image within an image’s framing (Figure 2.4). • Angle/Perspective: position of the camera relative to the subject, e.g., straight on, from the side, eye level, below, or above the subject, etc. (Figure 2.4). • Lighting: the amount, source, and location of light sources in an image (Figure 2.5).

28  Starting to Think Visually

Figure 2.3 Woman in Home with Portraits: This intriguing image, taken in Peñasco, New Mexico, uses the rule of thirds (see Chapter 5) to bring various subjects into relation with each other while being in an intimate setting. The image is ethnographically rich as well, with content on material culture, economics, technology, dress, and cultural aesthetics, and a very rich potential for use in photo elicitation. Photo by John Collier, Jr., 1943 (r0594, also LC-USW3013688-C). (Black-and-white original.)

Of course, while each of these elements can be significant on its own, it is the gestalt of these elements—how they integrate—that the viewer sees as “the image.” Additional Dimensions Additional considerations in viewing and understanding images are the dimensions of exposure and contrast, along with the media involved in making an image. At the most fundamental level, exposure refers to the amount of light captured (and thus shown) in an image. The brightest parts of an image are the highlights, the darkest parts are the shadows, and contrast is the range between an image’s highlights and shadows. While many believe an observer’s attention first goes to the brightest part of an image, it actually goes to the areas of most contrast. You may notice this most easily in blackand-white photos, but scrutinize any image and you will soon see this is part

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Figure 2.4 Framing: Salome washes her family’s clothes on the patio of their house in El Alto, Bolivia. The top image is shot at a focal length of 16 mm (on a full-frame DSLR), while the bottom image is shot at a focal length of 35 mm. Wide angles are excellent for establishing shots and providing context, and while both images are made with wide angles, the distance to the subject determines just how much context is captured in each photograph. Both images are taken from the same location, with the same equipment. ©2011 Jerome Crowder.

30  Starting to Think Visually

Figure 2.5 Composition and Angle/Perspective: U.S. Professional 9-Dance Champions Peter and Alexandra Perzhu, seen here competing at the 2011 United States Dancesport Championships in Orlando, Florida. While both images show the exact same element in the Perzhus’ cha-cha routine, the composition on the left is much busier, with several other couples, judges, and audience. Likewise, from this angle/perspective, Alexandra’s body blocks most of Peter, and the three-dimensional shapes made by both cannot be seen. The angle/ perspective of the image on the right, however, depicts the Perzhus’ dynamic positions, while the composition largely isolates the Perzhus against the floor while still showing other couples in the background. © 2011 Jonathan S. Marion. (Color originals.)

of how we view images (for example, consider Figure 2.5). This point is worth remembering, both for understanding why you notice some elements of an image before others and for designing your images. One other general consideration we will return to in Chapter 5 is depth of field, the portion of the image from foreground to background in acceptable focus. What Makes a “Good” Image? With a basic vocabulary for thinking about images, we come to the critical question: what makes a “good” image? The answer is simple: it depends. As discussed above, photojournalism, art, and ethnography are three approaches (of many), each using images to accomplish different things. Evaluating what makes one image better than another thus depends on its intended purposes.

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Here we want to stress that the best images for social research are those that best tell “the story.” This is where ethnographic understanding—“knowing what’s going on”—comes into play, informing the intent and impact of ethnographic images. By paying attention to and participating in the lives around you, you will start to know and understand where to be with your camera—still or moving—and how to best depict a particular story or illustrative moment. Indeed, the purpose of developing technical and artistic skills as social researchers is to represent the lived reality of those with whom we work more fully.8 This task is the same for any ethnographic project, but the tools—and thus the potentials (and limits) for understanding—are different when working with audio/visual media. To reiterate, the best ethnographic imagery (in any media) stems from cultural knowledge and understanding. From here, you, as the media-maker, decide the intent and message of an image. Then, guided by that intention, you utilize the “vocabulary” of an image to convey what you have chosen as the story that should be understood and appreciated. Indeed, what makes a good image is as technical as it is cultural, both in its intent and interpretation.9 Commonly referred to as the “Ethnographic Triad” (Crawford and Simonsen 1992; also see Scherer 1990, Ruby 2000), there is a triangular relationship between the ethnographer, participants, and audience. Who the ethnographer is shooting for (or thinks will see the images) affects the choices of subject and framing. Likewise, participants’ relationship with the ethnographer affects the intimacy between the two, manifesting in different images. The third leg of this relationship, between audience and participant, involves whether participants understand how their images will be made and used.10 These relationships affect the way we understand what makes up a “good” image (and whether or not there is an agreed aesthetic to evaluate it by). Marion confronts these differences when showing images to dancers, judges, audience members, academic students, and colleagues, as well as other photographers. Some Bolivians scrutinize Crowder’s photos for “showing the poverty and not the beauty of the country” or relying too much on a narrative by American art photographers. Each viewer brings with them personal preferences that may or may not coincide with those of other audience members. If you feel that your image conveys knowledge about a culture or moves someone to understand a situation differently, then chances are you have a “good” photo. (Besides, there will always be someone to tell you how to improve it, guaranteed!) We want to stress here that “knowing what’s going on” can mean many things. In some settings or cases, it may simply be sensing that something is amiss or about to happen. In such cases, make sure your lens cap is off, and your camera is both on and set to the current lighting conditions. Then, based on your knowledge of the people and patterns around you, trust and follow your intuition (as much as you can within ethical guidelines). Below, John Bishop’s case study describes this exact dynamic, where technical considerations and the ability to evoke cultural insight and understanding emerge as the fundamental purpose of ethnographic imagery.

32  Starting to Think Visually

Figure 2.6 Lighting (ambient versus flash): Luis builds a door inside his uncle’s carpentry shop, located in the Urbanization Bautista Saavedra, El Alto, Bolivia. The top image is exposed with available (ambient) light, while the lower image benefits from the flash filling in the shadows. ©2011 Jerome Crowder.

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Case Study: Visual Experience on the Move John Melville Bishop Media-Generation, USA I shoot people doing things, events that can neither be predicted nor repeated. Early in my career as a filmmaker and photographer, I learned to trust my eyes and body to move subconsciously into compositions that the situation demanded and build stories on a visual logic. Rather than think about formal protocols or rules about how and what to shoot, my goal was to have the camera disappear and be responsive to the moment. In media terms, if I do not shoot it well, it might as well not have happened. For Choose Life (about a nuclear freeze demonstration), I shot a sitin with the coverage expected of a professional cameraman (a series of wide, medium, and close-up shots). Then the director suggested I sit down with the demonstrators. Suddenly the camera went from being an observer to a participant. The camera was at risk; I was at risk. A series of compositions unfolded in a continuous shot as the people ahead of me were arrested and carried out, until I was next in line, and the policeman leaned down and said—if you’re press, you belong on the other side of the fence. It was a breakthrough for me to be both in the event and filming it, and to see the contrast in the footage of the two approaches. A single shot that evolves is more evocative than an edited sequence, but sometimes you do not have that option. And as an editor, a part of my mind while shooting is on the story I am telling and whether I am getting the footage to tell that story. In Himalayan Herders (an ethnographic portrait of a Nepalese village), we had one chance to film a capture marriage in which a girl is grabbed by a boy and his friends. I gathered with the groom’s friends before dawn at the bride’s house. All I knew was that it would happen fast and move from a tight cluster of houses across 200 yards of terraced fields to the groom’s house. I had to concentrate not only on being in the moment but also on a logical sequence of shots to convey the spatial and symbolic geometry of the bride going from her father’s to her father-in-law’s house. As she was grabbed, I started filming from within the group and followed her through the narrow alley between houses. I paused as the group passed with the village (and the groom’s house) in the background, then ran ahead of the group to get them approaching (with the mountains and the bride’s house behind), and as they surrounded me, I walked with them through the narrow gate to the courtyard as one of the participants. The whole thing took three minutes and is in the film as it was shot. The audience experiences exactly what I experienced.​

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Figure 2.7 The Camera in the Action: When the camera is immersed in the event, the story unfolds within the field of view. “If you are press, you belong on the other side of the fence and get there right now,” the offi cer tells the camera, held by Bishop, who is next in line to be busted. Film frames from Choose Life, a fi lm by John Bishop and Robbie Leppzer.

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Figure 2.8 Pre-visioning: This image shows Dominico Soale and Gioia Cerosoli’s signature scissor-kick opening to their quickstep routine at the 2005 Embassy Ball Dancesport Championships, Irvine, California. This is the type of image that depends upon pre-visioning based on ethnographic understanding. © 2005 Jonathan S. Marion.

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In other settings, this same goal of culturally informed insight can be best achieved, perhaps only achieved, by pre-visioning11 the image—by imagining the “picture” as you want it to appear in advance, thereby allowing you to be: (1) in the right place, (2) at the right time, and (3) with the right equipment and settings. Take, for example, the image in Figure 2.8—Marion’s most widely circulated and published image.12 Taken at the 2005 Embassy Ball in Irvine, CA, this picture shows the signature scissor-kick in the opening pass of Dominico Soale and Gioia Cerosoli’s quickstep routine. The then-reigning World and Blackpool Amateur Ballroom Champions, Dominico and Gioia were an Italian couple that Marion saw twice a year at most—once at the Embassy Ball in Irvine, CA, and once at the British Open Championships in Blackpool, England. It took Marion three years (with attempts on six occasions) to finally capture this image. Beyond the obvious difficulties of composing and capturing Dominico and Gioia mid-flight, Marion had to contend with obstacles such as at least five other couples dancing on the floor simultaneously, judges standing around the edges of the floor, the limited vantage points available amidst the spectators’ seats and tables, and this scissor-kick taking place around 2/3 to 3/4 of the way down the side of the ballroom floor and on opposite sides of the floor in different rounds. Having seen Dominico and Gioia perform this element in their routine, Marion could imagine the shot he wanted. Then, by pre-visioning the image—imagining what he wanted it to look like—Marion could position himself accordingly with all of the settings on his camera set to maximize his chance of getting the image he was “hunting.” These photos have been widely recognized as “good” pictures, and we are pleased to have our technical and artistic efforts as photographers recognized. However, as visual anthropologists, we are more concerned with crafting images that tell a “good” ethnographic story. Attention and respect (especially over time) facilitate the rapport and understanding of (a) what stories to tell and (b) which images best tell these stories. This topic—thinking of images as data—is our focus in Chapter 3. Summary This chapter introduced photojournalism, art, and ethnography as three approaches (among many) to working with and using images based on different (albeit sometimes overlapping) histories and objectives. Next, we explored the vocabulary of images (including issues such as framing, composition, angle, lighting, and perspective), examining how these considerations mesh with each other to produce an image. Finally, we addressed what makes a “good” ethnographic image, focusing on how ethnographic understanding (i.e., “knowing what’s going on”) influences and informs ethnographic image-making.

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Further Readings and Resources • Appropriating Images: The Semiotics of Visual Representation (Tomaselli 2009) • Photographic Composition: A Visual Guide (Zakia and Page 2011) • See especially the “Looking” exercises at the end of most chapters • Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, 4th edition (Rose 2016) • International Visual Literacy Association • www​.ivla​.org • Periodic Table of Visualization Methods (geared toward communication, engineering, and business disciplines) • www​.visual​-literacy​.org​/periodic​_table​/periodic​_table​.html • The Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles • www​.ap​.org​/company​/news​-values Notes 1 This is Freeman’s point in noting, “photographs are ambiguous. They may be worth a thousand words, but it can be any thousand words” (2009, 61). 2 In these ways documentary photography is closer to ethnographic imagery. 3 For an academic critique of National Geographic see Lutz and Collins (1993). 4 For example, compare the reviews by Roberts (2000) and Viditz-Ward (2000) regarding a book made by Western photographers on African ceremonies to see how “lacking” these reviewers feel the photographs were, how far from “getting it” the photographers were, and how controversial such photography can be. 5 For various perspectives on anthropology and art see Anthropology of the Arts: A Reader (Bakke and Peterson 2017), Anthropologies of Art (Westermann 2005), Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic Practice and Contemporary Art and Anthropology (Schneider and Wright 2006a, 2006b), Anthropology, Art and Cultural Production: Histories, Themes, Perspectives (Svasek 2007), and Community Art: An Anthropological Perspective (Crehan 2011). 6 For a recent overview of the history of visual anthropology see the edited volume Made to Be Seen: Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology (Banks and Ruby 2011); also see Engelbrecht 2007, Heider 2006, and Rose 2007. 7 See, for example, Photographic Composition: A Visual Guide by Zakia and Page (2011). 8 Over 25 years ago, John Collier Jr. and Malcolm Collier made a similar point for ethnographic film, noting that “artistry is only a means, for the end is cultural authenticity” ([1967] 1986: 158). 9 Aesthetics are certainly considered by some to be cultural, although it is argued that there is an innate biophysical recognition of what is pleasing to the eye (e.g., the rule of thirds, discussed in Chapter 5). 10 Including what assumptions about the images and the participants/subjects the audience may have before ever viewing the images. 11 First used by Strand (1917), see Nickel (2001) for more on pre-visioning in photography. For a related use of the concept, see Sterritt (2000).

38  Starting to Think Visually 12 Quickly becoming one of Marion’s signature images, this picture circulated online, appeared in Dance Beat in the U.S., Dance News in the UK, on the website of DecaDance Photography (for whom he occasionally works as a guest photographer), and has provided a powerful illustration in various professional talks and academic publications (e.g., Marion 2008: 41, Marion 2010: 26).

References Cited Bakke, Gretchen Anna, and Marina Peterson, eds. 2017. Anthropology of the Arts: A Reader. New York: Routledge. Banks, Marcus, and Jay Ruby. 2011. Made to Be Seen: Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. ———. 1952. Trance and Dance in Bali. b&w, 22 min. ———. 1954a. Bathing Babies in Three Cultures. b&w, 11 min. ———. 1954b. Childhood Rivalry in Bali and New Guinea. b&w, 17 min. Bishop, John M. 1982. Choose Life. Co-produced with Robbie Leppzer; Josh Kanan & Judy Carp sound. Included on the DVD: John Bishop Short Films, 9:18 min. Media Generation. Collier, John Jr., and Malcolm Collier. 1967/1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Crawford, Peter Ian, and Jan Ketil Simonsen, eds. 1992. Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Tradition: Proceedings from NAFA2. Aarhus: Intervention Press. Crehan, Kate. 2011. Community Art: An Anthropological Perspective. London: Berg. Curtis, Edward S., and Charlie James. 1914/1998. In the Land of the Head Hunters, film set. University of Manitoba, 1998. Debes, John L. 1969. “The Loom of Visual Literacy.” Audiovisual Instruction 14, no. 8: 25–27. Edwards, Elizabeth. 1994. “Visualizing History.” Canberra Anthropology 17, no. 2: 1–26. Engelbrecht, Beate, ed. 2007. Memories of the Origins of Ethnographic Film. New York: Peter Lang. Flaherty, Robert J. 1922. Nanook of the North: A Film. Home Vision Cinema. Freeman, Richard. 2009. “Photography and Ethnography.” In Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work, edited by Mary Strong and Laena Wilder, 53–75. Austin: University of Texas Press. Haddon, Alfred C. 1890. “The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 19: 297–440. Heider, Karl. 2006. “A History of Ethnographic Film.” In Ethnographic Film, edited by Karl Heider, 15–49. Austin: University of Texas Press. Heider, Karl. [1994] 2007. Seeing Anthropology: Cultural Anthropology Through Film. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Jacknis, Ira. 1984. ‘Franz Boas and Photography.” Studies in Visual Communication 10, no. 1: 2–60.

S tarting to Think Visually  39 Lutz, Catherine, and Jane Collins. 1993. Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marion, Jonathan S. 2008. “Using Visuals in Conference Papers and Panels: Showing What You Mean.” Anthropology News 49, no. 3: 62. ———. 2010. “Photography as Ethnographic Passport.” Visual Anthropology Review 26, no. 1: 24–30. Nickel, Douglas R. 2001. “History of Photography: The State of Research.” The Art Bulletin 83, no. 3: 548–558. Riis, Jacob A. 1890/1997. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. New York: Penguin Classics. Roberts, Allen F. 2000. “Review of African Ceremonies by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher.” African Arts 33, no. 3: 10–12, 93–4. Rony, Fatimah Tobing. 1992. “Those Who Squat and Those Who Sit: The Iconography of Race in the 1895 Films of Félix-Louis Regnault.” Camera Obscura 10, no. 1 (28): 262–289. Rose, Gillian. 2016. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, 4th edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Ruby, Jay. 2000. Picturing Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Scherer, Joanna Cohan. 1990. “Historical Photographs as Anthropological Documents: A Retrospect.” Visual Anthropology 3, no. 2–3: 131–155. Schneider, Arnd, and Christopher Wright, eds. 2006a. Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic Practice. Oxford: Berg. ———. 2006b. Contemporary Art and Anthropology. Oxford: Berg. Sterritt, David. 2000. “Revision, Prevision, and the Aura of Improvisatory Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2: 163–172. Strand, Paul. 1917. “Photography.” Camera Work 49, no. 50: 3. Svasek, Maruska. 2007. Anthropology, Art and Cultural Production: Histories, Themes, Perspectives. London: Pluto Press. Tomaselli, Keyan G. 2009. Appropriating Images: The Semiotics of Visual Representation. Højbjerg: Intervention Press. Viditz-Ward, Vera. 2000. “Review of African Ceremonies by Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher.” African Arts 33, no. 3: 9–10. Westermann, Mariet. 2005. Anthropologies of Art. Williamstown: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Zakia, Richard D., and David A. Page. 2011. Photographic Composition: A Visual Guide. Boston: Focal Press.

Chapter 3

Thinking of Images as Data

In this chapter, you will learn: • How to use images to ask—and answer—research questions. • How images illustrate, explain, and evoke understandings differently than text. • How thinking of and treating “image as data” facilitates analyzing images for meaning and understanding.

Introducing Images as Data We discussed the ethics of making and working with imagery in Chapter 1 and then looked at the basics of thinking visually in Chapter 2. Here, we outline how to use images to ask and answer research questions systematically. A key consideration is to start thinking of images as more than illustrations; they are data in their own right. For example, imagine researching a social movement, a medical situation, a religious ceremony, an environmental conflict, or any other such issue. How do you collect data? In most fieldwork settings, it will involve some combination of observations, interviews, and participation. But how are these data recorded? Most of the time, data is recorded through written field notes (or printed transcripts of recorded interviews). Indeed, these notes can be used as the basis for descriptions that “illustrate” a situation, issue, process, phenomenon, or even thought process. But the notes themselves are data, and it is only from a broader, contextually informed perspective that you, as the researcher, can decide which materials best tell the outsider what is going on. We suggest you start thinking of images in a parallel manner: as visual field notes. Like any other field notes, the images you generate from observations, interviews, and participation are data you can go back to, review, and consult.1 Not replacing written notes, but in conjunction with them, images can be invaluable research data. Just as your written notes (regarding any particular social movement, healing ceremony, religious rite, secular celebration, or political conflict) may serve as a valuable resource for further analysis—that is, as data—the same is true of visual imagery. DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-5

T hinking of Images as Data  41

Asking Visual Questions Sociocultural dynamics particularly amenable to visual analysis include people, places, processes, performances, and practices. As with all research, the types of data you collect should be appropriate to the questions you are trying to answer. Behavioral observations, interviews, and surveys (among many other methods) only make sense if and when they help you understand something. It does not make sense, for instance, to try to determine what a poem means to someone by observing them, or to describe a performance solely through interviews. In the same way, different kinds of research questions call for different types of visual data. Let us take a political rally as an example. What do you want to know about it? If you want to analyze attendance (e.g., how many people were there, who, and where different parties were located in the room), a still image, or series of images, will probably be best. With this, you can go back and analyze your data—your pictures in this case—to get answers. On the other hand, if you are more interested in the tone of the exchanges and how people interact, then video would be a better choice. The issue is twofold: (a) what am I trying to understand? and (b) what will best enable me to explain my findings? For instance, in Marion’s work with elite ballroom competitors, photographs facilitated an understanding of body positioning, tone, and lines, whereas video facilitated an understanding of actual movement, musicality, and performance. Utilizing images as data is no more “just taking pictures” or “getting some video” than “just taking some notes” in fieldwork. Without clarity concerning what you will be paying attention to and why, notes and images are all but useless. Here is where thinking of images as data is most important: by choosing where to direct your attention, and in what ways, you create useful information and not simply a haphazard collection of images. So what types of questions “ask for” visual answers? Almost all observable phenomena lend themselves to visual questions and answers. For instance, considered from more pragmatic to more conceptual: • • • • •

What was the setting/location? What was there, and how was it arranged? Who was there, and what were they doing? How were they positioned and/or dressed? What were the relationships between the participants and the things present?

As this list begins to suggest, visual methods and data “can be especially pertinent in investigating embodied experiences” (Pink 2006, 28) as well as physical settings. Why? Mainly because an “image speaks directly to the senses and emphasizes the human body and objectifications of culture and social aesthetics and social interaction, instead of ideas, meanings, and concepts” (Postma and Crawford 2006, 2).2 Indeed, even before photographs and film,

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there is a longstanding tradition of visual data such as field sketches and diagrams. For example, during her first fieldwork in 1881, Alice C. Fletcher produced many drawings as part of her field journals (such as the one seen in Figure 3.1).3 Similarly, Smithsonian anthropologist James Mooney lived on a Kiowa reservation in 1892 and employed artists to make drawings for his field notes related to his ethnographic studies.4 So how do you go about getting good visual data? First, identify the needs of your specific project. For instance, just take a quick look at the case studies featured in each chapter of this book. Each concerns different research projects, therefore they (a) use different visual data, and (b) use visual data differently. In each case, however, there is a rationale for what was captured and how. One set of rationales comes from Karl Heider’s filmic guidelines for framing whole people, whole bodies, whole interactions, and whole acts (see Heider 2006, Ch. 3). Yet, we do not adhere to or see this as an orthodoxy but as a conceptual starting point. Indeed, we find it important to craft images of the person/body/interaction/act in question, as well as both “broad” shots that establish context and more “narrow” shots that depict specific details. While the balance between broad/whole and narrow/specific shots will depend on your own project’s deliberately constructed questions and answers,

Figure 3.1 Fieldwork Sketch: Standing Bear’s tent. October 1, 1881, as drawn by Alice C. Fletcher in her fieldwork diary, during her first fieldwork, and reproduced in her manuscript Camping with the Sioux: Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher (see www​.nmnh​.si​.edu​/naa​/fletcher). Used by permission of the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (NAA 10000184). (Pencil and paper.)

T hinking of Images as Data  43

having all three types of images is invaluable for documenting, analyzing, understanding, and explaining. Beyond providing distinct levels of information, having each kind of image allows you—as a social scientist—to assess the relationships between levels. Certainly, Heider’s suggested focus on the “whole” person/body/interaction/act makes sense since, as social scientists, we are ultimately interested in complete persons. But, at the same time, part of understanding people’s actions involves broader perspectives. As Freeman (2009) points out, “environment can add a greater sense of the context and the space in which the activities depicted are taking place” (59). For this reason, we advocate getting wider contextualizing shots whenever possible. At the same time, however, seemingly minor actions and objects can be of central importance but easily missed without more narrowly focused images. For example, take a look at Figure 3.2. Each scale of image offers a different level of cultural understanding. However, seen together, they work synergistically, providing insight into how the different levels are interrelated and influence each other.5 Again, getting all three image scales is vital. Using Images to Illustrate, Explain, and Evoke Hopefully, you’ve started to think about images as data by this point. But what type of data? Just as observations and interviews tell us different things, different kinds of images show us different kinds of things. More importantly, images communicate differently — evoking understandings in a way that words alone cannot. Looking, seeing, and knowing are inextricably intertwined (Jay 1994, Jenks 1995), rooted in neurological and psychological links between visual perception, action, and emotion (Nijland 2006). It is along these lines that neuroaestheticist Semir Zeki has noted that “it is no longer possible to divide the process of seeing from that of understanding” (Nijland 2006, 38) and that Peter Biella (2009a, 2009b) invokes the real and powerful potential of ethnographic film to engender intimacy and instigate social action.6 Have you ever been moved by a picture or by a scene in a movie? If so, you already know precisely what these scholars are talking about: the ability of images to evoke feelings that make visual data much more than mere illustrations. Images facilitate and catalyze understanding and insight. Images show us many things simultaneously, which can be both powerful and problematic. Showing many things at once is a tremendous strength; it reflects the all-at-once nature of lived experiences—a reality that is often impossible to communicate through linear textual narratives. At the same time, however, whereas participants in real-life situations typically know which elements and dynamics deserve the focus of their attention and which do not, this is unlikely to be true for those unfamiliar with the situation depicted. For example, an image of a game you are not acquainted with is unlikely to focus your attention on activities central to a player of that game. Likewise, an acoustic record of a language you do not know will communicate very little in the way of denotative meaning. Similarly, imagery cannot

44  Thinking of Images as Data

Figure 3.2 Context, Content, and Detail: This image shows a ballroom gown being produced by Doré Designs in Cape Coral, Florida, in August 2007. Top left: The first frame shows the dress itself—the primary focus of this sequence—on a mannequin. Top right: The second frame shows the details of the individually hand-placed Swarovski crystals on this dress. Bottom: The third frame shows the process in action (on the left side of the frame) while also showing the bins of differently colored crystals (on the back wall) and the glue (front left) used to place each and every crystal. ©2007 Jonathan S. Marion.

T hinking of Images as Data  45

be said to “speak for itself” as data any more than any other type of data. Part of using images as data thus involves the thought that goes into selecting and contextualizing images—whether as supplements to printed text, video, or multimedia applications. As suggested elsewhere (Marion 2011, 4), asking if the image is acceptable to those it depicts (as discussed in Chapter 1) and if the image adds to what is being discussed is key. Here are five central considerations for thinking about the images: 1. Identify topics amicable to visual depiction (as per this chapter). 2. Discard images that only duplicate the content of other images already in use. 3. Discard images that only illustrate rather than explain; if seeing the image does not add insight or understanding, discard it. 4. Juxtapose images where a comparison evokes greater understanding. 5. Integrate images and words (captioning, narration, etc.) to facilitate understanding. While we address most of these topics in Chapter 10 (on using images) and in the Conclusion to this text, it is important to start thinking about the type of data that images can provide—including the meanings and understandings they can facilitate and transmit. Meaning and Understanding Thinking of and treating images as data allows us to analyze them for both understanding and meaning—different levels of analysis. For example, think about friends who show you photos from their summer vacation. You can probably understand who was there and what they were doing from the pictures. But what do those images mean to you? Probably not much. Indeed, you would probably be more interested in photographs of landscapes and buildings than those of people you do not know. Now compare viewing the photos by yourself to having someone present who was there when the pictures were taken or who knows the people in question. The meaning of an image depends on the stimulus value it has for someone. Here is another place where treating images as data can facilitate access to both levels of information, both the overt “goings on” and their underlying meanings, both the etic (outsiders’/objective) and emic (insiders’/subjective) perspectives. The apparent content (e.g., who was there, what they were doing) is accessible; content can be reviewed as often as necessary, facilitates systematic analysis, and can be returned to and re-evaluated in the future (but see Chapter 8 on storing, organizing, and archiving). At the same time, images can also facilitate access to meaning through elicitations—an underutilized and often invaluable ethnographic tool whereby

46  Thinking of Images as Data

research participants provide context and insight to the researcher.7 Far from being a complicated methodology, just think about looking at family pictures from years gone by and all the stories this can trigger from those who participated in the activities and times represented in the images. This, in a nutshell, is what photo-elicitation is all about. We explore this method of using images in Chapter 8. Here, just recognize that social scientists need to (a) find ways to record field data and (b) direct outsiders’ attention to insiders’ understandings. Images provide powerful vessels for exactly such recordings and translations. Whether you create your own images (as the researcher in this chapter’s case study does) or work from existing imagery (Buckley 2001, 2005; Wulff 2007), treating images as data allows you to unpack cultural meanings below the surface. Economic anthropologist Cody Ross uses photos in a methodology called “Rich Games” to evocatively reveal insider understandings of social relations. In this methodology, members of a community are first photographed. Each is then shown the set of photos, given money, and asked to distribute the money as they like to the people they see in the photos. Ross uses the visual data to quantify aspects of interpersonal relations and sentiments in real-world social networks. (For further details, see Gervais 2017; Ross and Redhead 2022; Figure 3.3.)

Figure 3.3 Fieldwork with Images: Two research assistants engage paisa coffee farmers in Riseralda, Colombia in the Rich Games methodology. ©2019 Karl Frost.

T hinking of Images as Data  47

As we have shown in this chapter, images are data. They provide varied kinds of information, sometimes to help count, other times for recall or elicitation. For years, environmental anthropologist and photographer Austin Lord has worked in the Nepalese Himalayas, documenting visually the impact of hydroelectric power on mountain and valley communities (Lord 2014, Lord et al. 2020). Following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that shook Nepal in April 2015, his and others’ regional images became “data” for helping those he worked with preserve their memories and culture (Lord and Galen 2017).

Case Study: Images as Data—Afterlives, Reorientations, and Ambiguities Austin Lord Cornell University, USA On April 25, 2015, the Gorkha Earthquake triggered a massive glacier avalanche that buried Langtang village in Nepal, killing over three hundred people. The avalanche zone still overwhelms the landscape, as both a presence and an absence, indexing indescribable loss. How can images convey the scale and complexity of these events? How do we gather and organize data that can be fragmented and horrifying—but also beautiful in ethical ways, helping others understand and evoking compassion while honoring all that was lost and all that remains? Images are an important kind of data precisely because they are ambiguous, unwieldy, irreplicable, and unstable. By gathering, reorganizing, and reinterpreting visual data we can help lead viewers beyond the headlines, statistics, and abstractions of dominant disaster narratives and toward a more nuanced appreciation of the diversity and complexities of situated afterlives. For the past five years, I have worked with a community-engaged archival initiative called the Langtang Memory Project to build a collection of images, stories, and resources that serves the Langtangpa community and supports their efforts to honor Langtangpa culture and heritage. Our team has gathered thousands of photographs taken before the Langtang Disaster by people from all over the world, digitized Langtangpa family photo albums and photographs damaged by the disaster and reprinted and redistributed hundreds of photos for homes and community centers in Langtang. We have also created visual records that can help preserve cultural heritage for future generations of Langtangpas, such as videos of traditional songs and dance steps or yak herders at work. We have also crafted new visual storytelling projects: making films and co-curating multimedia exhibitions that foreground images

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generated by and with our Langtangpa colleagues, sharing Langtangpa images with a broad array of Nepali and international audiences. These projects help diversify and reconfigure visual narratives about Langtang and the 2015 disaster, reorienting viewers and showing the value of seeing the world through different apertures. Who will view these images, and how will they navigate the layers of meaning they carry? For me, the entire process of working with images over time is important data. Such images, perhaps more than other kinds of data, will engage, affect, or even reorient future others, in meaningful yet unknown ways. With and through these indeterminacies, we cultivate possibilities (Figure 3.4).

Figure 3.4 Langtang Village: A Langtangpa man named Dindu walking through the rubble of the avalanche that buried Langtang village, stopping near the space where his mother’s home used to be. Langtang, Nepal. ©2015 Austin Lord.

Summary This chapter highlights the use of images in asking and answering research questions. Beginning with the types of questions visual data can address, we considered (a) how images illustrate, explain, and evoke understandings differently than text, and (b) how thinking of and treating images as data allows

T hinking of Images as Data  49

us to then analyze them for meaning and understanding. We considered what it means to think about images as data, building on the ethics of making and working with imagery (Chapter 1), and the fundamentals of thinking visually (Chapter 2). Together, these initial chapters set up the next section of this book which deals with the actual making of images. Further Readings and Resources • Beautiful Evidence (Tufte 2006) • Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis 3e (Deacon et al. 2021) • “All Photos Lie: Images as Data” (Goldstein 2007) • “Do Photographs tell the Truth?” (Becker 1986) • “Questions of Process in Participant-generated Visual Methodologies” (Guillemin and Drew 2010) • “The Visual Essay: Redefining Data, Presentation and Scientific Truth” (Simoni 1996) • “The-walk-in-the-city: a (no)ordinary image: an essay on creative technologies” (Antonaki 2008) • The Donald A. Cadzow Photograph Collection (Smithsonian Collections Blog) • https://si​-siris​.blogspot​.com​/2012​/01​/donald​-cadzow​-photograph​-collection​.html Notes 1 For example, Dowdall and Gordon (1989) use photographs as data for their historical sociological analysis of mental hospitals, and identify appraisal, inquiry, and interpretation as three levels of working with images as data. 2 This formulation is based on ideas posited by David MacDougal (2006: 1–4). 3 For more on the life of Alice Cunningham Fletcher see Scherer and DeMallie 2013. 4 For more information see: www​.nmnh​.si​.edu​/naa​/kiowa​/mooney​.htm. 5 Such considerations of scale are equally applicable to research concerning material culture, archaeology, and related fields, where having an image of the object in question (whole), specific features (narrow), and the wider context of the object (broad) are all important perspectives that again add value when considered in conjunction. 6 For an interesting and related understanding of still imagery, see Bourdieu 2012, which links his writing to 130 of the photographs he took while serving in Algeria in the French army. 7 For a concise overview of the method in anthropology and sociology see Harper (2002).

References Cited Antonaki, Katerina. 2008. “The-Walk-in-the-City: A (no)ordinary Image: An Essay on Creative Technologies.” In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts, 182–189. Athens: ACM.

50  Thinking of Images as Data Becker, Howard Saul. 1986. “Do Photographs Tell the Truth?” In Doing Things Together: Selected Papers, 273–292. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. https://books​.google​.com​/books​/about​/Doing​_Things​_Together​.html​?id​ =wGS2AAAAIAAJ Biella, Peter. 2009a. “Visual Anthropology in a Time of War: Intimacy and Inter­ activity in Ethnographic Media.” In Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work, edited by Mary Strong and Laena Wilder, 141–179. Austin: University of Texas Press. ———. 2009b. “Elementary Forms of the Digital Media.” In Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work, edited by Mary Strong and Laena Wilder, 363–387. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2012. Picturing Algeria. New York: Columbia University Press. Buckley, Liam. 2001. “Self and Accessory in Gambian Studio Photography.” Visual Anthropology Review 16, no. 2: 71–91. ———. 2005. “Objects of Love and Decay: Colonial Photographs in a Postcolonial Archive.” Cultural Anthropology 20, no. 2: 249–270. Deacon, David, Michael Pickering, Peter Golding, and Graham Murdock. 2021. Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis, 3rd edition. London: Bloomsbury. Dowdall, George W., and Janet Golden. 1989. “Photographs as Data: An Analysis of Images from a Mental Hospital.” Qualitative Sociology 12, no. 2: 183–213. Freeman, Richard. 2009. “Photography and Ethnography.” In Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work, edited by Mary Strong and Laena Wilder, 53–75. Austin: University of Texas Press. Goldstein, Barry M. 2007. “All Photos Lie: Images as Data.” In Visual Research Methods: Image, Society and Representation, edited by Gregory C. Stanczak, 61– 82. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Gervais, M. M. 2017. “RICH Economic Games for Networked Relationships and Communities: Development and Preliminary Validation in Yasawa, Fiji.” Field Methods, 29, no. 2: 113–129. Guillemin, Marilys, and Sarah Drew. 2010. “Questions of Process in ParticipantGenerated Visual Methodologies.” Visual Studies 25, no. 2: 175–178. Harper, Douglas. 2002. “Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation.” Visual Studies 17, no. 1: 13–26. Heider, Karl. 2006. “The Attributes of Ethnographic Film.” In Ethnographic Film, edited by Karl Heider, 50–109. Austin: University of Texas Press. Jay, Martin. 1994. Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jenks, Chris. 1995. “The Centrality of the Eye in Western Culture: An Introduction.” In Visual Culture, edited by Chris Jenks, 1–25. London: Routledge. Lord, Austin. 2014. “Making a ‘Hydropower Nation’: Subjectivity, Mobility, and Work in the Nepalese Hydroscape.” HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies 34, no. 2: 111–121. Lord, Austin, and Galen Murton. 2017. “Becoming Rasuwa relief: Practices of Multiple Engagement in Post-Earthquake Nepal.” HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies 37, no. 2: 87–102. Lord, Austin, Georgina Drew, and Mabel Denzin Gergan. 2020. “Timescapes of Himalayan Hydropower: Promises, Project Life Cycles, and Precarities.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water 7, no. 6: e1469.

T hinking of Images as Data  51 MacDougal, David. 2006. The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Marion, Jonathan S. 2011. “Introduction to Photographing an Emotion.” In Dance With Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy, edited by Julia Ericksen, 1–5. New York: New York University Press. Nijland, Dirk J. 2006. “Ritual Performance and Visual Representations.” In Reflecting Visual Ethnography: Using the Camera in Anthropological Research, edited by Metje Postma and Peter I. Crawford, 26–29. Leiden: CNWS. Pink, Sarah. 2006. The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the Senses. New York: Routledge. Postma, Metje, and Peter I. Crawford. 2006. “Introduction. Visual Ethnography and Anthropology.” In Reflecting Visual Ethnography: Using the Camera in Anthropological Research, edited by Metje Postma and Peter I. Crawford, 1–25. Leiden: CNWS. Ross, C. T., and D. Redhead. 2022. “DieTryin: An R Package for Data Collection, Automated Data Entry, and Post-Processing of Network-Structured Economic Games, Social Networks, and Other Roster-Based Dyadic Data About the Forms and Functions of Social Relationships.” Behavior Research Methods 54: 611–631. Scherer, Joanna C., and Raymond J. DeMallie, eds. 2013. Life Among the Indians: First Fieldwork Among the Sioux and Omahas. By Alice C. Fletcher. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Simoni, Simonetta. 1996. “The Visual Essay: Redefining Data, Presentation and Scientific Truth.” Visual Sociology 11, no. 2: 75–82. Tufte, Edward R. 2006. Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire: Graphics Press. Wulff, Helena. 2007. “Longing for the Land: Emotions, Memory, and Nature in Irish Travel Advertisements.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 14: 527–544.

Section 2

Making Images



Chapter 4

Cameras in Social Science Research

In this chapter, you will learn: • The basic history of camera and image use in the social sciences. • The evolving purpose and use of images in social research. • The implications of the digital revolution for image-making and social research.

Overview of Cameras in Social Science Research Not all social scientists want to make images while conducting fieldwork. Perhaps images seem inapplicable to their interests or redundant to their observations. But, as with the eye, the camera doesn’t see everything. Instead, it “sees” where it is directed, recording the light reflecting or emanating from a subject. Some people view such recording as objective, others as subjective. In either case, photography—and cameras overall—have played a significant role in social research production. Both moving and still images have been used to great effect as field records, sites of cross-cultural interaction, sources for analysis, objects of study, and visual and sensory systems to inspire further inquiry (Edwards 2011, 187). Yet cameras and images have fallen in and out of favor over time as both methodological and analytical tools. Our stress, however, is the central role the camera can play in social science research—providing a virtually inexhaustible, inexpensive, and relatively unlimited means for making, sharing, and analyzing images. Even if you do not publish those images, they are a source of data for enhancing field notes, garnering elicitations, and documenting aspects of research less amenable to textual representation or memory. Recognizing the ubiquity of images in the digital age, this chapter

DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-7

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opens the door to essential considerations of cameras themselves and their role in social science research.1 The purpose of this chapter is to outline how the camera has been used in social science research over time and explain how thoughts about representation—i.e., why and how to make/use images—in research have changed. For example, 100 years ago, some researchers used images to document the “Other,” as almost objective, scientific specimens, photographing indigenous people to indicate both biometric proportions as well as adornments. We realize today that objectifying people in such a way is inappropriate, unnecessary, ethnocentric, and unethical. “Scientific” images of the past differ from contemporary ones because technology has drastically improved and because our thinking about the role of research with people has progressed. The following discussion serves as a foundation upon which you can build your own opinion about the use of images in research; knowing “why” and “what” has already been done invites you to consider why you may want to make images today. Basic History In the early 19th century, metals were the first medium for permanently capturing an image with a camera, a process that required exposure to dangerous chemicals.2 Somewhat fragile glass plates followed metal in the 1850s, also dependent upon tricky chemistry and technical knowledge. Finally, after much experimentation and refinements, film came to the photographic process about 30 years later. Leaving the chemical process to popular labs revolutionized the technology, allowing almost anyone to make images. Once still images were being captured on film, it was not long before multiple still photos were shown sequentially to make a motion picture, as the Lumière brothers did (see Nichols 2010; Figure 4.1). As noted in Chapter 2, social science researchers who were early adopters of photography included Franz Boas, who made hundreds of images and influenced the likes of Alfred Kroeber (Scheper-Hughes 2022), Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson (Jacknis 1984). Their use of photography and film in their research on character formation in different cultures (the Balinese in particular) was seminal in the realm of visual anthropology.3 Also of note is F. E. Williams, an Australian Government Anthropologist in the Territory of Papua who hauled a box camera and tripod in order to make more than 2,000 images between 1920 and 1939 with glass plates and film of 18 different groups of people scattered across the island (Young and Clark 2002).4 Within the same period, researchers and explorers such as A. C. Haddon began filmmaking, followed by the likes of Felix-Louis Regnault and Baldwin Spencer, known for their interest in accurately depicting the lives of “Others” (El Guindi 2004).

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Figure 4.1 Chapter Timeline: This timeline depicts some of the key contributions (and contributors) to visual research and ethnography mentioned in this chapter. This diagram is not intended as a comprehensive history of the subdiscipline or related fields. Rather, it helps illustrate the content of this chapter while also serving as an example of how visual representations can be used to augment textual materials.

Realism & Objectivity: The Science Behind the Camera At the beginning of the 20th century, photography and filmmaking were regularly employed by researchers—with Western academics leaving for the “field” and taking cameras with them to “capture” moments of “natural” life that would later serve to supplement their written descriptions of the culture. Cameras were thought to provide accuracy never before known and were considered completely objective tools that both removed the researcher from the subject and enhanced the image of the Other for the reader. As Mead explained, the ethnographer recognized the culturally significant moments that could be “captured” for study (Mead [1975] 2003, 7). Ethnographers strove to collect comprehensive information on their subject matter and images dramatically enabled that goal. By the mid-century, ethnographers in the Americas, Europe, and Japan were involved with making films to preserve images of the peoples they encountered with as little bias from the filmmaker as possible. These efforts

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involved recording human movement using eye-level cameras on tripods. However, as cameras became more accessible to handhold, filmmakers like Jean Rouch followed his subjects around, creating a cinéma vérité (Rouch and Feld 2003), or truthful cinema (i.e., lifelike). This genre was much less objective in perspective and entirely dependent upon what researchers found relevant to their work. Still, the literature remains replete with the call to use the appropriate method to answer the specific question. As such, cameras (moving or still) were only desirable when visual data helped answer the research question at hand (or supplemented the ethnographic data and its subsequent analysis). Along these same lines, universities were formalizing the study of visual anthropology, envisioning building archives of films representing peoples of the world, which would serve as data for later research, discussion, and, ultimately, knowledge. These well-documented histories illustrate a broad embrace of images as data (as discussed in Chapter 3) and a shift toward scientific production and analysis.5 Some projects were stricter than others concerning who and how to film. For example, some established guidelines required: (a) only persons with significant anthropological training should film; (b) keeping scripts and logs to authenticate the subject matter’s worthiness; and (c) that the end product be as representative as possible (eschewing cinematic liberties, dramatic angles, and a soundtrack) (El Guindi 2004, 31–32). Prioritizing the Interpreted Image Similar debates within photography argue for pictures as objective reality on the one hand and as artistic expression on another. Indeed, these conversations continue within the social sciences today (e.g., Pink 2021) and are still debated within various disciplines.6 Today researchers also frequently use handheld cameras in their work. The images they produce tend to reflect their ways of seeing, i.e., what they understand to be “happening” from their expert perspectives. Because of the many meanings that images may evoke, academic disciplines and texts often marginalize the role of the image in research as too difficult to “control”—that is, as destabilizing scientific premises of objectivity and replicability. It was along these lines that, from the 1970s through the 2000s, visual anthropology was marginalized (by most) within the broader discipline, relegated to making classroom films to teach anthropological concepts rather than being seen as a medium through which new knowledge and critiques could be created (Pink 2021, 13, Chaplin 1994, 16). By the 1980s, the social sciences were moving away from (but not abandoning) strict scientific inquiry and turning toward a fuller understanding of reflexivity, subjectivity, and mediation as part of the research process. Now known as the “theoretical turn,” visual approaches also adopted this stance,

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with ethnographic filmmakers and photographers recognizing their inherently subjective positioning at all stages in the production, use, and analysis of images. Just as the author is the instrument through which all data is captured and analyzed in text-based ethnography, so too is the visual researcher an instrument when holding a camera. The researcher’s presence influences what is recorded and how. Even when the camera is not directed toward exploring specific research questions, it can still affect how people respond to the researcher.7 The reflexive trend, with its emphasis on the subjective role of the researcher—in this case, using a camera—helped shift the focus of ethnographic imagery from capturing “the data” to describing the mundane and the extraordinary alike. None of this is to say that the photographic arts and creative process were absent from earlier ethnographic fieldwork and production. Among others, the works of Robert Gardner (e.g., Dead Birds, 1964) and David MacDougall (e.g., Doon School Chronicles, 2000) exemplify the creative use of cinematographic techniques (such as unique angles, long pans, and quick edits) to draw the viewer into the film, to make meaning by incorporating symbolism and abstractions (e.g., constructing dream or hallucinogenic trip sequences), and to highlight tensions within filmmaking. Observational Cinema blends the methods of scientific observation with the storytelling of documentary filmmaking. Initially an experimental approach, located along the edge of the theoretical turn, filmmakers placed themselves in the films, affecting the representational endeavor. However, with the theoretical turn, visual ethnography intensified its draw on artistic photography and filmmaking while becoming one of many optical techniques for social science research (e.g., Young [1975] 2003; MacDougall [1975] 2003, 2006; Grimshaw and Ravetz 2005). To be clear, some products of visual research fueled the theoretical turn itself. With terms like “subjectivity” and “colonialism” becoming commonplace ethical lenses in social science research, the disciplinary gaze fell upon anthropology’s past to investigate its role in defining the “other,” which was often accomplished through publishing photographs. Boas, Williams, EvansPritchard, and many others—whose earlier images served to illustrate an “objective” account of culture—became the fodder for criticism and discussion; in some ways, this critique served to justify the interpretive turn. Their use of images came to serve as the indelible line between (a) the scientific use of images and (b) the interpretive recognition of self in image-making that continues to demarcate ideological positions within visual research. In other words, the “scientific” images of the past were scrutinized for their ethnocentrisms and colonial undertones, propelling criticism on the use of images in research and what they mean for social science in the first place (see Lutz and Collins 1991, 1993, and Hastrup 1992, Luvaas 2017, Crowder 2017). Minor discrepancies between the use of photography in sociology and anthropology were founded upon analytic differences rather than disciplinary

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specifics, although until recently these subjects were typically split along a Western/non-Western divide. Unlike the anthropologists mentioned above, sociologists were more likely to analyze historical photos that their subjects may have taken of their families, jobs, or affiliated institutions (where few of the non-Western peoples had cameras of their own). As digital cameras have become more and more commonplace (including those in cell phones, tablets, and other devices), it has become possible for people worldwide to produce images and videos that anthropologists, sociologists, and other social scientists find worthy of analysis, thus blurring the distinction between ethnographic and popular intent. Technology’s Role While some scholars have preferred to trace the theoretical directions of visual anthropology through developments in text-based ethnography, technology consistently provides new mediums for social inquiry and human engagement. Unfortunately, many who embraced visual technologies at their inception did so to support the idea that non-Western cultures were less evolved. However, as the work of early and prominent anthropologists such as Mead, Malinowski, and Rivers demonstrated, there were other uses for images than defending one’s cultural superiority, including investigating people on their own terms. Mead ([1975] 2003), in particular, admonished her anthropological colleagues for developing a science that depended upon words rather than images. In that vein, John Collier, Jr. ([1967] 1986, 1997) argued that visual anthropology could show the “organic cultural whole” by documenting the culture through images—the only way to represent the empirical to other scholars (Biella 2001:55). Since the hard sciences valued photography as representing facts, the logic was that using film could legitimate anthropologists’ data (Collier 1997). On the other hand, Paul Hockings ([1975] 2003) insisted that visual anthropologists employ all media available to educate people about themselves. At its best, we see a continuous call from within the social sciences to use the available technology to extend the study of the human condition. Any such research thus depends upon what is technically possible at any given time. Riding the digital revolution out of the 20th century presents a more expansive media horizon than previously imagined—but that is also what ethnographers thought about the first still and video cameras. Ultimately, however, technology facilitates two things: (a) it allows us to do better what we already do and (b) it creates an opportunity to do new things. Photo and audio recording equipment thus became permanent components of the ethnographic tool kit because they were considered practical for “capturing” cultural data and being scientific. In contrast, early movie cameras were not seen as essential because they lacked synchronized audio, with few academics considering the footage as “evidence.” It also did not help that the

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equipment was big, awkward, heavy, unreliable, and somewhat dangerous. Furthermore, early versions required significant expertise to work the equipment, making it a daunting task for an anthropologist to do both film and audio simultaneously, let alone simultaneously conduct an interview.8 Several other innovations were also underway as the physical medium of film developed, offering both greater light sensitivity and color film. First and foremost, cameras were becoming smaller and lighter, could now be removed from tripods, and could be utilized indoors. Until this point, researchers had to ask their subjects to move outdoors to film activities in low-light settings.9 With early technological innovations and improvements, however, filmmakers and ethnographers could show the regular settings of indoor and lowlight events, film more intimate scenes, and follow their subjects on the move. To start, Jean Rouch perfected this vérité style, permanently changing the genre and role of the camera in research. Then, with the advent of synchronous sound—as used in the MacDougalls’ To Live with Herds (1974)—viewers no longer had to be told what people were saying; they could hear it for themselves. This critical development gave “voice” to indigenous people (albeit often via subtitles of selective translation). Arguably today’s technological innovations mean we no longer conceive of or conduct visual ethnography as was done half a century ago. As digital mediums have evolved—smaller, lighter, less expensive, and easier to use—the power to create and manage images is no longer determined by a few possessing heavy, stationary cameras; rather, it now resides in ubiquitous handheld electronic devices. Not only can the same camera record still and moving images (including sync-sound), but the materials produced can be shared worldwide without ever being reproduced on paper or film. The opportunities created for using digital equipment in the field once again raise questions (as discussed in Chapter 1) regarding how we conduct our research, whose images are made (including how and under what circumstances), and with whom images are ultimately shared. Thanks to the internet, we can communicate with people in villages and cities worldwide, introducing ourselves in remote places before arriving and continuing our relationships after leaving. Indeed, sharing images with the research participants increases buyin and understanding of your work and the research you are conducting. In addition, the immediacy of digital media (versus the latency experienced with film) can significantly enhance participant interest and trust. As digital equipment has become ever-more commonplace (for example, the visual features integrated into cell phones), many researchers no longer think about “doing visual research”—instead, cameras have become part of the typical ethnographic tool kit (see Chapter 5). As a result, using and analyzing images is no longer relegated to the margins of social sciences but has instead become central to the endeavor.10 That research participants can (and often do) continue to make videos, uploading them to share for themselves after the researcher departs, illustrates just one of the multi-faceted issues

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involved in conducting research of any sort these days.11 Untangling the ethical components of visual research today requires the researcher to consider the key ethical elements (as discussed in Chapter 1) in light of factors never before addressed, as we will see in the upcoming chapters. At the same time, digital equipment opens up opportunities for working with and using photography, video, and multimedia in ways that enhance our ethnographic toolkit and expand our understanding of ethical research as Eric Weissman’s case study demonstrates and as the following chapters elaborate. Case Study: Reflexive Time—Using Video to Engage Evolving Self-Understandings Eric Weissman, PhD The University of New Brunswick, Canada How can video, a technology that “captures” images and experiences, “fixing” them as if they are stable as seen, be used to engage time in a more evolutionary and fluid manner? Working collaboratively and longitudinally, I used field video to create what I call “reflexive time.” During my long-term ethnographic work with activists living in homelessness, I noticed that their stories shifted over time, based on conditions related to finding housing and, for some, on their recovery from addictions or mental health issues. Their transforming self-narratives existed like a Russian Nesting doll: each layer an emergent selfconcept manifesting at different points in twelve years of filmmaking. In our film, Ethical Traces, the main character, Brian Dodge, having found permanent, safe and pleasant housing, deliberately abandons his old self-concept. On screen he reacts to reviewing the video of his former self, in what I call “originating moments,” with a resounding, “No … the past is the past … you can’t change the past.” Brian’s story shows an ex-bank-robber, drug addict, and homeless nomad who lived in a reckless shantytown and then, given the tools for a conventional life, learned to become a conventionally housed member of his community. He needed to abandon those original moments to do this. Not all of the folks in the film who received housing made successful transitions. Several died, unable to sever the tendrils of the past. But those who did, it seems, had successfully used the slowing down of time in stable housing to carve a new conventional self out of the wreckage of the past. Two years after Brian died, I used these videos in a women’s rehabilitation facility in Galveston, Texas. Watching the film gave clients chances to see themselves in other people’s stories and opportunities to use that knowledge to understand their own situations better. The work

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is not about forcing us to relive the pain of the past, but to understand our self-narratives as connected to other experiences. Viewers can relate to behaviors and concepts in the generalized other created by the folks in the films. This provides positive openings to self-reflect on how one’s own path might be changed for better or worse. More to the point, this method utilizes ethnographic film to afford viewer and film participants the opportunity to look back synchronically, reflexively, at what I call

Figure 4.2 Brian Dodge, 2010. Eight years into geared-to-income housing, after a life of crime, drugs, prison, and homelessness, Brian rejoices at the opening of the “Edwin” Hotel, a supportive housing program in Toronto for other men who were experiencing homelessness. Behind him are photos of the renovation of the 100-year-old hotel. “It’s like me,” he joked. “Reinvented.” ©2010 Eric Weissman. (Color original.)

 

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“originating moments”—things we or they did at one time captured on film – but permits them, in their more current sense of self, to speak their truth free of the shackles of the static time so often imposed in filmmaking (Figures 4.2 and 4.3).

Figure 4.3 QR CODE for Ethical Traces.

Summary This chapter provides a brief history of camera use in social science research. First, we look at early research that used photography to gather images considered “accurate” and “real” slices of life from the field. However, early equipment was quite cumbersome, drawing significant attention to the photographer and requiring considerable expertise to use effectively. Within the past few decades, cameras, photography, and filmmaking have become far more accessible (and much less obtrusive), opening new possibilities in fieldwork as new technologies allow for different types of images. This chapter concludes by briefly noting some implications of the widespread availability and use of digital equipment. Images can be shared immediately with a subject—and almost as quickly transmitted around the globe, potentially influencing subjects’ concerns, willingness, understanding, and investments in the research process and endeavor. Further Readings and Resources • An Anthropologist in Papua: The Photography of F.E.Williams, 1922–39 (Young and Clark 2002) • Anthropology and Photography: 1860–1920 (Edwards 1994)

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• Photography and Anthropology (Pinney 2011) • Principles of Visual Anthropology 3e (Hockings [1975] 2003), especially: • “Ethnographic Film and History” (Lajoux) • “Ethnographic Photography in Anthropological Research” (Scherer) • Working Images: Visual Research and Representation in Ethnography (Pink et al. 2004) • International Visual Sociology Association • https://visualsociology​.org/ • News and Resources for Visual Anthropology • www​.visualanthropology​.net/ • Society for Visual Anthropology • www​.soc​iety​forv​isua​lant​hropology​.org/ Notes 1 The resources listed at the end of this chapter include texts discussing the history of photography and film in research. 2 The camera obscura and pinhole cameras date back as far as the 4th century BCE; these were used for drawing images. 3 As Jacknis points out (personal communication 2012), photographers knew how to take a good picture, while anthropologists many times made crummy ones because they did not understand the technology. 4 Oxford-trained and a student of Malinowski, Williams was also known for his deft use of a camera. 5 See, for example, Harper 1988, Edwards 1994, Heider 2006, Durington and Ruby 2011. 6 Visual sociology and visual anthropology differ historically in the role images play as well as the role methods play in their creation and process in their analysis. Sociology has not been able to effectively un-tether itself from issues of validity, sampling, and purpose. 7 This can have cascading effects on the researcher and the data throughout their fieldwork (e.g., Marion 2010). 8 Additional obstacles came from a lack of post-production know-how and postproduction costs. 9 Perhaps the most famous examples of such staging are the outdoor performance of temple ceremonies in Trance and Dance in Bali by Bateson and Mead (1952), as well as the double-sized half igloo used in filming Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922). 10 On the downside, many such efforts involve no background or training regarding visual research. 11 See Hammond (2004) for a discussion of how the reflexive use of image responds to the critique of the theoretical turn.

References Cited Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. 1952. Trance and Dance in Bali. Film b&w, 22 min. New York University Film Library. Biella, Peter. 2001. “The Legacy of John Collier, Jr.” Visual Anthropology Review 17, no. 2: 50–60. Chaplin, Elizabeth. 1994. Sociology and Visual Representation. London: Routledge.

66  Cameras in Social Science Research Collier, John Jr. 1997. “Cultural Energy Lecture, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago September 19, 1987.” Visual Anthropology Review 13, no. 2: 48–67. Collier, John Jr., and Malcolm Collier. [1967] 1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Crowder, Jerome. 2017. “Commentary on ‘The Affective Lens’.” Anthropology and Humanism 42, no. 2: 180–188. Durington, Matthew, and Jay Ruby. 2011. “Ethnographic Film.” In Made to be Seen: Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology, edited by Marcus Banks and Jay Ruby, 190–208. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edwards, Elizabeth, ed. 1994. Anthropology and Photography: 1860–1920. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ———. 2011. “Tracing Photography.” In Made to be Seen: Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology, edited by Marcus Banks and Jay Ruby, 159–189. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. El Guindi, Fadwa. 2004. Visual Anthropology: Essential Method and Theory. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Flaherty, Robert. 1922. Nanook of the North. Film, b&w, 79 min. Home Vision Cinema. Gardner, Robert. 1964. Dead Birds. DVD 83 min. Documentary Educational Resources. Grimshaw, Anna, and Amanda Ravetz, eds. 2005. Visualizing Anthropology. Bristol: Intellect Books. Hammond, Joyce D. 2004. “Photography and Ambivalence.” Visual Studies 19, no. 2: 135–145. Harper, Douglas. 1988. “Visual Sociology: Expanding Sociological Vision.” The American Sociologist (spring): 19, 54–70. Hastrup, Kirsten. 1992. “Anthropological Visions: Some Notes on Visual and Textual Authority.” In Film as Ethnography, edited by P. I. Crawford and D. Turton, 8–25. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Heider, Karl. 2006. Ethnographic Film. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hockings, Paul, ed. [1975] 2003. Principles of Visual Anthropology, 3rd edition. The Hague: Mouton. Jacknis, Ira. 1984. “Franz Boas and Photography.” Studies in Visual Communication 10, no. 1: 2–60. Lajoux, Jean-Dominique. [1975] 2003. “Ethnographic Film and History.” In Principles of Visual Anthropology, edited by Paul Hockings, 163–180. The Hague: Mouton. Lutz, Catherine, and Jane Collins. 1991. “The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic.” Visual Anthropology Review 7, no. 1: 134–49. ———. 1993. Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Luvaas, Brent. 2017. “The Affective Lens.” Anthropology and Humanism 42, no. 2: 163–179. MacDougall, David, and Judith MacDougall. 1974. To Live with Herds. b&w film, 70min. Berkeley: Berkeley Media. MacDougall, David. [1975] 2003. “Beyond Observational Cinema.” In Principles of Visual Anthropology, edited by Paul Hockings, 115–132. The Hague: Mouton. ———. 2000. Doon School Chronicles. Film, 140 min. Ronin Films.

C ameras in Social Science Research  67 ———. 2006. The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Marion, Jonathan S. 2010. “Photography as Ethnographic Passport.” Visual Anthropology Review 26, no. 1: 24–30. Mead, Margaret. [1975] 2003. “Introduction.” In Principles of Visual Anthropology, edited by Paul Hockings, 3–12. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Nichols, Bill. 2010. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pink, Sarah. 2021. Doing Visual Ethnography, 4th edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Pink, Sarah, László Kürti, and Ana Isabel Afonso. 2004. Working Images: Visual Research and Representation in Ethnography. New York: Routledge. Pinney, Christopher. 2011. Photography and Anthropology. London: Reaktion. Rouch, Jean, and Steven Feld. 2003. Ciné-Ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Scheper–Hughes, Nancy. 2022. “Goodbye Kroeber, Kroeber Hall, and the Man We Know as Ishi.” In BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris. Scherer, Joanna Cohan. [1975] 2003. “Ethnographic Photography in Anthropological Research.” In Principles of Visual Anthropology, edited by Paul Hockings, 201– 216. The Hague: Mouton. Young, Colin. [1975] 2003. “Observational Cinema.” In Principles of Visual Anthropology, edited by Paul Hockings, 99–114. The Hague: Mouton. Young, Michael, and Julia Clark. 2002. An Anthropologist in Papua: The Photography of F.E.Williams, 1922–39. New York: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd.

Chapter 5

Photography

In this chapter, you will learn: • The advantages and disadvantages of still imagery. • The role of intent in creating photographic images, including the relationships between researcher, subject, and audience. • Basic photography and composition concepts, enabling you to better analyze the photographs you view and more thoughtfully create the images you want in your work.

Since we wrote the first edition of this book, a great deal has changed in the way we produce, share, and use various types of images. These technological shifts are addressed throughout this second edition. The cell phone becoming “smarter,” the ubiquity of Wi-Fi in cities and towns around the world, and the domination of social media platforms on the internet have catalyzed the making of images, their distribution, and our understanding of what images do. Smartphone cameras and applications allow us to take, edit, and manipulate images with minimal hassle and without the use of a dedicated computer. Ever-evolving camera technologies and onboard applications have reduced once sophisticated post-production techniques to nothing more than swipes and button presses, allowing the average user greater “power” over both the making of images and how they are consumed by viewers. That also means more and more people are making images daily. Furthermore, our images can easily be uploaded to sites where thousands of viewers will see them within seconds; images have saturated our lives with their distribution online. The ramifications have significant effects on our everyday lives (think news feeds, social awareness) and on the way we think about what we do, when we do it, and how we are seen by others. There are literally eyes everywhere. As we stated in Chapter 1, the stakes for research are even higher as such technologies have become commonplace; we must be even more cognizant about the research images we make and how we use them. High-quality

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images can be made in low-light or difficult situations where a once larger camera would have drawn attention to the user. Furthermore, people’s expectations and assumptions about the use of cell phones and the images made have changed, and continue to morph, requiring us to be even more mindful of how we consent our collaborators, and what they expect of visual research. For all the “ease” of using a cell phone and related technologies in the field for research, we are further harnessed by the ethical implications of their use, the immediacy of our actions, and the implications for our collaborators. There is no one way to do research. Likewise, there is never just one way that you should use imagery in your research. Instead, it is crucial to think about what types of imagery will serve you best and in what ways. It makes no sense, for instance, to decide that you want to produce pictures, video, or multimodal media without understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each. Chapters 6 and 7 will consider video and multimedia, respectively, but we start here with still images. These sometimes stand on their own, yet are often integrated into other media. Despite the evolving kinds of technology we are using to make images for research, we are still faced with three kinds of evaluative questions to consider about the use of photographs: when to use them (advantages and disadvantages), how to understand their relational parts (subject, researcher, audience), and how to recognize and utilize the basic compositional concepts that “make” a photo. Advantages and Disadvantages of Still Imagery What is photography good for, and what is it not good for? While there is more than one way to answer this question, it ultimately comes down to the fact that still photography freezes an image of what was happening in front of the camera at a specific point in time. This is both photography’s strength and its weakness. For instance, in Marion’s work with competitive ballroom dancers, their posture is better displayed in a still image, whereas video shows their movement style better. The numbers of people at a ritual, or the appearance of a specific object, are far easier to assess from a photograph, whereas how the ceremony was performed may be better depicted via video. What people were thinking is probably not best captured in a photo (although facial expressions may be very revealing of feelings), and an image will do nothing to capture sounds and smells. But what were people doing, how were they dressed, and what was revealed in their appearances? Here—as with architecture, geography, and the like—photographs are exceptional. They allow viewers to study multiple details simultaneously, serially, at length, and either in isolation or in relationship to each other in a way that linear media (including video) do not permit (see Figure 5.1).

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Figure 5.1 Ch’alla in Juli, Perú: November 2003: David Onofre and his family sit on the floor of their house during a misa blanca offering ritual. We met the diviner (yatiri), who appears in the lower right-hand corner, in a small village near Lake Titicaca, and invited him to David’s family’s home in Juli to perform a cleansing ceremony. This photo serves as a strong image for photo elicitation at a later date because one could discuss the various family members present and the space in which the ritual occurred, as well as the paraphernalia (coca leaves, llama fat, wine, etc.) used during the ceremony. Everyone is smoking in order to purify the space before the ritual continues. © 2003 Jerome Crowder.

Once upon a time, film technology that froze “a moment in time” required time in a lab, either by the photographer herself or via a developing service. Today, the production of digital images means instantaneous “reveals” both for the photographer and, often, for the research subjects or collaborators. Moments may be “frozen,” but in reality, they are retaken over and over again as people (including the researcher) react in the moment to the “freezing” of the previous moment. Time has thawed, in a way. With digital’s advantage of immediate review, researchers and collaborators can easily discuss what has transpired, allowing for elicitation without the latency of physical reproduction and permitting the instant sharing of images to others’ phones/devices and via links and online sites. Again, for all the advantages of digital’s instantaneous results, we must also consider their limitations. Not all of our collaborators will be comfortable with

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such technologies; they may be quite wary of them and the skills required to manage them. There may be a reluctance to use a small portable device/ screen/monitor for viewing or retaining images—they may want something more tangible and permanent. Furthermore, from the researcher’s perspective, digital allows us to take ever so many images, requiring us to later sift through and sort many more images (including many duplicates), increasing our workload and storage requirements (more on that in Chapter 9). Photographic Intent The many advantages of still imagery cannot answer the question of your intent in making photos in the first place. Initial questions for using images include: why are you taking pictures? What role do they play in your project overall? Here is where your intent as the researcher/photographer matters. In short, what “work” do you expect your images to do? Are they meant to be memory triggers somewhere down the line, either for you or for some of your research participants? Are they intended to document specific people/ places/events? Are they meant to give an overall impression of a particular setting or situation? (Do you even know how you want to use them yet?) Of course, all of these options are viable, but each strategic intent needs its own kind of image and involves different relationships between researcher, subject, and audience. Figure 5.2 illustrates the significance of photographic intent in crafting your images. Images that you reference to aid your own recollections differ from images shared with the community, both of which differ from images you use to present your research. Taking good ethnographic pictures depends on social and cultural sensitivity and may well be contingent upon personal rapport (as per Figure 1.1) and careful negotiations. In such cases, photography can serve as a powerful ethnographic passport to social and cultural understanding, especially within communities that value such images (Marion 2010, Crowder 2013). In all cases, the types of images you take (and how you then use them) are inextricable from how you make them and what you intend them to show, how, and to whom. Thinking about and understanding what types of images you want—and to what ends—allows the previsioning noted in Chapter 2 (i.e., the ethnographically informed understanding of what image will best depict what you want to show). It is useful to make the ethical point about the significance of knowing your intent especially because images are so casually and ubiquitously shared today on social media, across email, as texts on a phone, etc. The reflexive pause that darkrooms and developing processes necessarily imposed is gone. And the expectation that photos will be instantly shared must be recognized, discussed, and negotiated. The nature of today’s cellphone use means that cameras find their way into all kinds of settings, complicating the relationship between researcher and subject, collaborator and participant. Because

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Figure 5.2 Photographic Intent: All four of these images were taken at the 2007 British Open Dancesport Championships (perhaps most widely known as the Blackpool Dancesport Festival in Blackpool, England). All four were shot from the first balcony level but with very different intent: the general setting and busy floor of morning-time practice, including (relatively) informal outfits (top left); the congested floor of early rounds of the competition (top right); the spectacle of the final rounds of this prestigious competition, from the more open floor to the spotlights to the formally attired spectators (bottom left); and the focus of all of these other elements, the best dancing by the best couples in the world, in this case, Blackpool and World Professional Ballroom Finalists, Vitor Fung and Ana Mikhed (bottom right). © 2007 Jonathan S. Marion

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of their ubiquity, we must now ask, “how do we organize ‘consent’ to our taking photos?” We don’t believe the ubiquity of cell phones negates the need for consent; as we have suggested earlier, consent is an ever-evolving process, negotiated in the moment and realized over time. Key Photography and Camera Concepts What you want from your images matters and, in the end, is up to you and your assessment of the ethical and ethnographic considerations. Knowing what type of images you want is, however, different from being able to create them. We applaud that more and more people want to incorporate images in their ethnographic toolkit, yet also realize that most social science programs offer little in the way of appropriate technical training. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to help you better analyze the photographs you view and more carefully create the images you want in your work, whether you are using advanced photographic equipment or your personal cell phone. Because of the impact the cell phone has had on the photographic landscape, the market for stand-alone cameras has decreased significantly, but those that are available have features unlike any other cameras made to date. Most common are digital versions of the popular film-style single-lens reflex cameras, now called DSLR (D = digital), which have a very strong “pro” and “semi-pro” (prosumer) audience. A recent advancement in handheld cameras is the “mirrorless” kind, which maintains the advantage of using interchangeable lenses but is significantly lighter and smaller, due to the removal of the mirror (SLRs have mirrors allowing the user to see what the lens sees). Most mirrorless cameras have smaller sensors, allowing for smaller bodies and lenses, and thus less weight. Both of these digital varieties offer superior autofocus and video features and often have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. However, the wireless file transfer rates can be slow, necessitating removable digital media and manual processes of copying images to your computer. The output of some higher-end cameras can be used for television and film productions, a significant statement for any aspiring researcher interested in integrating images into fieldwork. Exposure Simply stated, the exposure or exposure value (EV) of an image is the amount of light received by the camera sensor (or film). While there is no such thing as an inherently “good” or “bad” exposure, in everyday use images that are too light or too dark are considered “bad.” In contrast, correctly exposed images count as “good.” However, unlike the typical on/off light switch in your home, your camera settings control how much light is “on” the sensor in three interrelated ways: shutter speed, aperture, and sensitivity. Shutter speed refers to how long the sensor is exposed to light and typically gets expressed in fractions of seconds. For example, a shutter speed

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setting of 1/60s exposes the sensor to light for 1/60th of a second (note: long exposures are expressed in seconds, e.g., 4s). While some recent cameras have more options, for the most part, each successive shutter speed roughly halves the exposure time, e.g., 1/30s, 1/60s, 1/125s, 1/250s. Faster exposure times—i.e., speedier shutter speed—freeze action better. For instance, you typically need shutter speeds of 1/250s (or less) to “freeze” human action— but this also allows in less light since each halving of the shutter speed also halves the amount of light getting through. For example, in Figure 5.3, Ryan set his Nikon D850 at 1/2000, f/18, ISO 1600 to stop the action while also creating movement in the image. Where shutter speed controls how long (duration) light is getting through to the camera sensor, it is the aperture (a.k.a. iris)—the adjustable opening in a camera lens—that determines how much light reaches the sensor (per unit time). Aperture settings are rated in f-stops and are written as f/4 or F4 or 1:4 (“4” is for illustrative purposes only). What is critical to understand is that because f-stops designate fractions of focal length, higher numbers (e.g., f/11 versus f/8) represent a smaller aperture opening. As such, successive aperture settings halve the amount of light reaching the sensor.

Figure 5.3 Marathon des Sables, Sahara Desert, Morocco: April 9, Amy Palmiero-Winters’ carbon fiber prosthetic leg was specifically designed for use with a wide variety of terrain changes. Here she competes in the Marathon des Sables, an ultramarathon through the Sahara Desert. © 2019 Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times.

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Think of the aperture setting as an adjustable-width traffic tunnel. When the tunnel is open to a quarter of its maximum width, it would only accommodate a quarter of the number of cars compared to when it is open fully. So, if there are eight possible lanes but only two are open, only two cars can enter at the same time instead of eight. It makes sense, right? Using this analogy, camera lenses function as traffic tunnels, and the maximum aperture of a lens is called lens speed.1 Because lenses with a large maximum aperture (rated as a small f-stop) can allow just as much light through in a shorter time—i.e., at higher shutter speeds—these are called “fast” lenses.2 The third variable that factors into overall exposure value is the sensor’s sensitivity to light, described by its ISO setting. “ISO” is not an acronym, it is a term held over from film photography. When using film, the ISO denoted its sensitivity to light. However, in digital photography, light (photons) travels through the lens and hits a sensor which turns them into electrical signals. The sensor is made up of an array of pixels that capture the photons (pixels are like “buckets”—more on pixels below). As they strike the sensor, the photons change the voltage of each pixel, and the voltage values are recorded by the camera. In essence, the sensor measures the color and brightness of each pixel and stores it as a number. Each digital photograph is effectively an enormously long string of numbers describing the exact details of each pixel it contains. These numbers are then stored as a file and placed on the data card. Increasing the ISO on a digital camera is effectively increasing the image’s brightness after capture (also known as applied gain). The higher the ISO rating, the greater the gain will be, amplifying each pixel. However, doing so comes at a cost in the loss of details, sharpness, and dynamic range. For example, if you set your digital camera to 400 ISO, it will have twice the gain as if you had set it to 200 ISO, in precisely the same way as 400 mph is twice as fast as 200 mph. But what happens when there are bumps on a road? Yes, you get there sooner when you drive more quickly, but you feel each bump and bit of debris that much more intensely. In essence, going faster increases the impact of the bumps just as it increases the distance covered per unit time. Higher ISO settings work in just this way as well—they amplify the voltages from each pixel across the sensor (to all input), allowing for images using less light but also creating less sharp, more pixilated, and less well-defined images. These amplified “bumps” of images shot at higher ISO settings are what photographers refer to as “noise.” Most noise occurs in the shadows, or dark parts of an image (Figure 5.4). So why does any of this matter? Because now that you realize that you can achieve the same exposure value in different ways, you can better control the images you take. One of the ways this can show up is in managing your images’ depth of field (DOF), the zone of acceptable sharpness both in front of and behind the main focus point. For example, do you want the foreground or background somewhat blurry (to help keep attention on the subject), or do these need to be in sharp focus (perhaps to provide important

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Figure 5.4  Apertures.

contextual information)? While every lens and every situation is different, here are four basic rules: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Larger aperture = shallower DOF. Smaller aperture = greater DOF. Closer to subject = shallower DOF. Farther from subject = greater DOF.

And, because you now understand the inverse relationship between aperture and shutter speed, you can make the adjustments needed to control the DOF. Figure 5.5 provides an example of how this all fits together. For cellphone users, note that the native photography/camera applications do not allow you to fine-tune your exposures before you take them. Instead, cell phone camera applications provide algorithms to make those adjustments for you automatically. Doing so is fine as long as you understand what the AI processor is doing in the background—essentially, it is manipulating these three variables (shutter speed, ISO, and aperture) to provide its best calculation of exposure value (EV). Note that you can download a variety of third-party apps (at all price points and subscription options) that allow

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Figure 5.5 Depth of Field: These images show a competition ballroom dress decorated by Doré Designs in Cape Coral, Florida. Using a very shallow depth of field, focused on the foreground, one image (left) draws attention to the design and detail on the hem of the dress being decorated. The other image (right), in contrast, uses a wider depth of field, focused on the mid-ground, to highlight the person and the process of placing the rhinestones on individual dots of dress glue. As these images illustrate, DOF can be used to deliberately direct attention to specific elements. © 2009 Jonathan S. Marion.

you to finely adjust these exposure settings yourself before taking an image. With that in mind, there are plenty of other photography/camera apps that allow you to adjust and manipulate the digital image after you shoot it, too! The most important aspect of using a cell phone for your research is to make sure it will do and behave as you need it to, then regularly practice with it so you know the results you will receive from it. If the cellphone cannot accommodate your needs, then consider moving to a dedicated camera to capture the content you desire. Before turning to actual image composition, it is essential to differentiate between image resolution—defined by the number of pixels in an image— and image quality. There are two variables at play here: the size of the sensor and the size of the pixels on that sensor. The camera’s sensor size determines the resolution of the images and how large you can scale or print them. It is helpful to note that what is called a “full-frame” sensor is equivalent to the traditional 35 mm film frame size (36 mm × 24 mm). As

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digital cameras evolved, developers used the 35 mm analogy so photographers could understand the relationship of sensor size to resolution. Given the technological advances of the past 20 years, not all of today’s digital cameras “look like” their film predecessors. Digital cameras do not require the physical space film does, hence sensors come in many different shapes and sizes. Many are astonishingly compact—think smartphone or action cam. That being said, smaller sensors apply a crop factor to lenses, capturing less of the scene than full-frame sensors do as well as less light. There are a wide range of pros and cons for each sensor size. Some photographers prefer the “full frame” because of its light-gathering capacity (works well in low light), while others prefer a cropped sensor as it will give them more “reach,” i.e., the ability to bring a faraway subject closer. Smartphones compensate for tiny sensors with powerful processors. The sensor size graphic (Figure 5.6) compares different size sensors, ranging from medium format (70 × 60 mm) to full frame (35 mm) to cell phone size, so you can visualize the relationships between them and perceive how image resolution and image quality can differ. Sensor size alone does not account for image resolution. Remember, sensors are made up of an array of pixels. And if you think of a pixel as a small bucket for light, it should be clear that pixel quality (which depends on many variables) makes a difference. It is not a simple matter of more pixels = better resolution. The number of megapixels in your cell phone camera may be up there, but each pixel may be considerably smaller than in a larger digital camera. So, in essence, there may be more buckets for light, but each bucket may be much smaller. Rather than getting bogged down worrying

Figure 5.6 Sensor size comparison chart illustrating various popular sensors, from fullframe (35  mm format) to a typical smartphone sensor. Larger sensors allow more pixels per square mm, one factor in increasing resolution and lightgathering capacity.

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about having a camera with more resolution, focus on the quality of the images produced, especially in whatever output (e.g., online, in print) you intend to use. Another pitfall to beware of concerns optical zoom versus digital zoom. Optical zoom refers to a lens’ capacity to use its optics (that is, to bend light) to make a subject appear closer to the camera. There really is no such thing as digital zoom! The term, borrowed from digital video cameras, may look like it is zooming in further. In truth, however, it is digitally enlarging a smaller portion of the sensor frame. In other words, once the optical capacity of the lens is reached, digital “zoom” pulls adjacent pixels apart and extrapolates what should go between them. Yes, this reduces image quality. But more importantly, consider our discussion of images as data in Chapter 3: using digital “zoom” lets your camera’s processor fill in what it “thinks” the data should be! Would you want to do the equivalent with your written field notes? Probably not. So, focus on the optical zoom available on your camera (or video camera) and avoid using digital zoom unless there is absolutely no other option whatsoever! And, if you’ve used digital zoom, always keep the digitally constructed nature of that image in mind and treat any such data accordingly. Some late-model cell phones offer as many as three different dedicated lenses (wide, normal, and telephoto) so the images are not manipulated by algorithms but instead accurately capture the light bending through the lens. The quality of these images is far superior to those “digitally” manipulated by the onboard AI, so if you are using a cell phone for research purposes, consider a phone that has multiple built-in lenses. You can also purchase lens accessories that attach themselves over the main single lens, offering a wide range of focal length options. However, these seem less versatile than the built-in ones, as they may be easily lost and must be removed when changing focal lengths. They can also be easily knocked off the phone, or worse, not cover the lens properly and create unwanted effects (e.g., vignetting) or block the lens entirely. Saving and Storing Also important to consider are the memory media and image formats you will be using. The physically small but ever-larger digital capacity memory cards in use today are an absolute advantage of digital photography. Compared to film, far more images can be recorded with far less time spent switching media. On-the-fly frame-to-frame ISO adjustments can be made, and immediate feedback is possible from reviewing the photos on the camera itself. Because of ongoing developments and advancements, we do not want to bypass any detailed discussion of the various digital camera storage media. In most cases, your choice of media will depend on your camera, and for most purposes, different storage media function in similar ways.

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In the early days of digital photography, there were many different card formats and storage capacities available. Over time, manufacturers have settled on three principal cards, each of which is quite secure and stable, however, they differ in durability and capacity. Secure Digital (SD) and its variations (SDHC, SDXC, micro) are by far the most common and may be found on entry-level, as well as pro and prosumer, models. CFexpress and XQD are newer versions of the CompactFlash (CF) standard, a format used in many high-end cameras due to its durability and read/write speed offerings. These cards are preferred for production-quality video and high-resolution cameras as they capture large amounts of data very quickly (write) and transfer that data off of them (read) without overheating or causing fatal errors. Here are our practical-use-level definitions: Storage capacity: how much digital data the card can hold. Read/write speed: how quickly images “write” from the camera’s processor to the card and how fast the card then downloads (reads) images to your computer. Unless you will be taking a lot of fast-moving action images (with multiple frames/second), or unless you will be taking hundreds or even thousands of pictures at a time before downloading, the write speed of most cards should be sufficient.3 As far as storage capacity, the number of gigabytes (GB) you will want depends on several variables. First, consider your camera sensor’s resolution. Higher sensor resolution means that the files it makes will be larger, and you will get fewer images on your storage device. Remember, this relationship is directly correlated with the number of pixels on each sensor and the amount of data those pixels create. Making lower-resolution images will create smaller file sizes, but you will sacrifice image quality. Also, realize that it can be much better to have more storage cards with less data on each in case of loss, theft, damage, or failure. Secondly, the number of images you can get on your card depends on the image format (e.g., JPEG, RAW). While there are many image formats today, the three most important ones for our purposes are RAW, JPEG, and TIFF.4 As the name suggests, RAW files are precisely that—all the data. A RAW data file contains all of the pixels’ information on the sensor for each image. While more basic cameras only shoot JPEG files, more and more cameras allow you to shoot in RAW (or sometimes in both simultaneously). The RAW files are much larger (meaning fewer images will fit on your storage media), and these images need specialized software to view (such as the software that comes with your digital camera, Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, or ACDSee). The larger files allow you more information to work with in the post-processing phase, for example, correcting for poor exposure or

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white balance (WB).5 For both of these reasons, many people prefer to shoot in JPEG format. However, as visual researchers, we cannot overstate how important it is to shoot in RAW whenever possible. To understand why, you need to know the reason JPEG files are so much smaller than RAW files. While RAW files record all the data at every point in the image, JPEG files are based on algorithms. In essence, if there are multiple black, green, or red areas, only the actual data for the first such area is recorded. The compression algorithm then records “same as that first area” wherever that color appears in the image. Viewing a RAW file is thus viewing a record of all the data, whereas viewing a JPEG involves looking at what a camera’s image processor considered “like” data. This distinction is not to discount the utility of the JPEG format when making the most of limited storage capacity or when it is essential to show images directly on someone else’s computer or upload them to social media or the internet. What is worth noting is that JPEG is not a lossless format, so data is lost when using this format. This is where TIFF files come into play. TIFF files are very large and lack some of the post-processing versatility of RAW files, but they share the JPEG format’s ability to be viewed without specialized image editing software. TIFF files can be compressed with minimum or no loss, hence they are commonly asked for in print publications; rarely, however, do we shoot to this format. The choice of camera technology and options depends on what you are intending to use the images for and on the subject at hand. For Marion, a cell phone would not have been appropriate to capture images of ballroom dancers in action, where images are central to the self-understanding of these ballroom subjects. Whereas for Crowder, an updated smartphone may have been useful in social situations or particularly useful in a photo-elicitation project, where cellphone images can be easily shared and discussed with participants and researchers. Image Composition Image composition is how the elements of a photograph are selected and arranged in the frame. Every time you look through the viewfinder, or on your screen, you make decisions about what to include and exclude from the photograph, as well as where to place them in the defining rectangle. Like composing with words or music, there are many different elements that affect an image, among them light, perspective, and subject matter. “Strong” images are those that are pleasing to the eye because of how the subject and elements work together. Developing an “eye” takes practice, and we advise you to look at other people’s work, specifically the kind that you would like to make, to see how they compose their shots. Then, try making some yourself; consider how you can control the perspective,

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the lighting, and the subject placement so your message is clear to the viewer. With the diversity of camera types and sizes available today, including the cell phone, we need to speak generally about the relationship between the lens and sensor because it affects how and what the camera “sees.” Lenses are categorized by focal length—the distance from the center of the lens to the surface on which the image will be focused. Lenses that represent a scene in a frame most like the human eye’s frame of vision are considered “normal.”6 Lenses that offer a broader field of view are considered wide-angle lenses, and lenses that provide a narrower field of view are considered telephoto lenses. Figure 3.2 provides an example of the difference between these lens perspectives. However, we most want to stress here that the wide, normal, and telephoto images are different: they show different pictures of the same things, even if they are all of the same subject matter. This highlights how it only makes sense to think of any image as “good” (or “bad”) in relation to specific intentions and criteria. Another critical variable concerns the source and location of the light in your image. There are more photography books about lighting than any other subject, which only makes sense when you realize that recording reflected light is photography. Rather than attempt a summary of this vast topic, we suggest a quick exercise: pay attention to the light outside at dawn, midday, and dusk. The light will come from different directions, from different heights on the horizon, and in different colors. Now, what about on a clear day, an overcast day, and a cloudy day? Next, pay attention indoors. Notice that things look different by window light versus candlelight, incandescent, or fluorescent lighting. Since the same thing can look quite different at various times and with varying light sources, there is no “just what was there” to photograph. Figure 2.6 illustrates this indoors, but we want to stress that flash can be advantageous outdoors as well, as seen here in Figure 5.7. Again, you need to ask yourself which image best helps you show what you want (and why). Space permitting, we would have an entire chapter related to flash photography. Remember, the most basic mechanism of photography is recording the light reflected onto the camera sensor—nothing more and nothing less. As such, flash can determine if you get a shot or not, especially if you are in a dark setting or your subject is heavily backlit (i.e., the natural light is silhouetting your subject from behind). The benefit of flash is seen in Figure 2.6, where it opens up what the viewer can see of a high-contrast indoor setting, and in Figure 5.7, where it balances out bright sunlight. Likewise, almost all of Marion’s ballroom competition images depend on flash, both to help “freeze” action and also as a necessity in often dimmed ballrooms with very mixed lighting (including hot spots, dark zones, and colored gels and spotlights). Especially if you do not have professional-level “fast” lenses,

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Figure 5.7 Daytime Flash Outdoors: Crowder made this image while riding in a tricycle taxi in Puno, Perú. Although there is plenty of light, the flash fills in the shadows cast on the driver’s face and upper torso by the canopy, balancing the exposure. This image also provides another example of the previsioning discussed in Chapter 2, as Crowder had seen this image in his head for months and then worked to find the appropriate driver willing to be photographed. © 2005 Jerome Crowder.

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flash can be the only way to get many images, so be sure to (a) research the types of flash available for your camera and (b) recognize this as a crucial investment. Cell phones are quite good at balancing highlights and shadows, and most come with a strobe feature that can be set to automatically fire (or stay off) depending upon the lighting situation. Remember this onboard feature, as it can be extremely useful in “punching out” shadows even when outdoors. Before you head out to make important images for your research, PRACTICE! Practicing with your camera and understanding how the flash and other features work will give you the confidence and understanding required to successfully utilize your camera’s features and get the shots you want/need/visualize. A final idea we want to introduce regarding composition concerns subject placement. First and foremost, do not center the focus circle in your viewfinder on your subject’s head! This common error leads to generic images wasting half the frame with space above your subject. Think about people you regularly talk to and interact with: your focus is not equally above and below their face, so why would you produce an image with this type of focus? Instead, and whether dealing with people, objects, or landscape, we suggest using the rule of thirds, a strategy whereby you use an imaginary tic-tac-toe grid to help create a more visually exciting and compelling image.7 This strategy helps move you away from horizon lines that essentially split the image into a top and bottom half and place key elements at points of visual interest (the intersections) as seen here in Figure 5.8. Many cell phones and digital cameras offer the placement of this imaginary grid on the viewfinder, allowing you to compose with those lines superimposed on your image. Check the settings of your camera and try working with it as you practice; eventually, you will develop your own way of composing and the lines may become less useful. Protecting and Powering your Camera Equipment Finally, before starting any project, you need to think about the batteries required for your camera and flash and the best way to carry your equipment. Today most cameras use a proprietary battery, meaning it is a camera-specific rechargeable battery. Consider the number of batteries you have and how long each will last you on a full charge. Furthermore, think about when you will have opportunities to replace or recharge these in the field. Remember, even the best digital cameras are no better than paperweights without power. Your camera (and flash) are also useless if you do not have them with you or if they break. Here is where having a camera bag can make all the difference in the world. Again, think about where you are going and what will be most important to you—there are camera bags for every situation! Some are larger and some smaller, some protect your

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Figure 5.8 Rule of Thirds: Notice the difference between the cropped version of the woman walking by and the full version of the same image. The bricks and beams of the wall in the full image suggest the imagined grid of the rule of thirds and connote a fuller sense of the atmosphere and movement than the cropped version of the image seen on the right. This image also provides another example of previsioning (Chapter 2) in that Crowder, having previously noticed how the late afternoon light fell on this wall in El Alto, returned to the location and waited for someone to walk by. Although walking in the opposite direction than anticipated, Crowder framed the image placing the Bolivian woman in the leftmost third of the image to imply movement. © 2000 Jerome Crowder.

equipment better, some are less conspicuous, some offer better weather protection, and some will hold a laptop or tablet computer. In any case, always try fitting your equipment into a bag before deciding if it is the one for you. No matter what, once you have found a bag, figure out a system for packing it and stick with it—this will help you keep track of all of your equipment in the field. Today’s cell phones, like higher-end cameras, are weather sealed, but don’t bet your work on it. Cell phones are easily dropped and scratched, so be sure to place adequate protection on your phone. We recommend installing a screen protector and keeping your phone in a case at all times. Make sure that the phone case does not interfere with the screen protector and use them in conjunction with your gimbal or other accessories before shooting important work, just so you know it all works together. Again, repairing equipment in the field can be difficult if not impossible, so we emphasize the need to protect your equipment; it’s a wise investment. Terence Wright’s case study provides a strong example of utilizing skillful photographic techniques and thoughtful image composition to achieve photos that conveyed his ethnographic intent. The resources listed at the end of the chapter point the way to learning more about photography.

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Case Study: Et in Arcadia—The British in France Terence Wright University of Ulster, Northern Ireland “The Arcadians are not so much warned of an implacable future as they are immersed in mellow meditation of a beautiful past.” —art historian Erwin Panofsky commenting on the Nicolas Poussin painting Les Bergers d’Arcadie (1637–38) It is estimated that there are over 150,000 British people living in France. While the majority live in Paris, others are widely distributed across the “hexagon,” as the mainland part of Metropolitan France is commonly referred to. In comparison to other British expats in European locations (e.g., the coastal resorts of Spain), those settled in France express less of a desire to establish a “Little England” (English pubs, fish & chip venues, etc.) and more of a tendency to learn the French language and integrate with the local population. There are a number of reasons why people have decided to migrate: economic migration, lifestyle migration, education, arts and culture, or the search for a warmer climate. While some have seen their move as expedient and practical, others have taken a more romantic approach, seeing France as offering something of a rural idyll. Some express a yearning for an imagined past: “It’s how England used to be 30 years ago.” However, this vision of Arcadia has been shaken by “Brexit,” leaving British citizens reconsidering their status with some deciding to return to the United Kingdom. My portraits are of British citizens currently living in the Vienne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France. The images concentrate on people, their houses, and the small environments that the British have shaped for themselves; the buildings they have chosen to make their dwellings and the subsequent modifications they have implemented. This perspective, set against the uncertain status of Brexit, anchors the images to a specific historical moment. The photographs aim to adopt a “straightforward” approach, juxtaposing formal portraits with “frontal” architectural images. The photographs result from a close collaboration between subject(s) and photographer; I aimed for locations and settings that establish degrees of standardization to make images comparable. From a technical standpoint, the subjects were presented in front of their dwellings as they wished but in such a way that the house fills the frame. For the camera, a 24 mm lens with small aperture was chosen to give maximum depth of field, resulting in clear details of subject and background. Normally I would advise using a tripod to minimize camera shake, but in such situations I prefer a monopod for flexibility of movement.

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The subjects for the photographs were not chosen to be a demographically accurate representation of the British community. Rather, they resulted from a mixture of chance, opportunity, and judgment. For example, photographing one retired couple led to photographs of their daughter and family. Furthermore, although a high proportion of the British are of retirement age, I sought out additional people of working age. Time has passed since the first photographs were taken: children have grown older and peoples’ circumstances have changed. This provides the opportunity for reshoots offering additional comparisons to the project. Like the shepherds in Nicolas Poussin’s painting many of the British residents feel they are living a utopian existence in a modern-day Arcadia. Yet, here idyllic dreams can be shattered by unemployment, ill-health, or death of a partner (Figure 5.9).

Figure 5.9 British in Arcadia: “When critically ill, I moved to be near my mum in France. Now, with two of my ‘babies’ I’m building a new life in the countryside.” © 2021 Terence V. Wright.

Summary At this point, you should have a much better idea of the advantages and disadvantages of still imagery, better comprehension of the fundamental technical issues and terminology, and some thoughts about composition. Based

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on these ideas, how can you look at, understand, and analyze still images differently than before? More importantly, what ideas does this give you for crafting your pictures? Our exploration of photography began by focusing on what still images “do,” assessing the comparative advantages and disadvantages of different types of visual media (with video and multimodal work addressed in the following chapters). Considering the role of intent in creating photographic images, we examined the triadic relationship between researcher, subject, and audience (first introduced in Chapter 1). Highlighting key considerations involved in making and analyzing images, we focused on photography as a tool for capturing behavior as seen by the user. We then introduced basic photography and composition concepts (such as framing, shutter speed, and ISO settings), allowing you, the reader, to better analyze the photographs you view and more carefully create the images that fit your work. As cell phones have become a primary means for making images, we acknowledge throughout this chapter (and the following one) the advantages and disadvantages of using cell phones for visual research and their tremendous impact on the landscape of traditional photography and videography. Further Readings and Resources • Photography (Bull 2010) • The Photography Handbook 3e (Wright 2016)—especially strong regarding visual literacy • The Photographer’s Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos (Freeman 2007) • CameraSim and Exposure Simulator to understand photography relationships: camerasim​.co​m/ • Digital Photography Review (helpful equipment reviews and educational articles) • www​.dpreview​.com/ Notes 1 Just a quick note on zoom lenses: a lens marked 28–100 mm f/3.5–5.6 means that it has a maximum aperture of f/3.5 when “zoomed out” to 28 mm and a maximum aperture of f/5.6 when “zoomed in” to 100 mm. While there are zoom lenses that have a constant maximum aperture, these are much more expensive, professionally targeted lenses. For our purposes, then, it is important that you consider the maximum aperture of a lens at the focal length you intend to use it. 2 This is really all that is going on with aperture settings. It just looks more complicated since to halve the aperture surface—and thus the light allowed—the diameter of the aperture reduces by a factor of 1.4 (the square root of 2). So now you know and understand why f/4 allows through double the light of f/5.6.

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3 If you plan to make videos on the same camera, however, realize that video requires high write speeds and that SD cards are rated by class (anything above 6 should suffice for on-board video). 4 Different companies have proprietary types of RAW files that often require special plug-ins to open, so check the specifics for your manufacturer. 5 In photography and videography, calibrating your camera to account for the color casts of different wavelengths of light is known as adjusting for white balance (WB). Some adjustments can be made after the fact (via software), but you should carefully read your camera’s instructions for setting WB and remember to reset every time your light changes (such as when you switch locations or angles, or as sunlight comes and goes). 6 Carrying over from 35 mm SLR (Single Lens Reflex) cameras, full-frame DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras show roughly the same field of view as the human eye using a 50 mm lens (50 mm from the center of the lens to the focal plane), making 50  mm a “normal” lens. If you are using a mirrorless camera (which are significantly smaller than the DSLR), the normal lens may be 25 mm because the relationship between the lens and focal plane is smaller. 7 Some cameras provide grid lines as options in their viewfinders or on their rear screens. Use them if possible.

References Cited Bull, Stephen. 2010. Photography. New York: Routledge. Crowder, J. W. 2013. “Becoming Luis: A Photo Essay on Growing Up in Bolivia.” Visual Anthropology Review 29, no. 2: 107–122. Freeman, Michael. 2007. The Photographer’s Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos. Burlington: Focal Press. Correal, Annie, Andrew Jacobs, and Ryan Christopher Jones. 2020. “‘A Tragedy Is Unfolding’: Inside New York’s Virus Epicenter.” The New York Times, April 9, 2020. Jones, Ryan Christopher. 2021. “Who Killed New York City?: Imagination, Authenticity, and Violence in City Souvenirs.” Lidé města 23, no. 2: 253–282. Marion, Jonathan S. 2010. “Photography as Ethnographic Passport.” Visual Anthropology Review 26, no. 1: 24–30. Wright, Terence. 2016. The Photography Handbook, 3rd edition. London: Routledge.

Chapter 6

Video (with Eric Weissman)

In this chapter you will learn: • The advantages and disadvantages of video for research. • Thinking intentionally about video for data collection, analysis, and knowledge mobilization. • Basic technical and production knowledge that will enable you to produce, and evaluate, video as visual research.

Choosing whether to use video or still photos (or both) depends on your access to resources, equipment, and the ultimate goals of your work. Chapter 5 outlines some of the basic differences between still (non-linear) and linear visual processes; in this chapter, we continue to explore the range of opportunities these tools offer. We briefly outline basic video shooting techniques for specific situations, like interviews or action sequences. We then address the potential pitfalls to be avoided when making videos. Our intent is to clarify the basic techniques of video production and to encourage the reader to continue pursuing the art and discipline of good ethnographic videography. Advantages and Disadvantages of Video in Research So, why use video at all in your research? Video allows us to record lived realities in real time and in a synchronous manner that no other range of media can provide. Synchronous linear recording (meaning that the audio and video are simultaneously captured on one media) captures social processes and follows actions and dialogue, all key aspects of ethnographic inquiry, as they naturally occur in the settings we study. In this way, video provides us with the data to see multi-dimensional ways that social life, rituals, arguments, and even sunsets, unfold in real time. By simultaneously capturing verbal

DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-9

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and non-verbal acts, settings, artifacts, and greater detail about people’s lifeworlds, ethnographic video provides access to multiple levels of important behavioral and contextual data. Ethnographers continue to write field notes about what is being said by those they work with, thus creating a textual record of lived social exchanges. But video can also be reviewed at multiple points in the process, by the ethnographer or in collaboration with the participants, in order to analyze the inherent and/or superficial meanings of events that have transpired (for example, see the case study by Weissman in Chapter 4). We have to think of what is seen as information. With video, much like unmediated seeing, you can watch the storyteller’s face, note how expressions change, and take note of body gestures. These relate to what we call visual cues and reflexive interactions—often subtle but very meaningful. Sometimes we don’t notice them consciously as they happen, but we see them when reviewed on video. This opens up a whole new array of analytical spaces for conducting and representing ethnographic research.1 Note that video does not make conducting research “easier.” In fact, video can complicate your research project if you do not know how to use it effectively and cannot explain why the medium advances your research question. You must first consider the ethics of using video, asking, as with still images, whether the participants understand how and when the video will be used. What are their expectations for the footage (present and future)? Using video will also require additional IRB procedures. As you develop your research protocol, along with establishing a solid answer to the question “why video?,” you will also need to align your project with IRB expectations for the protection of human participants. Specifically, your IRB will want to understand how your video data may compromise the identity of participants (requiring a release) and how the video will be shared, secured, and ultimately destroyed.2 In the production of video, as with still photography, we must always consider the role of the camera in the research. How people respond to you while holding a camera is quite different from how they may respond to you without one. This is called the Hawthorne effect, which states that people will modify their behavior if they know they are being “studied” (Adair 1984). Today, as cell phones are ubiquitous and cameras less conspicuous, you can film in more intimate spaces. Such characteristics also mean that participants may be more comfortable with your presence using a camera than they would have been years ago. Nevertheless, light and space will still limit where and how you can film. To reiterate, it is imperative that everyone involved understands who you are and what you are doing there, especially with a camera. Video analysis can be even more labor-intensive than coding textual data. You may find that you only use short snippets of video to code and analyze (Cartwright and Clegg 2017); pouring over hours of footage can be

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mind-numbing and inefficient. Using video in your research will require you to review and identify the scenes/moments that have meaning to you. Sharing that footage with your participants (as many researchers do), learning how they interpret the scenes and what they find important or interesting, can also be very rewarding. How you share that footage, though, may be problematic and location-specific. So knowing how you can securely review footage with your participants must be considered early on as you develop your research strategy. Intent In light of these possibilities, the questions to ask yourself when considering video in a research project are: (a) what is visually interesting or compelling about the research, (b) will a video help record this better than still imagery, and (c) if so, what will the role of video be in gathering, analyzing, and sharing ethnographic information? In answering these questions, you must decide if something fundamental to your project cannot be captured by any other means—in other words, will video analysis provide insight unattainable any other way? Poor answers to these questions include, “it would be cool to make a film about it” or “I won’t know exactly what I’m trying to say until I begin shooting.” We say this as a caution against confusing an artistic urge with a scientific purpose. In some cases, using video or film or photos in artistic ways is very much a part of the visual journey in ethnography, and artistic choices must be discussed in the texts or critical discussions of such works. Bourgois and Schonberg’s Righteous Dopefiend (2009), and Weissman’s Dignity in Exile (2012) are good examples of this kind of artistic reckoning with ethnography as they provide intimate, artistic (i.e., evocative, humanistic) representations of homeless persons and substance users combined with insightful and granular ethnographic detail. Thinking about your audience is also key to answering the “why visual” question and, as we discuss below, may determine the equipment you wish to employ. Depending upon the research topic, video data may be just that, data for analysis only. The footage you shoot will have a limited audience (yourself, your research team), and its main purpose may be to review multiple things happening at once or to verify other observations you have already made. Ethical issues (see Chapter 1) may also preclude your footage from ever being shown publicly. Video may play a supporting role, too. If you plan to make a video to accompany research (perhaps for an advocacy piece or documentary), you will have specific audiences in mind that will affect how you frame and construct the inherent message of the work. Will you show it in black and white or color? In short video clips or as a feature? Be careful when considering adding a video component to research, as a video production may become

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more persuasive than the intrinsic nature of the research. That is, your focus can easily be distracted from research to filmmaking—particularly if your funders or a community group expect a video product that promotes their position or if it is designed to be sold or shown commercially (as it was in some cases in the early days of anthropology). Before recording even one minute of footage, take time to understand the expectations of all involved. This will serve everyone better in the end. In most cases, the use of visual research “products” must be explicitly stated in an ethics review, so you will have ample time to shape your use of visual tools before entering the field. Consent Beginners often assume that a video presentation will be a popular means for sharing their research. Such a plan can very quickly become fraught with politics and issues beyond your control, discouraging any action at all. You must clearly share your intent for the video/film with everyone involved and keep that goal in mind during all phases of production. Documents called letters of “informed consent” need to be obtained before filming, and signed copies must be kept in your files or a confidential repository.3 Often specific rules are written governing the use of visual tools (see, for instance, Canada’s Tri-Council Policy Statement 2 guidelines listed in this chapter’s Resources and Readings; additional codes can be found in the Resources and Readings section of Chapter 1). Please note that a letter of consent for university or other educational research projects is not the same as a universal letter of release or simple consent form often used in the press or commercial video production. Such organizations do not have to list potential harms or provide other considerations that you must as an academic. For example, when human subjects in academic research “consent,” they retain the ability to withdraw their images and recordings from the visual research without penalty; this is generally not an available option in commercial work. There is a powerful ethical weight to doing scholarly visual research that commercial enterprises do not equally share. Having determined that the use of video will advance the research question you are pursuing, you must now think intentionally (and ethically) about the subjects of this video production. Do they understand the project and all its potential implications for them? What parameters do they wish to set regarding visual “limits” and permissions? What parameters do they wish to set for the usage of the finished product? If you cannot sufficiently answer the “why visual?” and “why video?” questions, we recommend that you stop. Do not consider video until these answers are clear to you, and clear and acceptable to those you are working with.

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On the other hand, video can enhance and help refine research questions, and possibly even create completely new ones. If you determine that video will help you answer a research question, there is a strong probability that it will also enable you to develop new ones. Cartwright’s case study (below) demonstrates how the use of video did not yield what they expected to find, but instead created a new way of approaching teaching techniques.

Case Study: Learning to Use a New Medical Technology—Excerpts from a Video-Based Study Elizabeth Cartwright Idaho State University We used video-based data in order to understand the process of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger 1991) among flight crew members of a rescue helicopter as they learned to use a new ventilator system.4 Our methods were designed to focus on visually capturing the process of learning a new, complex piece of medical technology and then systematically analyzing the resulting video data. While systematic text analysis has become a standard in qualitative research, the systematic analysis of actions has received less attention. Thus, our research focused on the analysis of the non-verbal actions that occurred as team members were introduced to and became more familiar with a new piece of medical equipment. During the training, the ventilator was attached to a mannequin and an instructor interacted with the nurse/paramedic in a one-on-one teaching interaction. The teaching event was videotaped from beginning to end resulting in approximately thirty minutes of visual and audio data for each instructor-learner dyad. Seven instructor-learner dyads with four different instructors were included in the study. One of the most important results from the study was that regardless of teaching style employed, the students all significantly increased their interactions with the new ventilator over the course of the training session. Oftentimes, students in this kind of a learning environment will complain that they didn’t get enough time to really work on the machine. By using videobased research methods, we were able to show exactly how much time students were given during different segments of the instruction, thus allowing for a more fine-grained understanding of this particular learning event (Figure 6.1).

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Figure 6.1 Hands-on Training: Flight crew members interact with the ventilator as the instructor watches them. Image capture from video. ©2012 Elizabeth Cartwright.

  Key Video Production Concepts Just because you have determined that video will help you answer a research question doesn’t mean that it will be easy to obtain useful data, despite how easy technology has made it to gather footage. We write not to scare you but to encourage you to think through exactly how you plan to capture the footage you need in order to do your work more effectively. Consider the phases of your video project. After you have identified the subject or purpose of the work, you will want to think about how to best capture this subject. To do this it may be useful to watch a number of video research projects so that you are familiar with the various genres. Films like Robert Gardner’s Dead Birds (1964) and Forest of Bliss (1985), and David and Judith MacDougall’s Photo Wallahs (1991) are classic documentarystyle films, whereas Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961) and the original recordings of the Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al. 1973)

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offer cinema vérité, reportage styles. Dark Days (Singer 2000), a film about homeless squatters in New York City’s subway, benefited by having a loose shooting structure but yours may not. Linda Connor, Patsy Asch, and Tim Asch created ethnographic films (A Balinese Trance Seance & Jero on Jero 1979) for teaching anthropology principles. There are a number of sources for streaming contemporary ethnographic and social science-oriented videos listed in the resources section below. Also for consideration is the camera you will use. As with the photographic equipment discussed in the previous chapter, the most common today for shooting digital video are DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, both of which can shoot high-resolution video in relatively small form factors. Without a doubt, cell phones are the smallest and easiest to manage, and now that a few have larger storage capacities of 1 TB or more, cell phone filming is becoming quite common. Once you have settled on your camera, you will want to practice in all of the conditions you can imagine you will encounter (e.g., interviews, close-up shots, moving with the subject). In order to do so, it is always beneficial to spend time on-site or in the field to get a sense of what to shoot, how to shoot it, and why you are shooting it. As mentioned, the digital capabilities of good-quality, hand-held, and prosumer video cameras, including those found in phones and tablets, give videographers many hours of shooting time depending on the format (HD vs. 4–6K) and frame rates. Gone are the constraints of a few reels of film (or tape). In the old days, because production costs were prohibitive, a great deal more time had to be spent thinking about what one was going to film before starting to record. For example, at the end of the 19th century, the films Alfred Cort Haddon made of the Torres Straits Islanders required dozens of people carrying heavy crates of wax-cylinder audio recorders and highly explosive film, only to record mere minutes of footage (Haddon [1935] 2011). The ability to shoot for longer periods of time is handy since often more of the setting and the subject will be captured than otherwise would have been collected. However, when we overshoot, those fewer, perfect seconds of outstanding video remain buried among hours and hours of lousy and difficult-to-distill footage. “Less is more” is often true when using video in visual research. Finally, post-production is when you edit and analyze the clips or scenes you have made. You will need to become familiar with non-linear editing applications (NLE) that allow you to select scenes and splice them together, adjust color, sound, and other elements. Like photo processing software, there are various price points and subscriptions available. Check with your institution for access and review the thousands of “how to” videos available online to learn how they work. Now that we have outlined in broad strokes the phases of a video project, the following topics address components of video-making: stability, composition, audio, lighting, and practice. We end the chapter with a more detailed discussion of the use of cell phone video cameras for visual research.

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Image Stability Shaky and poorly exposed video can ruin your research. Your viewers expect a clean, stable shot, except in cases when you are unable to do so during a fluid moment (vérité). In some kinds of reportage or documentation, a smooth shot is just not possible, and the grittiness and jitter help establish a visceral connection to the scene (think conflict zone footage, or situations of uncertainty, like 9/11 or the January 6th insurrection). Still, stable and smooth shots are the goal, and in order to achieve them, stabilizing the camera is necessary. There are two basic kinds: image stabilization and camera stabilization. Today, image stabilization (IS) technologies are commonly built into the dedicated camera and their associated lenses (Sony, Nikon, Canon, Panasonic). IS technologies adjust for natural shake and movement by electronically moving lens elements or the sensor plate itself. They can be battery-sucking and cannot fully eradicate shake and jitter, but rather help in low light situations. For on-site field shooting, various types of gimbals and stabilizing grips can be used to keep a camera unit stabilized. (The gimbal will be discussed in detail at the end of the chapter in its applications to cell phone video and photography.) You can also learn to use your body as a tripod (see Figure 6.2) or even strap a monopod over your shoulder and brace it against a belt line to provide a smoother tracking shot in the field. In a number of situations, such as talking head interviews (in the field or in a studio space), the use of a fixed tripod is a solid solution. However, because a tripod can limit your mobility, it is not perfect for every situation. Hand-held shooting, with or without a gimbal device, allows for on-the-move-filming or “run and gun” (as per Bishop’s case study in Chapter 2) and can also be used as an intended effect.5 Even when shooting hand-held video, and using your body as a tripod, pan to follow the action by rotating your trunk (i.e., never your arms). The bottom line is (1) make sure your shots are steady, and (2) always consider how you will do this, whether using your body, tripod, or other stabilizing device. Audio A necessary complement to steady video is high-quality audio. Even when you have the most beautiful, steady shot of people conversing, if the audio is unsynchronized, noisy, scratchy, or inaudible, you will lose your audience. The assumption made by most filmmakers is that films appeal only to people who can see. But this is not the case. Visually challenged people do watch and listen to films, so clear audio is even more important when we remember that point. Historically, movie watchers are accustomed to sound being a part of their viewing experience. Even old silent film actors had lines they had to mouth because audiences needed to read their lips to pay attention. Video production is no different; if compromised by poor audio, your work

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Figure 6.2 Stabilization and Sound: Videographer Michael Brims (Associate Professor of Communication and Digital Media at U. Houston—Clear Lake) is seen here stabilizing his video rig by holding his elbows close to his body and his feet spread wide—effectively creating a “tripod” with his arms and torso—during a handheld shot in Fallbrook, CA. He follows the couple by pivoting at his waist, not turning his arms, to keep the shot steady and smooth. The two people walking past him are wearing wireless lavalier microphones to capture their discussion. The high tones of their voices are balanced with the mounted shotgun mic, which picks up the lower frequencies. All audio is fed into a multichannel field mixer (in his shoulder bag) and then into the camera, which he monitors with headphones. ©2012 Jerome Crowder.

becomes almost worthless to your viewer. A number of post-production non-linear editing suites (e.g., Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Logic Pro) have built-in audio tools to address audio synching and other issues. Arguably, sound quality is more significant than video quality. For instance, think of all the video clips posted on YouTube and Vimeo or those recorded on mobile phones. You probably accept this suboptimal video without much thought but quickly get irritated by garbled, poor-quality audio. All prosumer and pro cameras come with a number of built-in microphone jacks, and some now work with Bluetooth recording devices. Unless you are recording the audio separately, when investing in your camera and tripod you should also consider purchasing complimentary microphones suited for your device(s). It is rare that the onboard microphones can do a very good job. We are not advocating the most expensive available, but we

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Figure 6.3 Microphones and Pick-up Patterns: Some of the more common microphones you can use in your filming, and their respective pick-up patterns.

do encourage you to research appropriate microphones, or “mics,” for the kind of shooting you plan to do—especially as there are several different types, each with its own kind of pick-up pattern, application, and transducer (see Figure 6.3).6 Remember that entry-level professional cams, or prosumer cams, usually use mini RCA or Bluetooth external microphones whereas pro cams afford Full XLR secure connections and multiple audio channels. For recording the voice of a single participant, lapel mics are very useful. One word of caution is that shooting around water, especially moving water, is very challenging, often sounding distorted in compressed video. Since you will rarely show uncompressed footage, it is necessary to have a very sensitive microphone and to practice a number of compression settings to maintain audio integrity. It is important to test mics by shooting footage with each mic and then replaying it on a linear editing suite to see if there are real advantages to the product you have chosen. YouTube reviews on this high-tech gear are plentiful, too. The most common microphones are omnidirectional (picking up from all directions) and directional (picking up from specific directions). Remember the onboard (built-in) microphone is not sufficient for gathering sound, and the onboard speakers are useless for checking sound. However, most camera viewfinders display audio levels that allow you to check your sound settings before you shoot. Headphones are also essential gear for producing good audio as they allow you (or someone else on the crew) to monitor the level

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of the audio being recorded on the soundtrack of your video. In-ear or overear styles may matter, but not as much as the fact that you use something to listen to the audio your microphones are capturing!7 Paul Henley (2007) underscores the importance of environmental sounds and how they constitute a “soundscape” for ethnographic filmmakers. When well employed, such audio thickens the film’s descriptions, enhances the viewer’s experience, and intensifies the film’s effects. In essence, he argues that contemporary digital filmmakers should consider the aural as much as the visual in all aspects of production as this will “greatly increase” the quality and complexity of their films. Steven Feld’s (1990, 2004) explorations of “acoustemology” (one’s sonic way of knowing or understanding the world) describe the importance of sound in everyday life and how the acoustic complements the visual experience of film. It helps us understand why we expect audio when we watch film. In considering our aural and visual perceptions of the world, what makes sound so powerful is that we do not recognize the ways that it affects us (Erlmann 2004; Thom 2003). Even more directly, sound and creating sounds have become the subjects of mainstream filmmaking opening the door for deliberate emphasis of the aural in visual studies and generating awareness of the “multimodal” nature of research today (the subject of Chapter 7). Figures 6.4 and 6.5 show the attention to audio we have been advocating (also see Figure 6.2). Notice, for instance, a dedicated sound person on each team using different types of external microphones and monitoring the audio pick-up through headphones. Steps that can be taken not to compromise the quality of the audio being produced can be seen in Figure 6.4 in the use of a sound baffle (or Zeppelin) on the shotgun microphone to prevent picking up any wind noise. Figure 6.5 shows another important audio consideration: the use of non-verbal signals between the camera and sound persons during filming. In addition to these measures, onboard and post-production tools allow for controlling sound gain and pitch. As the resolutions in video capture increase (High Def, 4K, etc.), viewers also expect an equal boost in sound quality. Composition Once you have your camera steadied and ready to go and you have checked your audio, it is time to think about composing your shot. Use all the same principles that you would to compose a really good still image (i.e., the miseen-scène, as per Chapter 2). Think through subject placement, depth of field, and watch out for distracting background elements. If you are setting up an interview, place the subject off-center, remove any extraneous objects from the interview frame, and do not shoot with a window or a mirror in the background if at all possible. Move your subject until they’re nicely framed

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Figure 6.4 Sound Matters: Joanna Casey shoots video from a ladder while soundperson Kimbra Smith raises the boom mic with Zeppelin attached to capture the sounds of the craftsman working on a boat. North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort, NC, SCRM 2008. ©2008 Jerome Crowder.

in a way that allows the viewer to focus on the person who is talking, not on something popping out of the background. Also, as noted in Chapter 2, the human eye naturally moves to the point of greatest contrast on the screen, so take care with your composition. Video, unlike a still photograph, has that added component of motion that you can use to your advantage while framing your shot. Think how the repetitive motion of a swing or a teetertotter can be used to draw attention to the part of the frame that you want to highlight. Be aware, motion draws attention. As such, it can easily distract more than it adds.8

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Figure 6.5 Non-Verbal Signaling: Cameraman Jonathan Marion communicates with soundperson Courtney Carothers while shooting a boat builder at the North Carolina Maritime Museum speaking with a patron. Their faces have been blurred to protect their identity because we (a) take our ethical obligations seriously (as per Chapter 1), and (b) do not have consent forms from these persons. North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort, NC. SCRM 2009. ©2009 Jerome Crowder.

B-roll To make strong and compelling video, you need more than talking heads and action shots: you need footage that helps you transition between scenes and keeps the viewer from getting bored of watching people talk. This is where B-roll comes into play. B-roll refers to the supplemental footage that you can use to add context and meaning to a sequence, to transition between scenes, or to eliminate unwanted content.9 Both as you are planning and shooting, think about the ancillary shots (e.g., establishing shots, public activities, events) that could help you tell a story. For example, what footage could you later weave into your video to help illustrate whatever your interviewee is discussing? Never underestimate the usefulness of having B-roll, as

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it significantly enhances your ability to flesh out whatever topic you cover. There is a debate among filmmakers that centers on whether or not B-roll should literally show what is being discussed by the voice-over or if it should show a related image that supports but is not literally the same. This is a decision that you will make in post-production. If people on film are talking about how to build a tiny home, showing that construction is useful. If they are talking about a sense of being isolated, a number of other images may support that narrative. Never underestimate the utility of still photos to help emphasize a point or clarify an issue. There are many stock image resources online that can be used to augment this aspect of ethnographic filmmaking. Lighting Proper lighting will help your subjects appear lifelike and real. Avoid overexposures. Over-exposing actually reduces the visual data captured on the device and no amount of post-production can help you resolve overexposed or spotty footage. There are some programs that can restore minimally underexposed footage depending on the way it has been shot, but not perfectly so. Unlike shooting RAW and color digital photographs, which allow you to manipulate the exposure value (EV) in post-production, digital video (and most certainly film and analog video) requires nearly perfect exposure at the time of recording.10 This is especially true when shooting in bright or dark settings. Bright settings can bleach the shot and dark settings will be so granular (noisy) that they will be unwatchable. Tweaking digital video EVs can be tedious and inconsistent in the end, so we advise you to consider the quality of your lighting sources before shooting. Many modern DSLRs/mirrorless systems offer easy EV adjustment and very high ISO values, but these are not easy to learn and do not make up for shooting in less-than-ideal lighting. For this reason, current videocams and DSLRs have much-updated auto settings; for some video makers, the auto settings can be quite impressive, especially with the current autofocus and auto ISO features. However, since an office or other interior space can be congested with different types of light (e.g., incandescent, fluorescent, natural light coming through windows, for example), typically expensive auto function will show the changing lighting in the hue and saturation of images, and that can be as annoying as shaky footage. Again, if you can provide a more stable lighting environment, that is desirable. Hot light kits are available that will even out the lighting on the face of someone being interviewed, although they can be quite expensive. Even outside shots can be improved with artificial light since clouds, trees, buildings, and other shadow-casting objects can wreak havoc with natural lighting (on faces in particular). Besides lights themselves, less expensive options like reflector cards (gold, silver, white) can be used to bounce more even light back onto your subjects. However, it is also important to remember that

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there is a social psychology to using many devices in situ. A rule of thumb is to use only a little obvious technology in shooting natural or spontaneous events; you have the freedom to use more tech in actual interviews. The technology will impact the social dynamics of the shoot. White balance is a very important concern. If not shooting in auto mode, then just like the digital sensor in your still camera, the video camera’s sensor must be set to “recognize” what different shades of white look like. Being outside during sunny or cloudy conditions or inside using incandescent or fluorescent bulbs means your camera’s sensor will be reacting to a different spectrum of light cast off by each source. What you see and what the camera sees are two very different experiences. When you move from one setting to another, such as stepping outside at sunset, you will at first notice how orange and warm the light seems to be. However, most of the time your brain adjusts quickly to what your eyes are “seeing” so that you can make sense of blacks and whites and other shades of color. Where your brain constantly readjusts, this is not necessarily true for your camera so you should set the white balance for the camera before you begin shooting each time. In other words, depending upon the type of light you are shooting in, “white” can vary greatly, so defining “white” under your particular circumstances is fundamental to natural-looking results. Most cameras can do this automatically using an AWB (automatic white balance) setting, but you need to do this each and every time you go to shoot and with every change of your setting. Be sure to check your manuals in advance (and practice) in order to know exactly how to make these adjustments on your camera. Different shades of white paper can be useful for adjusting white balance in the field; remember to keep a few sheets with you. Smartphone Videography Today’s smartphones are incredible tools for research, capable of making photos, videos, and audio recordings, with the ability to edit those files on board and upload them to the cloud or share them across media. In fact, for some researchers, they are their preferred tools for capturing all of their digital data. A number of accessories can enhance smartphone videography, including gimbals (for stabilizing), microphones, and various types of lenses, each allowing us to improve the quality of our video. Furthermore, dedicated smartphone applications can help you record and edit with more precision and accuracy than those built into the device itself. Smartphones boast a variety of resolutions, including 1080P (High Definition 1920 × 1080 pixels) and 4K (Ultra High Definition 3840 × 2160 pixels). These can be desirable for various projects but require a great deal of onboard memory, storage, and powerful processors to edit. Lower resolutions may be fine for most work, especially if you consider how your final product will be viewed or used (on smaller screens like cell phones or laptops where a difference in resolution will be negligible). More commonly,

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smartphones offer specific features like slow-motion (faster frame rate played back at normal speed) and stop-motion options (shoots one frame at a time, to make animations), and even variable depth of field. Combined with dedicated apps like inexpensive Filmic Pro, you can manually control everything from shutter speed and aperture to audio levels and focus, making the small phone a very sophisticated video capture device! We suggest the following accessories to enhance your control and the quality of your video. First and foremost, a gimbal will help stabilize your phone allowing smooth and controlled camera movement. For example, as you walk down the street or over rocky terrain, the gimbal will keep the shot smooth and balanced (in all three axes). Many gimbals also allow for head tracking, which keeps the subject in focus throughout all movement, either by the subject or by the camera person. This is an incredible advantage and allows for continuous dynamic camera movement. Most gimbals also come with dedicated apps that allow for manual fine-tuning of the camera settings, such as shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. Gimbals appear at all price points; remember, you get what you pay for. The fanciest may also have heavier batteries and more controls than needed, while others may simply be mechanical gyroscopes that keep the phone balanced (enough) (Figure 6.6). Secondly, offboard, dedicated microphones greatly enhance the quality of your cell phone audio and are available in both wired and wireless varieties.

Figure 6.6 Gimbal and smartphone: Using a gimbal with a smartphone in order to steady the shot. Gimbals for phones and cameras help with focus tracking and allow for greater manual control during recording. © 2023 Michael Brims.

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Special adapters allow you to use two or more mics as well as headphones to monitor sound during the recording. Finally, accessory lenses snap in front of the smartphones’ lenses and allow you to shoot wide or telephoto, dramatically increasing the perspective of the phone. On most pro versions of iPhone and others, these features are now built into the cameras and graphics processors. Higher price-point adapters let you use DSLR lenses on your smartphone. Of course, if you do go with one or all three, be sure to practice with these accessories before you approach the research environment so you understand how they work and when you will need them. As we have stated elsewhere, it is a waste of time and energy on behalf of yourself and the participants if you begin filming and encounter problems that could have been addressed beforehand. One advantage of smartphone filmmaking is the possibility to shoot and edit everything on the phone itself. A wide variety of video editing apps exist; the most common is Adobe’s Premiere Rush, an intuitive app that provides a seamless transition between working on the phone and computer (it also integrates well with the stability of the Adobe apps). Creative Cloud members have a free starter plan available to them; otherwise, check online for similar apps that are free or low-cost. Weighing the pros and cons of using smartphones for both video and photography, one of the biggest pluses is availability and size. Most people take their phones wherever they go, and even with a lavalier microphone and a gimbal, the kit is still pretty lightweight. Also on the upside is the quality that recent phones are able to produce. Additionally, cell phones can add to collaborative research processes; research participants can take their own videos, which you can easily add to your footage. On the downside, however, is the limitation of recording space (onboard memory and offboard storage) on most cell phones, especially entry and midlevel versions. Although smartphones come with ever larger recording capacities, it is difficult or at least cumbersome to offload video onto a computer in the middle of a shoot because you ran out of recording space. Using a traditional camera, you would ideally just change SD cards in that situation. Nevertheless, smartphone filmmaking and photography are definitely on the rise, and if you are just starting out, it is equipment you may already own! Employing proper skills and technique, any recent smartphone can produce footage that rivals many traditional cameras, and with the onboard editing and easy distribution to the web or cloud, it can all happen on the go. Practice No technology substitutes for practice. As with still cameras, you must be familiar with your equipment so that when you need to use it, you can. Fumbling around with your equipment can be annoying for your subjects or cause you to completely miss the shot. We suggest that you read the

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instruction manuals and keep them with your equipment for easy reference. Go online and see the reviews and join the product community pages to interact with makers from around the world. Practice using your equipment; get to know its idiosyncrasies so you are prepared for and can address them appropriately. Subject your friends to mock interviews or shoot family gatherings to become familiar with your camera and different situations. For example, practice walking steadily with the camera to figure out what works best for you and your team (if you have one). And shoot in low light and bright light situations to figure out how to adjust your equipment to compensate. Whatever you do before you go “live” will yield exponential gains in video quality (Figure 6.7). An example of what can go wrong without sufficient practice with your equipment comes from a group of Marion’s visual anthropology students in 2009. Running late, the group of three students each signed out professional quality video cameras from the campus equipment desk, including a variety of external microphones. Arriving at their filming location (for a project on roller derby), the students plugged the mics into their cameras and spent the next three hours filming training and practice bouts of the local roller derby team and interviewing several team members. Not having sufficiently

Figure 6.7 Practice First: Three professors attending the Short Course in Research Methods Video Analysis course practice single-camera interviewing before going into town. Here, for instance, they try using a pad of large white paper as an improvised reflector to help light the subject’s face. Fuji Lozada, Maris Gillette, Scot Lacy. SCRM 2008. ©2008 Jerome Crowder.

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familiarized themselves with these cameras, however, meant that jacks for the external microphones had never been made “live,” and the students got absolutely no sound from three hours of observational and interview footage using three different cameras. As this case should make abundantly clear, practice with your equipment as much as possible before you ever use it in the field! Likewise, pay attention and check yourself as you go. For instance, if even one of these students had remembered to use headphones, they would have noticed that they were having a problem with sound. Also, realize that there are ethical implications to this error as well. It can be quite problematic to have nothing to show your participants after they have given you access to their lives, as well as their time and effort (e.g., for an interview).11 Similarly, what type of social capital will it cost you to redo your filming—if you even can? In our experience, we have found that a routine for setting up your equipment (tripod, camera, microphone, lights) in a set order (which is logical to you) effectively serves as a checklist so you can catch problems before they arise. After-the-shoot routines will also keep you ready to go the next time, such as recharging your batteries and placing them in the same pocket of your bag, or formatting your digital cards and keeping them in a cardholder that is always placed in the same pocket of your camera bag. Beware and be prepared. All too often, forgetting to recharge batteries or download digital cards can ruin an interview or one-time shot opportunity. Just like writing field notes following every interview, downloading your digital data and maintaining your equipment after every shoot should be routine practice for visual researchers. Evaluating Your Video Intentions and Objectives Thanks to relatively sophisticated hand-held video technology, you can begin implementing and evaluating your answer to the “why visual” question without depleting your research budget. Small HD video cameras (e.g., GoPro and cell phones) make it easy to introduce video capture into your research with simple-to-use and easy-to-access video devices, and then allow you to evaluate the recording immediately.12 We recommend making a number of short 1–3 minute clips of what you find visually compelling or appealing about your research. Experiment with your composition. In reviewing the shorts, consider whether or not you actually captured what you intended to. If possible, upload the shorts into a video editing application (there are many free ones out there), and splice the scenes together to make a very short piece—ideally no longer than 5–7 minutes. Share this with friends, colleagues, and the subject(s) of your video and ask for their feedback. At this point, it is up to you to determine whether to pursue a more sophisticated video production. In any case, however, at least you will have tested

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the utility of video for your research question and can then develop new ideas about how to approach your question visually if you were not successful the first time. If nothing else, stand-alone video “snapshots” can serve as informative means for describing behaviors (repairing boats, making food, street dancing, healing rituals) that enhance your written descriptions or elicit further discussion with your participants. Positive responses may indicate the need for a more sophisticated production, requiring an evaluation of appropriate equipment and personnel to realize the final product. Sometimes filming ethnographic footage is impossible given the content, location, or persons involved (see Datta’s case in Chapter 1). Other times, we want to visually explore anthropological concepts and level cultural critique but cannot do so using traditional fieldwork methods. Instead, we turn to ethnofiction, a genre of filmmaking that uses actors and scripts to portray and represent issues informed by ethnography but fictionalized for a variety of reasons. Jean Rouch is credited with first doing this with Les Maîtres Fous (1955), but you may be more familiar with popular works like Star Trek, or even movies like Blade Runner and City of God, films infused with ethnographic concepts and details. In the following case study, ethnographic filmmaker Mariangela Mihai uses the concept of ethnofiction to depict marginalized people and complex situations in the India–Burma–Bangladesh borderlands that may have been too risky to film “in real life.” Ethnofiction allows visual researchers to explore and investigate themes and people without jeopardizing their subjects’ safety or anonymity. Case Study: Activist Ethnography in the Editing Room Mariangela Mihai Georgetown University, USA I Am A Whisper, My Dear is an ethnofiction film I co-produced in collaboration with Mizo LGBT activists in Mizoram, India, on the India–Burma–Bangladesh borderlands. Queer counter-narratives too often rely on the trivialization of queer suffering and the celebration of Western notions of “coming out” and “queer liberation.” Our film moves beyond such narrative and representational registers to reveal Indigenous Mizo LGBT activism as a poetic logic outside of, and a critique to, queer theories rooted in Western understandings. Pervasive societal surveillance coupled with the lack of stories, privacy, bodies, silence, narrators, and filming locations—as well as the heightened risks visibility would pose to my co-creator—forced us to abandon early attempts at mainstream documentary techniques in favor of ethnofiction. To complicate a singular narrative of the Mizo

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queer experience while keeping close to its ethnographic truth, we mingled fiction with reality, poetics with politics, past with present, and imagination with observable facts drawn from long term ethnography. Drawing on feminist oral history techniques, my co-creators and I edited the transcripts of our ethnographic interviews (20–30 pages), into concise, poetic, and somewhat generalizable stories/scripts of Mizo queerness (2–3 pages). To evoke their inner lives, we decided to include the poems, songs, and dance performances they created over the years, as they struggled and failed to meet their families’ expectations. Intent on capturing visually the isolation Mizo queers experience in their everyday lives, we turned to sensory ethnography and improvisation. In one of the stories, for example, a Mizo LGBT activist speaks of their family’s anti-LGBT violence, through the voice of an actor (straight ally). Yet a third person, another ally turned actor out of necessity, “lends” us their body (which we film in silhouette only and from a great distance). This reshuffling of stories, voices, locations, and bodies is consistent throughout the film. For similar ethical and practical reasons, all the scenes are filmed at night—the only time when Mizo queers feel at ease as they can finally move around through landscapes devoid of the judging eyes and aggressive interruptions of homophobic passers-by. Due to the lack of privacy in typical Mizo households, streets, and neighborhoods, we were forced to shoot the film in isolated locations, outside of the city, and sometimes even outside of Mizoram. Ultimately, neither a mainstream documentary approach nor ethnographic filmmaking

Figure 6.8 QR code to access Mihai’s film: I am a Whisper, My Dear.

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techniques could mitigate the heightened risks visibility poses to Mizo LGBT activists. Only through ethnofiction, the collaborative and improvisational methodology we used to film and edit, were we able to silence the dominant anti-LGBT voices and manufacture a virtual space in which Mizo queers could not just exist but even hope—an intersectional feminist and queer filmmaking praxis I refer to as activist ethnography in the editing room (Figure 6.8).

Further Educating Yourself There are vast resources available online and in camera shops, clubs, community groups, film collectives, and schools throughout many cities across North America and Europe; get to know yours. Do not underestimate the effectiveness of one-day or weekend workshops sponsored by continuing education programs, professional organizations, and art centers. Enrolling in a one-day or multi-week course will dramatically improve your (pre and post) video production skills, which will in turn enable you to better evaluate your answer to the “why visual,” “why video,” and “how” questions. You do not need to enroll in filmmaking courses dedicated to ethnography to learn the fundamentals of video production for social science research. Instead, share your ethnographic ideas with the instructors and learn how to achieve your visual research goals. We have each significantly benefited from taking many different types of courses from places like the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Houston Center for Photography, and Maine Media Workshops, to name a few. Summary In this chapter, we stressed the need to consider the visual aspects of your research and how they translate to video, remembering that not all research easily does. Once you have decided that important aspects of your work are visual, you need to ask yourself how video helps you make your research point. When preparing to shoot, think about what you need (previsualize), and do not shoot too much just because you can. Consider your participants’ assumptions about video: are they willing to work with you and be on camera? Do they understand their role in the video? What are your audiences’ expectations? Consider how your participants and audiences may have very different expectations for what to do with the video once completed. Equipment considerations include camera choice, appropriate microphone, sufficient recording media, and appropriate lighting (even if just in the form of an improvised reflector). Based on production pitfalls to avoid, this

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chapter suggests several key considerations to getting your video to work for you, including keeping your camera stable; composing your shots; ensuring good-quality audio and lighting; and practicing regularly with your camera before shooting for “real” (Figure 6.3). Further Readings and Resources • Beyond the Visual: Sound and Image in Ethnographic and Documentary Film (Iverson and Simonsen 2010) • Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos (Barbash and Taylor 1997) • Reflecting Visual Ethnography: Using the Camera in Anthropological Research (Metje Postma and Peter I. Crawford 2006) • Handbook of Participatory Video (Milne et al. 2012) • Using a gimbal and other important production and post-production techniques and instruction: • https://vimeopro​.com​/cos​micl​ight​prod​uctions​/tutorials • Shootsmarter www​.youtube​.com​/user​/DiscoverMirrorless • Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2, 2018) • https://ethics​.gc​.ca​/eng​/policy​-politique​_tcps2​-eptc2​_2018​.html • Sources for streaming contemporary ethnographic and social science-oriented video: • Kanopy www​.kanopy​.com​/en/ • Documentary Educational Resources www​.der​.org • Alexander Street https://alexander street​.c​om Notes 1 Do not forget, however, that video is not a substitute for observation and notetaking. Indeed, reviewing your footage requires as much attention as observational methods for you to know the content of your footage. 2 Institutional IRB’s can vary in their guidelines for ethical visual research. Indeed, even federal guidelines for ethics in human research reflect the difficulty of resolving all the complexities of visual representation. In Canada, the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2, 2018) outlines all major ethical concerns but with some ambiguity around visual methods—mostly over potential harm and anonymity. 3 This assumes you are dealing with populations where written and signed consents are viable. In absolutely every case, however, you should have a record of consent, such as that given on video. 4 From Cartwright and Romero 2009. 5 Jean Rouche, for instance, perfected that cinéma vérité feel in his work, but entire films were not shot from his shoulder. You may also want to consider counterbalancing technologies like a “steadycam” system, which allows you to walk with a video camera, but these are significantly more expensive and require

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practice to use effectively. Shortcuts for building your own stabilizing system (backpack with weights and straps) can be found on a variety of web pages, so if relevant to your work, (a) do some research, and (b) practice. 6 A transducer is a device that converts one form of energy to another, which, in a microphone, generally involves converting acoustic energy (air pressure) to electrical signals. Types of transducers vary within microphones, from ribbons (like an ear drum) or moving coils (like a loudspeaker) to the changing of electrical charge between metal plates (condenser). Each type has advantages and disadvantages as far as sensitivity and durability. 7 For more sophisticated set-ups, a small “field mixer” allows you to mix multiple mics, on the left, right, and/or center channels, before being recorded on the soundtrack—which you can also monitor with headphones. 8 As a rule of thumb, do not zoom while filming. Instead, stop, zoom, and then begin recording again. 9 The term “B-roll” derives from linear-based editing in which supplementary footage was placed on the B (of A & B) deck. 10 Mirrorless cameras with the ability to shoot hi-def video in RAW format appeared in 2020. As it is relatively new, there is still debate about when and if RAW format is useful to all filmmakers (see, for instance, www​.digitalphotopro​.com​/pro​-video​/should​-you​-shoot​-raw​-video​-in​-2021/). With or without this capability, exposure always matters. 11 The silver lining to this situation was that when needing to re-film, these students already knew which angles and shots they felt would help them best tell the roller derby story. In other words, familiarity with the setting helped them prevision (Chapter 2) the images and sequences they wanted to record. 12 Almost all modern digital point-and-shoot (P/S) and SLR cameras offer a video capture feature, although not all HD quality. These, too, will satisfy the exercise.

References Cited Adair, J. G. 1984. “The Hawthorne Effect: A Reconsideration of the Methodological Artifact.” Journal of Applied Psychology 69, no.2: 334–345. https://doi​.org​/10​ .1037​/0021​-9010​.69​.2​.334 Barbash, Ilisa, and Lucien Taylor. 1997. Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bourgois, Philippe I., and Jeff Schonberg. 2009. Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cartwright, Elizabeth, and Adam LaVar Clegg. 2017. “Peaches for Lunch: Creating and Using Visual Variables.” Medical Anthropology 36, no. 6: 519–532. Cartwright, Elizabeth, and M. Romero. 2009. “Lifeflight Ventilator Project: Identifying Teaching Styles in a Critical Care Setting Using Videotaped Data.” Presented at Annual Kasiska College of Health Professions Research Day, February 2009, Pocatello, Idaho. Connor, Linda, Patsy Asch, and Timothy Asch. 1979. A Balinese Trance Seance / Jero on Jero ‘A Balinese Trance Seance’ Observed (47 min.). Australia National University and Documentary Educational Resources. Erlmann, Veit, ed. 2004. Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity. Oxford: Berg.

114 Video Feld, Steven. 1990. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression, 2nd edition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Feld, Steven, and Donald Brenneis. 2004. “Doing Anthropology in Sound.” American Ethnologist 31, no. 4: 461–44. Gardner, Robert. 1964. Dead Birds (film, 83 minutes). Documentary Education Resources. ———. 1985. Forest of Bliss (film, 90 minutes). Documentary Education Resources. Haddon, Alfred C. [1935] 2011. Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits: Volume 1, General Ethnography (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haney, C., Banks, W. C., and Zimbardo, P. G. 1973. A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review 30, 4–17. Henley, Paul. 2007. “Seeing, Hearing, Feeling: Sound and the Despotism of the Eye in ‘Visual’ Anthropology.” Visual Anthropology Review 23, no. 1: 54–63. Iverson, Gunnar, and Jan Ketil Simonsen, eds. 2010. Beyond the Visual: Sound and Image in Ethnographic and Documentary Film. Højbjerg: Intervention Press. Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacDougall, David, and Judith MacDougall. 1991. Photo Wallahs, color film, 60 mins. Milne, E.-J., Claudia A. Mitchell, and Naydene de Lange, eds. 2012. Handbook of Participatory Video. Lanham: AltaMira Press. Postma, Metje, and Peter I. Crawford. 2006. “Introduction. Visual Ethnography and Anthropology.” In Reflecting Visual Ethnography: Using the Camera in Anthropological Research, edited by Metje Postma and Peter I. Crawford. Leiden: CNWS, pp. 1–23. Rouch, Jean. 1955. Les maitres fous (the Mad Masters). 28m, color. Icarus Films, 2012. Rouch, Jean, and Edgar Morin. 1961. Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d’un été) B&W film, 90 minutes. Paris: Pathe Contemporary Films. Singer, Marc. 2000. Dark Days, B&W, 82 mins. Picture Farm Productions. Thom, Randy. 2003. “Designing a Movie for Sound.” In Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998–2001, edited by Larry Sider, Dianne Freeman, and Jerry Sider. London & New York: Wallflower Press. Weissman, E., and Nigel Dickson. 2012. Dignity in Exile: Stories of Struggle and Hope from a Modern American Shantytown. Mount Forest: Exile Editions.

Chapter 7

Multimedia (with Eric Weissman)

In this chapter you will learn: • The evolving role of multimedia in research and presentation. • How to implement multimedia in your research. • The advantages and disadvantages of multimedia.

Now that we have covered the basics of employing photography and video in research, we need to consider other media that help inform our work. Historically, ethnographers have used a wide variety of technologies to gather information, including tape recorders, pen and paper for sketching, drawing maps and making notes, electronic databases, and webpages, etc. and it is here we consider their contribution as data sources as well as means for presenting our research (more on this in Chapter 8). We call the combination of these technologies multimedia because when conjoined they each provide a facet of information and contribute to a larger set of data that helps us make our argument more complete (like a presentation with audio, video, text, and perhaps objects to touch and pass around). Amalgamating media creates a multidimensional experience comparable to those we are used to in everyday life—such as listening while watching (good audio makes good video). It is through effectively melding multiple media that researchers convey information and meaning.1 The point is that humans express themselves in many different ways, and in order to study human behavior accurately and adeptly, we need more than one type of media to capture and understand them all. Think about a street dance, a religious ceremony, or even a household scene, where the participants wear specific types of clothing, play special music to accompany them, things are said, sung, or whispered, and bodies move and react to each other in the process, not to mention the smell of food cooking and the packed audience reacting in unison. As an observer with multiple senses, you understand how these expressive experiences impact the moment, but try relaying those in text or image only and the experience falls short; it’s difficult to DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-10

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demonstrate how all of those senses work together in time and space. One single medium cannot help us understand these activities, sensations, and interactions, but a combination of media will more accurately record and reproduce them for future study and presentation. As the digital revolution has impacted social science research, those analog sources, like tape recorders or physical maps, have given way to digital counterparts that are viewed on cell phones and/or tablets. We can audio record interviews, take and show photos and video, display maps and documents, share files, and even input data directly into applications (like a database). What once took a room full of equipment to manage has been reduced to one handheld device in a cell phone or tablet. It is truly amazing that all of those various media we depended upon to gather and develop our work can fit in our pockets! Chances are you will be using multiple media in your research because these various media are accessible and mundane; it is how you combine them to make meaning for yourself, your participants, and your audience that matters. In this chapter, we consider how we use both multiple technologies and media to gather data as well as present it to our audiences. First, we discuss the evolution of employing multimedia in social science research and consider the most recent academic wave to crest in visual anthropology—multimodality, a term that represents the reflexive approach to multiple media in current research. From there, we consider tested and novel ways social science researchers apply multimedia to gather data as well as present it, ending with two case studies to illustrate the dynamic nature of the work and the impact these media can have in making meaning for participants and audiences alike. The Evolving Role of Multimedia in Research and Presentation Multimedia presentations have long been the way that anthropology and ethnographic work has been shared within academia and with general audiences. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Western anthropology, photos, artifacts, and films were often presented in libraries, museums, and theatrical performances, accompanied by narrators and live music. Before the advent of synchronous sound and visual recordings, short films from exotic places, often accompanied by people from those places as showpieces, were the manner by which people learned about “noble savages” and the primitive world (Banks and Ruby 2011; Weissman 2017, 69). Considered across a broad time frame, and recognizing the variable ways living beings can be part of the dissemination of knowledge, multimedia has long been a part of the anthropological project. The development of synchronous sound and film/video in the field heralded an important evolution in multimedia. By the 1970s, VHS tape

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recorders and tapes fitted to screens or televisions became a standard feature in classrooms and workshops, dramatically altering formal classroom pedagogy. When used by a speaker at an amplified podium, multimedia allowed for more effective communication. Audiences experienced different types of analog media at one time, thereby engaging multiple senses simultaneously and enhancing the overall experience. Because more senses were engaged, the messages presented were far more likely to be recalled. Multiple sensory engagement also meant that messages presented were more likely to be understood as truthful, an ethically complex phenomenon. Although technologically revolutionary, filmmaking remained dominated by the traditional linear story structure inherited from writing for almost 100 years. Films and presentations were designed to be watched from beginning to end in order to understand the story; this development of multimedia supported the narrative logic of linear storytelling. Digitalization of Media The digital revolution that began in the late 1970s, and the advent of the web a decade later, gave rise to non-linear media: media that are not necessarily produced or watched from beginning to end as narrative texts are structured to be read or films are designed to be watched. It took many years before the use of hyperlinks in web content emerged, but their arrival removed the linear scaffolds and analog media narratives, allowing for new ways to create media, develop stories, and distribute content. Unlike older analog slide shows or films that had to be fast-forwarded to move between scenes or important segments, webpage hyperlinks allow viewers to immediately move from digital chunk to digital chunk of desired information, and to do so in unique combinations and sequences. The term “web” thus describes the structure of nodes in a complex digital highway that connects topics, images, questions, and issues to multimedia sources. The second generation of the World Wide Web, Web 2.0, moved the internet experience to the interactive level (see, for example, Wesch 2007). No longer was the viewer/user moving through static web pages; they were instead engaging with the material directly—leaving comments, forwarding content to others, sometimes editing the text itself, and even uploading their own material. Social networking connects multiple users, creating meaning through their strong and weak ties to others, as they navigate a never-ending, alwaysevolving terrain on the internet. The internet, then, demonstrates how mundane multimedia has become in our lives. Where multimedia was once the pinnacle for engagement and reproduction, it has now become the common denominator by which all media are compared—increasingly media must be searchable, digital, include sound and video, plus a mode to engage with it through content sharing or response (multimodal). With social media, the

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web has endless possibilities for creating content and engaging with audiences. We must reiterate that sharing research on social media poses ethical and professional issues that you must consider before uploading any material connected with your research and the people you work with. The key question is: what can be gained by linking different media together in various configurations and relationships?2 Multimodal is a current term engaging visual anthropology and ethnography (Collins et al., 2017). It is an approach that troubles more traditional means for gathering data (text/image), suggesting multiple ways to both gather and produce anthropology through diverse senses, but also questioning the historical power structures between researchers and participants (Grimshaw 2022). As defined above, multimedia refers to the technology used to capture data and present the work but without challenging traditional understandings of researcher, research subject, and research data. An example of traditional multimedia is a PowerPoint presentation in which text, images, video, and audio combine to make a coherent, linear, argument. Multimodality disrupts the long-held dichotomies of ethnographic research, particularly that of text/image, diversifying our modes of inquiry to produce new ways of engaging with research and research participants (Westmoreland 2022). Multimodal, then, refers to the state (or mode) in which the information is gathered, interpreted, or experienced, complimenting but diverging from multimedia in both its scope and purpose. Multimodal encompasses the aural, visual, temporal, verbal, and gestural in a project while simultaneously regarding the relationships between researcher and participant, making these understood to the audience. Multimodal privileges the ways in which an audience experiences the project, for example, via social media whereby research participants engage with the work as would anyone else. While multimodality is an aspiration for our work, in this chapter we use the term multimedia to focus on the gathering and presentation of social science data—audio, image, text, video—in ways that are complementary to each other and enhance our understanding of the topic at hand. Not all multimedia projects are multimodal, but all multimodal projects require multimedia. The entertainment industry has eagerly offered viewers multimodal experiences. Consider the 4D movie; as the film plays, the viewer watches through special 3D glasses, while the seats may move or vibrate, and she may be sprayed with mist or fragrances. All of these are to emulate the real-world experience with the goal of making it as meaningful (and real) as possible. Researchers wanting to immerse viewers into the moment may turn to virtual reality (VR) and offer haptic gloves (for sensing) to offer an experiential encounter with their research. Sometimes the multiple modalities allow us to better understand the interaction of persons within the work, like the above example of social media, or online journals that provide links to raw data and the opportunity to directly connect with the researchers, and even video abstracts that push the limits of traditional academic representation and

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consumption. Online viewers may be offered combinations of video, audio, image, and text linked or layered over each other, like a bas-relief sculpture, cumulatively revealing information that one single media may not convey as easily. Creating this digitally may appear easier than doing so in analog, but it still requires multiple types of applications, knowledge, and patience to make it all work (if it does at all). While ethnographers recognize what they hope to achieve by pulling these modalities together, those building the applications do not, so combining files and sharing across platforms does not always work as well as we would like to think it would. Effective Uses of Multimedia for Data Gathering Elicitation In Chapter 5, we discuss using images to elicit conversation, notably photo elicitation. This simple technique involves the researcher using found or made objects to spur the participant to discussion. Sometimes these can be photos you have made, or perhaps images participants already have or have taken themselves which they can tell you about (see Figure 7.1). Video clips

Figure 7.1 Talking about Images: Conversation with researcher holding photos taken weeks earlier and having the participant comment on them. Titilaka, Perú. © 2003 Jerome Crowder.

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also work well to stimulate one or more people to explain what is taking place in the video segment. Participatory research often involves members of the research team doing just that, working with communities or groups collecting objects, photos, or videos and then sharing them with the group to explore their importance/relevance to the specific topic of inquiry.3 It is not just the images, then, that matter. It is the participant’s reactions to them that you want to understand—these are the data, too. If possible, you would want to audio record these conversations, as people can talk much more quickly than you can write! Like all aspects of research, you would have consent from your participants before capturing audio of your conversation with them, you would have placed the recording device in plain sight, and you could even offer to share a copy of the audio file with them (if they are interested). Some may feel video recording would be even more valuable, but we’ve found that in this case including video adds another layer of analysis that is not always revealing and requires a great deal of work to perform, sometimes outside of the time constraints of the project. Unless there’s a strong reason to videotape these conversations, we feel audio is sufficient (Crowder et al. 2022). Other excellent visual props for eliciting conversations include drawings, maps, and objects. For example, Crowder asked his research participants in Bolivia to draw their bodies and identify their different organs; he then asked them to discuss the various illnesses that affected each one. Maps are excellent for understanding how people conceptualize space and time; they can elicit conversations about all sorts of topics, ones you may not even expect, like politics, familial relationships, land tenure policies, crop rotation schedules, etc. What we want to emphasize here is that there are many complementary media that enable us to gather data, some of them may be visual, others are not, but such modes—like audio files or tactile objects—clearly add dimensionality to the visual. Remember, multimedia has ethical implications for the work we do. Armed with the latest digital media, and given the easy reach of the web, researchers have a responsibility to understand just how our use of multimedia creates people’s sense of reality while at the same time being part of that sensibility. Multimedia is integral to the ways we experience and understand the world while simultaneously generating intricate networks that influence and share in those experiences and understandings. Consider what happens when you place newly made research images on a social media platform; does the dialogue that emerges always accord with the dialogue you thought you were posing with them? How are they appropriated and interpreted by others? How are they seen and commented on by persons without connection to the work at all? How does the reality of these more distant commentators affect the perceptions, understandings, and experiences of you and the persons you work with? What realities are both made and altered with

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multimodal engagements? The ramifications of such wide and varied social responses to your work mean posting research images risks potential misuse by others in ways you cannot fully predict. Always consider the unknown ramifications of how your research media may be appropriated and generate issues beyond your control. In the long run, it will be best to check with your research partners, discuss your intentions for the images, and decide if web publishing is an agreed-upon option. Physical and Online Sources In line with our digital existence over the past 20 years, it is very likely that you will do a significant amount of research online before you even arrive at a field site. Through visiting web pages, you may glean a good deal of information about the demographics, the landscape, housing, economics, and other vital data that help you prepare for and think about the project at hand. These too are sources and should be treated as such in your work; catalog them like you would an interview or field note. Keeping track of that information helps you retrieve it when you need to review it in preparation for an interview or a presentation. You may also find useful other people’s blogs or discussions on the topic or places you are researching, which again requires a bookmark of some kind to track that source and recognize the information it contributes to your work. Government agencies and nonprofit organizations often make data they have collected available for researchers to use and incorporate into their projects. We call this secondary data; these can be census data, maps, or aggregated data like economics reports, agricultural production figures, tables, or graphs. Whichever they are, these would be considered different forms of media that you can integrate into your project as data for description, elicitation, analysis, or for inclusion in a presentation. For example, you could map those aggregated data onto a regional map that corresponds with households you have interviewed for your own analysis, or you could use them to spur conversation with participants. Sometimes the people you are working with have documents or objects that are important for your work, like a deed for a parcel of land or a contract, certificate, governmental form, or purchase receipt. These can be scanned or photographed and included as data for your research; they can be inserted into field notes or saved for analysis alongside other photos and documents. The key here is thinking broadly and recognizing the extent to which various types of “things” are data and can be captured and incorporated into your work. It is these media, along with your notes, audio and video files, and photographs that you will analyze in your research. Know that they may be key components in the production and presentation of your work. For example, in 1996, after he left rehab, Eric Weissman began

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a series of films about homelessness and addictions in Toronto, Portland, and other cities. In his dissertation (2014) and subsequent books, QR codes and URLs linked readers to the raw and polished footage he had gathered that had contributed to the text (see SUBTEXT 2019 Version UNBSJ—YouTube https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=CezCHIXzXHU). In the digital version of Janneke Verheijen’s (2013) ethnography on how improved livelihood security helps Malawian women’s safe sex choices, she embeds hyperlinks to her raw data set so readers can encounter details from her actual field notes and read the data that support her claims! Kate Hennessy’s work demonstrates the importance of developing a virtual exhibit (webpage) with the people she was working with to tell the story of the Dane-zaa prophets and the songs they passed down to current generations. They worked together to evaluate the cultural appropriateness of publicly circulating sensitive or sacred documentation of cultural knowledge online. http://hennessy​.iat​.sfu​.ca​/mcl​/dane​-wajich/ Effective Uses of Multimedia for Presentation In 2008, an exhibition about homelessness in Toronto called Housepaint, Phase II: Shelter Exhibit provides an excellent example of a multimedia experience. This large, year-long exhibit about Toronto’s infamous Tent City was held at the Royal Ontario Museum in a multimedia gallery called LeeChin Crystal (Ashley 2010, 2019). The project included anthropologists who showed documentaries on the drivers of homelessness, architects who built replica shanty structures, graffiti artists who painted the structures, musicians, and other creators who used their respective medium in concert with others to drive forward the debate on how to save people from dying on the street. In effect, the multidisciplinary team created an experience through a variety of artistic and creative forms to raise consciousness, promote activism for people living in tough parts of Toronto, and remind viewers of those who died there. Artists and social scientists immediately recognized the power of multimedia in their work and developed projects to capitalize on the multimodality it presented. Two pioneers who developed hypermedia to explore their research with viewers include Peter Biella and Carroll Parrott Blue. Peter Biella created Yanomamo Interactive (1997) in which he revisits the wellknown ethnographic film The Ax Fight by Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon. Filmmaker Carroll Parrott Blue’s award-winning interactive multimedia production, The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing (2003) explored numerous photographs, letters, historical documents, poems, and journals, along with art, film, and original music and lyrics to better understand how she and others like her experienced Black life in the pre-civil rights South. While dated by today’s technological standards,

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both productions sought to connect various types of media through non-linear links, allowing users to create unique connections between stories, people, and other types of data—connections that would be impossible to effect with a traditional book or film. In the mid-2000s, an ambitious project (NM2 New Media for a New Millennium https://cordis​.europa​.eu​/project​/id​/004124) sought to develop interactive media for four different storytelling platforms, including news, television, and documentary (Williams et al. 2007; Ursu et al. 2008). The ShapeShifting Media Technology (SSMT) allowed viewers to choose to view more or less of the topic, and the algorithm would keep adding or changing the content as requested. Terence Wright and his colleagues created “The Interactive Village” (TIV) which took place in Dolní Roveň, a village in the Czech Republic (see Ursu et al. 2008). “The Interactive Village” offered three different interactive modes: observational, didactic, and polemic. Each mode mimicked traditional ethnographic filmmaking approaches but left the real-time decision-making to the viewers, who could toggle for more or less of a topic or increase/decrease the complexity of a narrative, including voice, narration, and perspectives from male or female residents, leaders, academics, etc. This approach moved away from the traditional fact-based program structure to a more organic one composed of an irresolvable sequence of clips, accessed through an interface of thumbnails and a map-like projection. This non-linear approach offered a range of unique interactive personalized experiences related to viewing ethnographic materials. These materials had to be collected and collated, requiring a large database of clips and themes shot from a multitude of perspectives. While TIV disrupted traditional ethnographic filmic practices through interactivity and real-time scene selection, ultimately it required mountains of material, human hours of coding/editing, and burgeoning technologies that were not perfected for this purpose at the time. However, current advances in artificial intelligence (AI) allow computers to analyze video data and code, editing it fast enough that users can request more or less content in real time as desired. More recently, visual anthropologist and filmmaker Robert Lemelson has developed Tajen Interactive (http://tajeninteractive​.com/) in which he and his crew explore cockfighting in Negara, Bali (see also Lemelson and Young 2018). This ancient and controversial blood sport is depicted through sensory ethnography that allows users to navigate the material and create their own interactive journey through the world of cockfighting. Lemelson combines traditional interviews, B-roll, mixed media, kinetic animation, whiteboard drawings, and classic anthropological articles (Geertz 1972) to give the user multiple ways to engage with the world of cockfighting, its history, heritage, and ritual. Through these multiple media, Lemelson effectively elevates the notion of Geertz’s “thick description,” allowing the user to engage, explore,

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and experience the cockfight in ways even being there cannot allow. Most recently, Lemelson and his research group (Elemental Productions) have collaborated to produce another multimodal interactive online exhibit exploring Mead and Bateson’s collection of bi-cultural paintings from Batuan in the 1930s (see http://batuaninteractive​.com). Why Consider Multimedia? In this chapter, we have discussed what multimedia is and what it does for researchers. For your own work, you should consider what it can do for you and how it may best support your research. The strengths of using multimedia are (a) their power to integrate complementary types of data that maximize users’ experiences (whether for scholarly purposes or personal enjoyment), and (b) the significant ease with which they can be constructed and distributed (i.e., from a personal computer, tablet, or smartphone). At the same time, these strengths can also be multimedia’s greatest weaknesses; it is important to be cautious. Poorly designed or weakly constructed multimedia become muddy, and the elements can conflict making the presentation much more confusing. When distributed online, these mismatched messages lead to mass misunderstandings, destabilized knowledge bases, and erosion into what we might call “false news” or “false narratives.” As we have pointed out several times over, consider your intended audience and then design the project along the most appropriate and suitable conventions for this audience. If you do not, your product may have no impact whatsoever or, worse yet, be construed as misinformation and falsehood. In short, the most effective multimedia projects are those that integrate informative materials to enhance the experience rather than overburden the user, presenting materials in ways and relationships that a linear format cannot (Cartwright and Crowder 2017). This seems obvious, right? So, in order to make quality multimedia, do not get distracted by all the bells and whistles; simply focus on the quality of the content and the effective execution of its delivery. Whenever in doubt, keep it simple. Sarah Franzen’s case study is an excellent example of combining different types of media for both conducting and presenting her research. As she explains, sometimes conceptualizing how the data and media go together is easier than actually making it happen. One of the major issues with multimedia is learning how to make all of the different technologies “play well” together and recognizing whether it is worth the time investment in order to do so. Franzen’s case epitomizes an ambitious research strategy using multiple media to inform her inquiry while suffering complications beyond her control that ultimately made it impossible to fulfill. However, it is in the process of conducting the work with others and trying to make these media work together that we learn to ask new questions and develop our insights on the issues at hand.

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Case Study: Experimenting with Digital Tools Sarah Franzen Louisiana State University, USA More than just tools for creating end products, visual and multimodal tools are useful for thinking, analyzing, and experimenting within the process of research. As part of my research with farmers and farm cooperatives in the US South, I collected a series of video-taped land tours with participants. Each land tour began with an open-ended request for participants to share their stories and the places that were important to them. I then followed the lead of participants as we traversed their places by foot, by car, or sometimes both. Participants told stories along the way combining histories of their places with contemporary practices. Many also demonstrated practices, tended to animals, checked on plants, and pointed out key features in the landscapes. These land tours offered key insights into the processes of spatial production and the interaction between memories, practices such as farming, pathways for traversing the landscape, and material aspects. But I wanted to push further to see how other spatial aspects, such as political boundaries, population demographics, and landscape variations might play a role in the stories. I experimented with plotting five of these videos on a map using a GIS program called Carto. Each video was linked to a point on the map and could be viewed by clicking on a hyperlink. Using this program, I created color-coded background layers to add information, mapping census data by county, including poverty levels, education levels, and health indicators (see Figure 7.2). These data maps provided a national comparative to contextualize the counties within which the videos resided. Additionally, I used soil quality data collected by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to create a layer of the different soil types within the counties the videos were located, color-coding these by whether or not they were designated as good for agriculture by the NRCS. Together, the maps and their background layers interacted with the videos, demonstrating different ways of understanding and conceptualizing space and place. However, when I began sharing this project, I found that viewers overdetermined the map-driven data; the hegemony of the maps dominated the project. Rather than prioritizing the videos, or seeing the videos and maps as an interplay, viewers were concerned that the maps appeared to be veiling the diversity that existed within counties, oversimplifying aspects such as poverty and well-being. To emphasize the videos and convey maps as a singular and incomplete perspective of

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Figure 7.2 Multimedia in Research: Screenshot of data displayed using Carto, depicting the geographical location of the farm, corresponding interview, and map legend illustrating ways the land is utilized. © Sarah Franzen 2018.

place that affected and interacted with the videos, I turned to an interactive video program called Eko. Through this program viewers were able to choose among the land tour videos or click on the map as an external link. But this strategy did not fully convey the different visual materials as dialogical, nor did it convey the ways different spatial productions were manifested. Ultimately, I found the project unsuccessful and have moved away from using the maps because they tended to over determine the materials. Nonetheless, the experimental process led me to a better understanding of the material and a more thorough way of engaging with, analyzing, and thinking through the practices of spatial production.

Summary In moving forward with your own multimedia, remember that because you are producing more complex products, you are wearing at least two hats: researcher and producer. Good multimedia should seamlessly provide the context within which the user/viewer can experience your findings and

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conclusions without having to pay attention to your role as producer. When starting out, we recommend avoiding extravagant multimedia projects. The learning curve for these endeavors is quite steep, so seek professional training or work with partners who know what they are doing. Misusing multimedia can look like many things—too much zooming or panning in a video, overly staged photos, graphically dense websites, and sophisticated copy in sections of text are jarring and jeopardize the audiences’ interest in your work. There is a grammar and style to working with multimedia, one that must be learned just like a spoken language. Concise and well-thought-out projects will help you gain potential funding and maximize the time you have invested. While slick multimedia productions may entice (and even convince) viewers, remember that a great deal of work, time, and effort go into making them appear that way. Even though digital technologies make it easier for us to craft multimedia projects from our desktops, a certain level of skill and a considerable amount of focused thought is required to make the most of the technology.4 Further Readings and Resources • The Future of Visual Anthropology (Pink 2006) • “Elementary Forms of the Digital Media: Tools for Applied Action Collaboration and Research in Visual Anthropology” (Biella 2009) • “Interactive Media in Anthropology: Seed and Earth—Promise of Rain” (Biella 1996) • “The Somali Bantu Experience: Using Multimedia Ethnography for Community Building, Public Education and Advocacy” (Besteman 2009) • Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online (Kozinets 2009) • Participatory Visual and Digital Methods (Gubrium and Harper 2016) • The journal Visual Studies has a regular section called “New Media Review” that frequently considers multimedia productions • Free blogging sites • www​.blogger​.com • wordpress​.c​om • Instruction for webpages and multimedia • www​.shortcourses​.com • www​.w3schools​.com • Instruction for putting it all together in multimedia • www​.storycenter​.org • animoto​.c​om Notes 1 Technically video is multimedia (as is a photo with captioning), but in this chapter we are addressing multimedia as it is most commonly conceived; that is, not just for production but also for evaluation and presentation.

128 Multimedia 2 See Pink (2011) regarding the potentials and challenges of digital visual anthropology. 3 A powerful participatory research method, community-based participatory research (CPBR) collaborates with community members on all aspects of the research process—planning, research design, data collection, analysis/evaluation, dissemination of research information, and/or planning of community-level interventions. The aim is to partner with the community and ensure research is responsive to the needs they have identified. 4 Online web instruction is a great source for learning the basics, which you can develop further through professionally-led workshops.

References Cited Ashley, Susan L. T. 2010. Museum Renaissance?: Revisioning ‘Publicness’ at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. PhD diss. York University, Toronto. ———. 2019. A Museum in Public: Revisioning Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum. New York: Routledge. Banks, Marcus, and Jay Ruby. 2011. “Historical Perspectives on Visual Anthropology.” In Made to Be Seen, Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology, edited by Marcus Banks and Jay Ruby, 1–18. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Besteman, Catherine. 2009. “The Somali Bantu Experience: Using Multimedia Ethnography for Community Building, Public Education and Advocacy.” Anthropology News 50, no. 4: 23. Biella, Peter. 1996. “Interactive Media in Anthropology: Seed and Earth–Promise of Rain.” American Anthropologist 98, no. 3: 595–616. ———. 2009. “Elementary Forms of the Digital Media: Tools for Applied Action Collaboration and Research in Visual Anthropology.” In Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work, edited by Mary Strong and Laena Wilder, 363–387. Austin: University of Texas Press. Biella, Peter, N. A. Chagno, and G. Seaman. 1997. Yanomamӧ: The Ax Fight (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology multimedia series). Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Co. Blue, Carroll P., and K. H. A. Kang. 2003. The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing - An Interactive Cultural History (DVD). Los Angeles: Annenberg Center for Communications. Cartwright, Elizabeth, and Jerome W. Crowder. 2017. “Dissecting Images: Multimodal Medical Anthropology.” Medical Anthropology 36, no. 6: 515–518. Collins, Samuel Gerard, Matthew Durrington, and Harjant Gill. 2017. “Multimodality: An Invitation.” American Anthropologist 119, no. 1: 142–153. Crowder, Jerome, Peggy Determeyer, and Sara Rogers. 2022. ““Technology Is Wonderful Until It Isn’t”: Community-Based Research and the Precarity of Digital Infrastructure.” In The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology, edited by Elisabetta Costa, Patricia G. Lange, Nell Haynes, and Jolynna Sinanan, 77–88. New York: Routledge. Geertz, Clifford. 1972. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Daedalus 101, no. 1: 1–37. Grimshaw, Anna. 2022. “Does Ethnographic Film (Still) Matter? Reflections on the Genre in a World of Multimodality.” Visual Anthropology 35, no. 2: 120–137.

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Gubrium, Aline, and Krista Harper. 2016. Participatory Visual and Digital Methods. New York: Routledge. Kozinets, Robert V. 2009. Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Lemelson, Robert, and Briana Young. 2018. “The Balinese Cockfight Reimagined: Tajen: Interactive and the Prospects for a Multimodal Anthropology.” American Anthropologist 120, no. 4: 831–843. Pink, Sarah. 2006. The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the Senses. New York: Routledge. ———. 2011. “Doing Visual Anthropology: Potentials and Challenges.” In Made to Be Seen: Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology, edited by Marcus Banks and Jay Ruby, 209–233. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ursu, Marian F., Maureen Thomas, Ian Kegel, Doug Williams, Mika Tuomola, Inger Lindstedt, Terence Wright et al. 2008. “Interactive TV Narratives: Opportunities, Progress, and Challenges.” ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (TOMM) 4, no. 4: 1–39. Verheijen, Janneke. 2013. “Balancing Men, Morals and Money: Women’s Agency Between HIV and Security in a Malawi Village.” PhD diss. Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam. Weissman, Eric. 2014. “Places, Spaces and States of Mind, a Pragmatic Ethnography of Liminal Critique.” PhD diss., Concordia University. ———. 2017. Tranquility on the Razor’s Edge: Changing Narratives of Inevitability. Oakville: Rock’s Mills Press. Wesch, Michael. 2007. The Machine Is Us/ing Us. YouTube. Accessed December 9, 2022. https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=NLlGopyXT_g Westmoreland, Mark R. 2022. “Multimodality: Reshaping Anthropology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 51:173–194. Williams, Doug, Ian Kegel, Marian Ursu, Nico Pals, and Andra Leurdijk. 2007. “Experiments with the Production of ShapeShifting Media: Summary Findings from the Project NM2 (New Millennium, New Media).” In International Conference on Virtual Storytelling, 153–166. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

Chapter 8

Using Images

In this chapter you will learn: • Best practice for sharing images across various media and with various audiences. • Technical and practical considerations for incorporating images in each modality. • Ethical considerations for print and digital sharing of images.

At this point, you should recognize the complex issues surrounding the multiple types of digital files, including those for still and moving images, as well as audio and written documents. In this chapter, we discuss how researchers most commonly utilize their images to support the arguments they are presenting through a variety of modalities and audiences. We have argued for (and support) a position that prioritizes images as being as persuasive and meaningful as text for both academic and popular audiences, furthered by sensory ethnography, social media, and the complexities of partnered research. At the same time, we recognize that some researchers will continue to emulate the traditional academic path of supplementing text with images. This chapter outlines how to prepare your images for sharing them with participants, in presentations, in publications, and on the web and social media. With Research Participants One of the best ways to continue making photos/videos with your research participants is to provide them with copies of the work you create together. Small “working” prints are an often-appreciated gift, as are shares through social media or links to image folders stored on the cloud. As noted in Chapter 7, sharing images provides a point of discussion with your participants (whether at the time or in subsequent fieldwork). The photo-elicitation method uses images (instead of a series of questions) to prompt a discussion

DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-11

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and elicit commentary, focusing respondents’ attention on a particular topic, or exploring an interesting or puzzling aspect of what you are discovering. Part of the power of this method is that images frequently take conversations in directions that verbal questions alone cannot.1 Participants may react to images in a variety of ways (with pleasure, sadness, disinterest, or hostility). For Marion, dancers’ feedback on images has helped his understanding of what different people focus on and value in the aesthetics, performances, and techniques of ballroom dancing. Roque de Pinho’s research, outlined in the following case study, utilized a somewhat different photo-elicitation method. Photovoice relies on images that research participants take, and the stories they tell about them, in order to access dimensions of participants’ thoughts and experiences that interview questions cannot always engage.

Case Study: Bissau-Guinean Farmers Train Their Cameras on a Protected Area Joana Roque de Pinho Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Centro de Estudos Internacionais, Lisboa, Portugal As an environmental anthropologist working in and around African protected areas, my fieldwork takes place in heavily researched contexts where interview fatigue and tense relations among rural communities, conservationists, and state agents get in the way of building rapport and collecting meaningful data. Using images, and particularly Photovoice, has helped me address these challenges. By engaging members of local communities as collaborative researchers through photography and storytelling, I was also offered access to knowledge and information that other ethnographic methods did not uncover. During my first project in Cantanhez National Park in Guinea Bissau, I found that my interview data aligned a bit too nicely with the scientific and NGO-discourse on this recently created protected area and its human populations. Visibly appropriated by local residents, this discourse features Cantanhez as a “wild,” timeless environment whose biodiversity—rich primary forests, historically preserved from human depredation by nature spirits and sacred places—are now threatened by farmers and immigrants who “lack environmental consciousness.” By deploying this discourse, my interlocutors were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear instead of revealing how they really felt about the park. For my next field work, I decided to use Photovoice to address this issue, also hoping to collect data in a way that would be less influenced by tensions between the communities and the park management. I thus recruited and trained twenty-five local rice farmers, women and

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men, youth and elderly, who took pictures for four months and regularly took turns explaining them to me. By portraying and narrating complex ecological dynamics and revealing previously unreported local conservation practices, my collaborators’ images told a very different story, distinct from the dominant discourse and its stereotypical depictions of environmentally benign first settlers who spiritually protect forest patches “untouched by the hand of man” and ignorant, destructive newcomers. Their photography and storytelling also exuded their pride in and ownership of this land. That all this information was fully volunteered, rather than coaxed out, is one of the best features of Photovoice. When a community embraces a Photovoice project, unexpected data will emerge organically, adding to the imagery and storytelling. The participatory process itself, which included interactions between the photographers and other villagers and sharing of images and stories with other villages and political representatives, was also a crucial source of data. Documenting the social dynamics of Photovoice, however, demands that the ethnographer be consistently present. Today, it is probable that most of my collaborators own a smartphone. This was not the case in 2014, when none of the participants had

Figure 8.1 Community Research: Photovoice participants give feedback on each other’s images. Cafal, Cantanhez National Park, Tombalí, Guinea-Bissau. © 2014 Joana Roque de Pinho.

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ever touched a camera, possibly explaining why it was easy to recruit volunteers. These days, I wonder how internet access and image overload might affect the local appeal of Photovoice and its ethnographic contributions. At the same time, mobile technologies and social media open new avenues for collaborative ethnography; one can envision how Photovoice with smartphones might facilitate research dialogues, even from a distance (Figure 8.1). In contrast, Westmoreland works with his participants to rewrite how images that were once seen as objectifying can help his participants consider their land and resources differently. He describes how local knowledge informs his research through the interpretation of images as well as the ability to make them at all.

Case Study: Photography Reconsidered Mark R. Westmoreland Leiden University, the Netherlands Although utilized extensively by Marcel Griaule and systematically examined by various anthropologists, such as Evon Vogt (Vogt 1974), aerial photography has long been abandoned by anthropologists for its seemingly objectivizing optics. A few years ago, Hagit Keysar, a researcher based in Jerusalem and Berlin, nuanced my perspective on the modality. She had been trained by Public Lab, a citizen science organization who documented the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 using DIY low altitude aerial photography. While drone technology has become increasingly accessible for such forms of visual documentation, their use of kites and helium balloons to lift point-and-shoot cameras afforded a more participatory approach. Indeed, as an Israeli activist, Keysar mobilizes DIY aerial photography as a “civic view from above” that resists the authority of militarized and corporate forms (Keysar 2021). In collaboration with colleagues and professional photographers, I began experimenting with DIY aerial photography, in collaboration with colleagues and professional photographers in Ghana for its ability to generate a different way of looking at landscapes of extraction. We worked with a diverse set of local inhabitants whose livelihood is premised on small-scale gold mining, seasonal agricultural practices, and nomadic pastoralism. We were particularly interested in how participatory methods offer a simple way for communities to substantiate claims about their land resources and enable new conversations about sustainability. Sharing the images with our local collaborators

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facilitated rich discussions about details in the landscape that we as outsiders could not recognize, but also initiated vibrant debates among locals. While the thousands of images produced in burst mode during these flights may signal the abundance of digital excess, assembling a series of these into abstract shapes can renew fascination with mundane details in the landscape. Our lo-tech approach also allowed us to relinquish an element of outsider expertise and draw in more local skills and knowledge. Whereas access to helium was prohibitively expensive in Ghana, kite flying proved to be a particularly humbling endeavor. Kite flying relies on becoming intimately attentive to weather conditions. Being tethered to the kite emphasized the camera as an extension of the body and required careful navigation of environmental features and landscape irregularities. Learning when and how to get the kite to fly often resulted in failed attempts, but once airborne required another set of skills to control the pull on the line. Mismanagement of the line once resulted in the kite breaking free with the camera in tow. When a tree caught the camera rig, we relied on local tree

Figure 8.2 Research in Action: Images taken from Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) were stitched together to make this composite of a Fulani homestead, farmland, and herds. Villagers could then discuss and explain aspects of the images, helping researchers better understand how inhabitants interpret their landscape. Ghana. © 2018 Mark Westmoreland.

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climbing knowledge to retrieve it. Lo-tech and participatory, aerial photography allowed us to be uniquely embedded in the knowledges, landscapes, images, and conversations of our Ghanian interlocutors (Figure 8.2).

In Presentations Posters Perhaps the most common type of presentation for students and early career researchers is the poster, a highly effective and widely used means for presenting research findings. This is especially true when the research is designed to evaluate and show how policies or systems need to be changed. Often used in the sciences, posters were once very difficult to produce. That has changed with the advent of simple but effective graphics processing in almost all computers. Nowadays, a single PowerPoint or Notes slide, a photo on one’s smartphone, or a sketch on a tablet may be sized and printed to very large dimensions to display text and images. Theoretically, today one could do the research, create the visual or multimedia product, and present it without ever touching it. However, the success of the book, poster, or any medium, remains universally true: good presentation media should stimulate and reinforce interaction between the presenter and the audience; that cannot be replaced. To ensure the human interface, even online, refrain from using too much text or text that is too complicated. While building your poster, remember, posters are not papers. Posters are best thought of as a research calling card; they should present a series of key talking points—using text, images, and their relative configurations—that can be expanded on and discussed by the presenter.2 Resist the urge to put as much information on the poster as possible. Instead include the most relevant information, make it visually appealing and engaging, and use it to talk with the audience about the research. In the 21st century, perhaps beginning with electronic menu boards, professional meetings now often use flat-screen televisions and monitors to host interactive posters. A more recent poster-related medium is the glog (graphics blog), an online collage of text, images, and video. These are simple to construct and are an excellent means of engaging students. They have only recently been adapted post-COVID to online conferencing and teaching platforms. Whether digital or not, whether in social settings or academic poster presentations, posters provide important opportunities to mobilize and transfer research knowledge (Figure 8.3).

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Figure 8.3 Documenting Traditional Garifuna Drum-Making: The Austin Rodriguez Drumshop is an educational center regarding traditional Garifuna drum-making in Dangriga Belize. A faculty-led applied visual research class in the summer of 2014 worked with the family craftspeople to create an updated poster to illustrate the multiple phases of drum-making, replacing a well-used version they had shared with visitors for years. Shown is the delivery of the new collaborative documentary poster, laminated to protect it from the seaside elements. WhyNot Island, Dangriga Town, Dangriga, Belize, January 2015. Images courtesy of Jonathan S. Marion.

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PowerPoint In the last two decades, and especially in public knowledge-sharing events, PowerPoint slide shows tended to dominate academic (and business) presentations. These digital slide decks are not difficult to build from scratch or with supplied themes and styles. There are simple and complex PowerPoint presentations; they are quite different (El Guindi 2004). The former only utilize text and images and tend to be recounted rather than performed in innovative ways. More complex slide shows integrate animations, video, overlays, and other media, while depending on the presenter to speak alongside the slides. In this sense, we again want to recall that sometimes life brings life to media. The presenter is responsible for fleshing out the material for the viewer, recounting narratives, and serving as an interface between the audience and the presented (research) material. In the spirit of interaction, some presenters embed polls (e.g., Turning, Poll Everywhere, Swift) or multiplechoice questions into their PowerPoints to keep their audiences engaged and attentive. There are plenty of online videos that can teach you how to build effective PowerPoint presentations. What we focus on here is PowerPoint as an elementary form of multimedia that can be quite effective when used appropriately or disastrous when misused. Unlike physical slideshows (using analog slide carousels), PowerPoint presentations can be easily modified: images and text can be rearranged and edited, animations and audio used as augmentation, and videos or links embedded. While this versatility and adaptability are very useful, the different features available need to be used judiciously. It is all too easy to muddle your message and undercut the overall effectiveness of your presentation with purposeless—and therefore distracting—animations (e.g., flying text, special effect screen fades) or backgrounds (e.g., rainbows, sunbursts, garishly mismatched colors). The fundamental lessons learned in PowerPoint, Apple’s Keynote program, or other earlier forms of digital presentations are still important: only use the images, text, or video that enhance the delivery of your message. You must therefore keep in mind the nature of your audience and the conventions they will be most familiar with. For example, while academic or scholarly presentations may require references and citations along with theoretical discussion, these would likely be quite inappropriate (distracting, boring, puzzling) for a public lecture, such as to a Rotary Club. Public-oriented presentations should have more images and less text, and perhaps address community service. Such an audience should not be distracted during the body of the presentation with references in small print that can be put on a final slide, or better yet, a QR code linking it to your online bibliography (Endnote, Mendeley, Zotero, etc.).

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Visual Technologies in Teaching, Learning, and Research COVID-19 has made us more dependent upon presentation platforms and heightened the need for their evolution and utility. As the pandemic forced colleges and universities to move many courses online (indeed some students’ entire first or second years of undergraduate study moved online), the need for alternative delivery methods increased exponentially. Online courses have long been a feature of postsecondary education, with many universities offering online-only degrees; still, COVID has changed both teaching pedagogy and research methods. We were able to witness conferencing platforms like Zoom, Skype, Teams, and Google Groups evolve with the needs of students, educators, and research collaborators. New graphic systems, visual protocols, wider bandwidths, and increased gallery presence are just a few of the visual modifications that proved to be essential to end users. All of these tools, and there are more, confirm what sociologists working on early videoconferencing tech and early plans for smartphones in the 1990s had long been saying: for the world to gravitate to videoconferencing and get the most out of it, it is necessary to build the same kind of visual and aural cues that we use in our non-virtual lives. To keep students’ and conference attendees’ interest and attention, educators have learned that the virtual interface must be made interesting, compelling, clear from digital static and debris, and as real as possible. Considerations Here are some suggestions to help you make stronger image-based presentations: Technical 1. Use dark backgrounds (black, dark gray, or dark blue work best, as does a dark maroon) that provide contrast for your images and text. 2. Size your images to fit the space (see the discussion on optimizing in Chapter 9). The default size for PowerPoint workspace is about 8 x10 inches and you only need 72–120 dpi for digital projection. 3. Keep any transitions simple (like fade or dissolve). 4. Select “fade through black” for any animations to provide a “slideshow” appearance. 5. Center your images. 6. If you must place text over your image, make sure the font, size, and color are legible. A sans serif font like Arial or Century Gothic works well, and a slightly gray font trumps white. 7. Include the minimum amount of text needed; you want your viewers to engage with you, not just sit there reading.

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Practical 1. Clearly state the intent of your work and the use of images. 2. Use the highest-quality images and soundbites. 3. Remember that screen attention spans generally last three to five minutes. 4. Divide the talk into three- to five-minute segments to keep everyone’s attention. 5. Remove as much digital “clutter” as possible. 6. Apply the “less is more” doctrine. Don’t show ALL your research or too much emotionally charged material. 7. Leave space and time for others in the room to share their thoughts or emotional reactions to the things they have seen and heard. 8. Showing troubling or important research findings is often more triggering than merely talking about them. In Publications Perhaps the “lowest tech” and oldest form of multimedia is the illustrated text. In fact, in its infancy, and as an attempt to step away from European armchair anthropology, cultural anthropologists like Lewis Henry Morgan ([1870] 1997) and Edward Curtis (1907–1930) (if one accepts him as an anthropologist) used written text, fieldwork reflections, and images to establish in Morgan’s work the first complete kinship analysis of Eastern Indigenous Americans and to salvage in Curtis’ work the disappearing peoples of North America’s Northwest frontier. We can say there is an intention in these traditional texts to use images to support critical observations and to make such critical knowledge publicly desirable. This is the spirit of multimedia. The tradition of utilizing images to illustrate and expand textual arguments has continued unabated, with pioneering authors such as Bateson and Mead (1942, see elaboration in Jacknis 1988), Gardner and Heider (1968), and John Collier, Jr. (Collier 1967; Collier and Collier 1986, see Chiozzi 1989; Biella 2001) recognized for their combined use of images and text in their ethnographic work. Their seminal publications featured books on singular topics, regions, or people. Those early influential publications gave rise to contemporary research, too numerous to mention here, that elegantly combines text with image. Outstanding contemporary research has been recognized with the John Collier Jr. award for excellence in photography by the Society for Visual Anthropology; the winning titles can be found on their website. Photo Essay For social scientists, the photo essay is an increasingly common way to share research images and data in print and online. Twenty-plus years ago, very

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few journals published photos due to the costs of setting up images in a run as well as the additional pages they added to an issue. When photos were included, they were usually black and white because color separations were too costly. Academic publications prioritized text and all of the logics that accompany text; in short, they were logocentric. The value of images as part of the intellectual argument was seen as supplementary rather than complementary; images provided illustration for text—they were not understood to make a point in and of themselves. While textbooks were generally image-heavy, images were seen as extraneous to sophisticated (theory-heavy) rhetorical arguments; the use of images in social science monographs was generally limited and uncommon. However, with the advent of digital publishing, photographs are more frequently included because of the associated lower costs for producing color/black and white images, images which increasingly came to be seen as data themselves. Photo essays are excellent vehicles for making visual arguments—arguments in which the subject matter is clearly visual. When placed in series, the images move the reader from one position to another. All writing for the photo essay provides context for the images; not explaining what is in them but rather who is in them, what they mean, when they were made, and why. Readers bring their own experiences to images first, so the text must provide information that places the images in the research story, or readers may assume they understand and miss the point of the image(s). When considering a photo essay as a medium for presenting your work, begin by finding research themes that run through your images. What is visually appealing about them? How do they work together? When placed in a sequence (chronologically, geographically, theoretically, aesthetically), do they tell a story? Select those images that are both demonstrative and evocative, as you want your viewer to engage and think about the work. Once you have about 20, begin placing them in order/sequence, considering how to write around them to develop the context that weaves them together. It is always useful to share your selections with colleagues and get their feedback. Do they see a message in your images, what questions do they have about them, and are there images they feel do not belong? With those bits of insight, you can edit your selection and tighten your writing to create a pairing of image with text that says more than either media would say alone. There are no set rules for photo essays, but the general guidelines we propose include keeping them rather short in length: 10–15 photos maximum and no more than 250 words for each image. A photo essay is NOT an illustrated article; it is a balance of image and text. Images carry the message, and the words provide context for them. Like any academic endeavor, strong photo essays take time to select the images, craft the sequence, and write text that is both concise and poignant. Too many images and you bore your audience; too much text and viewers will stop reading (Crowder and Cartwright 2021; Heng 2020; Sutherland 2016).

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Anthropologist Brent Luvaas’ photo essay (Luvaas 2017) about street photography in Jakarta, Indonesia demonstrates a well-crafted mix of image and text, leaving the viewer with a strong sense of the everyday life of its citizens through a blend of art imagery and ethnographic photography (see Crowder 2017 for commentary on the photo essay). About his experience making those images, he writes, I wanted to learn to see the city the way local street photographers do, and I asked Widya Amrin, a Jakarta-based street photographer, to take me to one of her favorite places to shoot. This is one of the pictures (Figure 8.4) I took during that “photo walk.” I noticed these two men sitting on a bench outside the market. It was the posture of the man on the left, reaching toward his bench mate that attracted my eye, as well as the way his open mouth with teeth bared mirrored that of the face in the mural behind him. It was only later that I noticed that the two men on the bench composed their legs into the exact same position, each with one foot in a sandal. This is one of the affordances photography holds for anthropologists: it helps us to identify cultural patterns in how people hold, and move, their bodies. (Luvaas 2023, personal communication)

Figure 8.4 Sharing a Bench: Tanah Abang market, Jakarta, Indonesia. Photography, as Bateson and Mead once argued, often reveals patterns of behavior and bodily comportment easy to miss with the naked eye. © 2019 Brent Luvaas.

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In the spirit of multimodality, we can imagine that web-based photo essays will include audio files, short video sequences, and various visual effects that highlight the images or the look/feel of the piece. There are a number of online and print journals with a digital presence that offer photo essays as options for publication. Some of these are even peer-reviewed. We provide several resources at the end of this chapter that discuss the nature of the photo essay and its place in academic argument. Of course, there are other academic endeavors in which photos prove vital, adding to textual arguments while not usurping them. As mentioned earlier, books continue to be a primary locale for images, especially for ethnographers and social researchers who want to supplement their text with photos of people, places, and events. The physical installation of images framed and mounted on the wall of a gallery or museum, local restaurant, public office, or library can also be considered an important way to present visual arguments. Researchers should not disregard such opportunities to begin, or continue, conversations with diverse publics through displays available to all. Placing images outside of the academy and in dialogue with participants, their families, and society at large is vital to making research relevant and engaging. Photovoice and other community-oriented projects are opportunities for images to impact people directly, either through the making and/or the display, where they represent the experiences of the participants and generate conversation. Here, art and ethnography share wall space and public critique, a moment of dual purpose and meaning. A primary example of such duality is the Ethnographic Terminalia, a collective of artists and anthropologists who for a decade (2009–2019) produced public installations of ethnographically informed art, a multidisciplinary endeavor seeking to push the boundaries of scholarship and creativity (see Figure 8.5). As we have learned from our own experiences and from colleagues’ productions, we are not limited in how we make and share images. Remember that impactful images have many facets, only one of which is in print publications. Considerations for Publishing Images 1. For journal articles or webpages, consider your audience and what is expected of authors. Text elaborating the context of an image should include no more than five sentences, three preferably. 2. Write concisely and stress context over content. Viewers can often discern what is going on—what they need to know is why it is taking place and what makes it significant. 3. Unless requested by the editor, save technical details for endnotes. Camera make and model, lens, aperture, and speed are each interesting bits of data but not appropriate for all audiences.

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Figure 8.5  Ethnographic Terminalia: Reception for Audible Observatories in SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA. © 2012 Lara Rosenoff Gauvin.

Know that the marriage of text and image is a matter of philosophical discussion regularly visited in art circles as well as within academic enclaves, with some individuals asserting very strong points of view on this topic. The spectrum of opinion appears in internet chat rooms, blogs, and webpages. In the end, you must be respectful of your own work and the people with whom you work. That being said, be open to editors and colleagues helping you meld your prose with your images (and other media) since they—as readers—will see the effective combination of the two quite differently than you. Availing yourself of the perspectives of others’ eyes and ears is often quite useful and educational. On the Internet Webpages developed using a hypertext markup language (HTML) represented the cutting-edge, web-based visual communication from the late 1990s through the early 2000s. Today, the range of computer languages and applications for creating and managing a web presence has expanded beyond what any one individual can master. The sophistication of web-based applications allows nonexperts to develop a web presence with word processing skills alone, and free accounts on sites such as Squarespace and WordPress

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simply require the ability to drag and drop to upload images. Realize that what you get for free often has limitations, so check what various sites charge for long-term service and what added functionality they provide. Universities may also provide space for professional or class-related websites (and may even help you support them). Also note that unless you want to use the domain name designated by the provider, you should purchase a personal domain name (search online for vendors). Blogs, Vlogs, and Social Media For visual researchers, text and image-rich blogs and websites represent excellent means for communicating with your research community, colleagues, and funding agencies. Due to advances in digital bandwidth speeds, cellular networks, and the video/graphic capacities of cell phones and digital cameras, video blogs (or “vlogs”) are very common (as are social media feeds). While the attention of most audiences for such content is short-lived—around three to five minutes—regular updates can keep them interested and connected to you and your work on an ongoing basis. However, easy as it may be to start these web-based projects, maintaining them requires a great deal of work and consistent effort. The amount and richness of content you plan to provide will determine the amount of time required to build and sustain your connection to the audience. If you plan to post field notes, at the least be sure to edit and anonymize them before placing them online, both to protect yourself and the people with whom you work, and to adhere to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) standards. While we recognize that blogs may serve as a forum for research writing and reflection, we recommend using the utmost discretion in deciding what and how content is posted and presented. Check with your participants to find out if they are interested in being a part of the blog or webpage. In some cases, you may have to obtain a universal release or letter of informed consent. If participants wish not to be exposed, refrain from doing it. Finally, when considering a webpage or blog for your work, think about your audience and how you want them to interact with your site; are you interested in simply showing your work, or do you want their comments and responses? Blogs are relatively informal and invite reader feedback, so they are useful for eliciting virtual engagement with your research (even through a Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter feed). If you are not seeking viewer engagement, it is important to consider just who could read your blog and whether the materials you post could have negative consequences for you, your research, or the participants in your work. You may wish to monitor comments before allowing them to be posted. The internet is forever; only place on it those things you have permission to post and consider who the content will impact once it is “out there” for all to see.

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As visual researchers, the authors of this text think about having a web presence where people can see our work in a number of ways, but not see all of our work. We choose representative images, texts, and videos to illustrate what we do and then provide the context for those images in captions and supporting text. For your work, seriously consider the images you make available, as you could find them picked up and used by others for very different purposes than you originally intended (see watermarks and copyrights in Chapter 9). This can have ethical ramifications (as discussed in Chapter 1) and can jeopardize your fieldwork relationships. To state it clearly, a little forethought can save you a lot of grief. All of these considerations also apply to any video content you choose to use, whether embedded in your site or linked from Vimeo or YouTube. Again, keep your audience in mind when selecting videos to enhance your site. A final note is that some comments or responses may be disagreeable and unflattering. If they are not rude, racist, or violent in nature—if they conform to “netiquette”—consider leaving them in place as part of the discourse you are developing. In contrast to the latest uses of the visual on the internet, the early days saw a site called YouTube erupt, hosting hundreds of channels streaming thousands of hours of homemade video to viewers around the world. None of that would have been possible without the development of handheld digital video equipment and the nascent urge to communicate with others. Ethnographer Patricia Lange had a unique approach to recording and analyzing this visually historic moment in what she calls the “emergence of widespread vernacular video on the internet” (Lange 2022, personal communication). She followed early adopters of YouTube who used the site socially to have fun, help each other improve their video craft, and maintain friendships with other YouTuber vloggers (video bloggers). By attending public, in-person, grassroots gatherings across the United States and Canada, she could both document and interview the many participants and understand their motivations and values surrounding the use of the video platform (Lange 2019). In doing so, her images illustrate creative and diverse ways ethnographic research with a camera may contribute to theoretical insights. These include camera-as-data collection (images are used to record and analyze specific details of the events); camera-as-phenomenology (images showing how the action connects to past events in experiential chains of meaning); camera-as-participant (moving through crowds, the researcher with a camera becomes a participant who consciously coconstitutes the action being recorded—a strikingly different philosophy in comparison to traditional, unobtrusive, fly-on-the-wall documentary recording) (see Figure 8.6); and camera-as-metaphor (in which images provide interpretive metaphors for understanding non-visual social dynamics and aspirations of vernacular video sharing) (Figure 8.7).

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Figure 8.6 SouthTube Meet-Up: YouTubers create a mock press conference at a grassroots, in-person YouTube meet-up called SouthTube, in Marietta, Georgia, U.S. This image illustrates how a researcher wielding a camera at a YouTube meet-up becomes a participant and overtly co-creates the action being recorded. The researcher becomes one of the mock “paparazzi” that amplifies the importance of the “message” of a YouTuber who playfully uses a gourd as a “microphone.” © 2007 Patricia Lange.

Figure 8.7 QR code for Patricia Lange’s film: Hey Watch This! Sharing the Self Through Media.

Digital Storytelling Where websites, vlogs, and blogs are geared toward displaying and communicating research materials with a broad audience, digital stories are focused, multimedia productions that tend to concentrate on one person’s narrative. Most often these are created through workshops in which participants write a compelling personal account to which they add images, text, audio

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(voice-over), and video. Depending upon the subject matter, once digital stories are created, they can then be placed on the internet and shared with audiences ranging from local to global. Often these kinds of personal stories can link members of a community to each other and to community social policymakers. Digital storytelling has been employed in community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects (e.g., Gubrium 2009) in such domains as public health, ethnography, and the humanities. Digital stories do not require much more than free movie-making software, personal photographs, and public domain music, although from there they can very quickly become much more sophisticated (see Lambert et al., 2018; Miller 2014; Robin 2008). For academics, digital stories are an excellent means for discussing research and placing it on a website, so people can see what you do or learn more about an aspect of your work. Having students make digital stories is an excellent exercise, as it requires them to integrate their images with research and edit them down to something that must make a point in a short period of time. See the links at the end of this chapter for more about digital storytelling, as it has become a very popular and elegant means for integrating still images with audio (including both voice recordings and ambient sound recordings) to create effective pieces of visual work. Unlike the other digital image processes we have discussed, when preparing your images for use in digital stories they cannot be 72 DPI. Instead, you must use a significantly higher resolution, almost as if you were making them print size. Keeping images large is key because the digital story will be compressed and reformatted into video files, like WAV or MP4, so maximizing the amount of information in each image is paramount to your images looking good in a digital story. In mentioning compression and reformatting, we want to draw your attention to a very important logistical matter: you need to be sure that your video can actually be viewed on your own computer as well as on others. This is where codecs are key. Codecs are computer applications that compress–decompress (or, more colloquially, code–decode) data. They encode for storage, encryption, or transmission and then decode for playback or retrieval. Various devices accomplish this in a number of ways and typically require you to install the appropriate codec on your computer in order to “play” the signal itself.3 Compression essentially aims to preserve the integrity of the file while removing unnecessary data from the file (although there are lossless codecs). There is no single-best codec for video or audio; it depends on how you intend to use the compressed data. While MP3 (compressed audio files) and MP4 (compressed video files) are perhaps the most common in use today, make sure that your computer has the appropriate codecs installed to read the data from your video camera and microphones.4

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Considerations for Posting Images Online Ethical: • What end are your images serving when placed on the web? • Are you looking for feedback from colleagues (and the world) about your research questions, methods, and data? • Are you instigating a blog or other social media modality as a way to obtain data for your research? • Are you simply looking to gain followers and social visibility with no legitimate research aim? • Do you have consent to post online from those appearing in the image? • Does your IRB approval allow for online distribution/display? • Do you plan to remove the images from the web at any time in the future? Is that intent clear to subjects and/or viewers? Technical: • How will you secure your images? • Can you restrict access to the images so they are not public? • Can they be traced back to you? • Should you incorporate features to make them less easily appropriated by others? (Chapter 9 discusses watermarks and other modes for ensuring this.) • Will you include text with the images? If so, why? • Have you properly sized your images for electronic use? Remember, if you do not want the images distributed, do not place them on the web. Summary This chapter drew on insights and advice from previous chapters to help you think about when, why, and how to implement images in your own work. Historically, images have been most commonly used in print media and we discuss how to prepare them—whether for use in the field or as part of journal submissions, specifically photo essays. Because digital displays (e.g., PowerPoint presentations, webpages, social media) require smaller files (less digital information), we outlined some basic parameters for formatting images for digital outlets. Finally, we suggested key issues to consider when combining text with images, and how to evaluate an appropriate balance when building a website, blog, or digital story.

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Further Readings and Resources • The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: Digital Imaging, Theory and Applications, History, and Science, 4th edition (Peres 2017) • “Designing with mobile digital storytelling in rural Africa” (Bidwell et al. 2010) • “Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century Classroom” (Robin 2008) • “Digital Storytelling as a Signature Pedagogy for the New Humanities” (Benmayor 2008) • “Making Things Our Own: The Indigenous Aesthetic in Digital Storytelling” (Hopkins 2006) • “How do people manage their digital photographs?” (Rodden and Wood 2003) • “In Poor Light” (Smith 2010) • The Centre for Oral and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University in Montreal and StoryCenter in Berkley, CA are leaders in digital storytelling. Their research includes work on immigrants, vulnerable people, kinship and language, social justice, education, and other key points of interest to anthropology, brought to life using cutting-edge, communitybased digital storytelling projects. • www​.storycenter​.org/ • https://storytelling​.concordia​.ca/ • Journals that offer photo essays: Visual Anthropology Review Visual Anthropology Visual Studies Cultural Anthropology Medicine Anthropology Theory • http://eth​nogr​aphi​cter​minalia​.org​/photoessay/ • Easy to use monitor dpi/ppi (dots per inch/pixels per inch) calculator • members​.ping​.de/​~sven​/dpi​​.html • Luminous Landscape (for finding articles, tutorials, product reviews, and photos)—a comprehensive site dedicated to documentary, landscape, and nature photography • www​.luminous​-landscape​.com

Notes 1 For a concise overview of the method in anthropology and sociology, see Harper (2002). 2 Always check with organizations to find out their expectations regarding sizes, colors, and layout design, as well as any sample templates that may be available.

150  Using Images 3 Standard codecs exist for both audio and video; however, some companies may develop proprietary codecs for protection as well as transmission purposes. 4 Keep in mind that codecs are evolving, constantly changing to improve compression and distribution. There are currently significant online discussions about codecs H.264 and a more recent H.265; as technology advances, these too will evolve, and users will write more about them.

References Cited Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Benmayor, Rina. 2008. “Digital Storytelling as a Signature Pedagogy for the New Humanities.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 7, no. 2: 188–204. Bidwell, Nicola J., Thomas Reitmaier, Gary Marsden, and Susan Hansen. 2010. “Designing with Mobile Digital Storytelling in Rural Africa.” In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1593–1602. Atlanta: ACM. Biella, Peter. 2001. “The Legacy of John Collier, Jr.” Visual Anthropology Review 17, no. 2: 50–60. Chiozzi, Paolo. 1989. “Photography and Anthropological Research: Three Case Studies.” Visual Studies 4, no. 2: 43–50. Collier, John Jr. 1967. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Collier, John Jr., and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Crowder, Jerome. 2017. “Commentary on ‘The Affective Lens’.” Anthropology and Humanism 42, no. 2: 180–188. Crowder, Jerome W., and Elizabeth Cartwright. 2021. “Thinking Through the Photo Essay: Observations for Medical Anthropology.” Medicine Anthropology Theory 8, no. 1: 1–13. Curtis, Edward. 1907–1930. The North American Indian; Being a Series of Volumes Picturing and Describing the Indians of the United States, and Alaska, 1–20. Published by Edward S. Curtis. El Guindi, Fadwa. 2004. Visual Anthropology: Essential Method and Theory. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Gardner, Robert, and Karl Heider. 1968. Gardens of War: Life and Death in the New Guinea Stone Age. New York: Random House. Gubrium, Aline. 2009. “Digital Storytelling as a Method for Engaged Scholarship in Anthropology.” Practicing Anthropology 31, no. 4: 5–9. Harper, Douglas. 2002. “Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation.” Visual Studies, 17(1): 13–26. Heng, Terence. 2020. “Creating Visual Essays: Narrative and Thematic Approaches.” In The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods, edited by Luc Pauwels and Dawn Mannay, 617–628. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Hopkins, Candice. 2006. “Making Things Our Own: The Indigenous Aesthetic in Digital Storytelling.” Leonardo 39, no. 4: 341–344.

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Jacknis, I. 1988. “Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali: Their Use of Photography and Film.”. Cultural Anthropology, 33, no. 2: 160–177. Keysar, Hagit. 2021. “Aerial.” In The Routledge Handbook of Visual Methods in Anthropology, edited by Rupert Cox and Chris Wright. New York: Routledge. Lambert, Joseph, andBrooke Hessler. 2018. Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community, 5th edition. Oxford: Elsevier. Lange, Patricia. 2019. Thanks for Watching: An Anthropological Study of Video Sharing on YouTube. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. Luvaas, Brent. 2017. “The Affective Lens.” Anthropology and Humanism 42, no. 2: 163–179. Morgan, Lewis Henry. [1871] 1997. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. Miller, Carolyn Handler. 2014. Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment. New York: Routledge. Peres, Michael R. 2017. The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition. Burlington: Focal Press. Robin, Bernard R. 2008. “Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century Classroom.” Theory Into Practice 47, no. 3: 220–8. Rodden, Kerry, and Kenneth R. Wood. 2003. “How Do People Manage Their Digital Photographs?” In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in Computing Systems, 409–416. Smith, Tim. 2010. “In Poor Light.” Interventions 12, no. 2: 198–208. Sutherland, Patrick. 2016. “The Photo Essay.” Visual Anthropology Review 32, no. 2: 115–121. Vogt, Evon Z., ed. 1974. Aerial Photography in Anthropological Field Research. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Section 3

Organizing Images



Chapter 9

Organization and Storage (with Michele Reilly)

In this chapter you will learn: • How to develop a personal workflow to organize your digital files. • The basics of file organization and storage. • The value of archiving digital data.

A common issue for people working with digital data is keeping their data organized in order to “find” it later.1 After all, if you cannot find an image or a file, how can you use it? This chapter is designed to introduce you to overarching ideas about organization and storage from which you can develop your own system for organizing your digital files. Ultimately, we want you to be more efficient and accurate in your work, allowing you to spend less time “looking” for your files and more time working with them. The organizational ideas presented will make it easier for you to later retrieve and use your images; they will also make it easier to share your files across many platforms and with many colleagues. Before we move forward, we want to define a few terms that will be used throughout the remainder of the book, especially as these definitions clarify how we approach organizing and working with digital files. • Folder and subfolder: while this term may already be easily understood, it is an approach to organizing that is not always well used. • File name: the name given to computer files. i.e., digital images, documents, PDFs, etc. • Backup: saving your work on a regular basis. • Editing: the process of selecting and manipulating images, such as color correcting and cropping. • Archiving: managing files for long-term storage and enduring accessibility.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-13

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• On-premise: images, documents, or AV files that are kept on a local machine. Sometimes referred to as on-prem. • Online: images, documents, or AV files that are kept online, such as Google Drive, or in the Cloud such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Workflow The technical term workflow is derived from the software and publishing industries that used it to depict how a process is established and the various steps involved from concept to product. It is also a common term used in the imaging world because of this exact exercise. In this case, it is the routine, step-by-step process of getting images from your camera or phone to your computer so they can be worked with, selected, shared, and stored. Not all workflows are the same, and they tend to be most useful when they are simple and “flow.” Developing the workflow that is right for you may take several iterations, but once you have got it you will be organized with a process and structure to protect your data now and for the future. For ease of reference, Crowder keeps an abridged version of his workflow on a sticky note hanging from his computer monitor that he can refer to each time he begins moving files from a device (camera, voice recorder, etc.) to his desktop. The steps on the sticky note that guide his workflow are: copy, rename, adjust, optimize, select, backup, and export. While there are some intermediary steps, this sticky-note schematic provides a guideline so Crowder knows what to do in order to get to each next step. Think of workflow as a ritual, something you do the same way each time to ensure that the desired outcome is always met. Having a viable, dependable routine for processing your digital data protects you from “forgetting” anything and keeps you organized. Furthermore, if you find that you did make a mistake, you can more easily backtrack through the process to find where that occurred. Workflows can be as detailed and elaborate as you want or as simple and uncomplicated as you need (for a detailed account of these in the Humanities and Social Sciences, see Antonijević 2020). In any case, however, we want to stress that once you have a process you are comfortable with, stick with it. Having that little reminder at hand is nice, no matter how many times you’ve performed the steps. When cooking you follow a recipe, which is in essence a workflow—it is always nice to have the cookbook at hand, even if the recipe is familiar and you rarely consult it. As we have been stressing throughout this book, there are many ways to work with digital data so use the information below to help you conceptualize and create the workflow that best fits your needs. In Figure 9.1, we provide an example of a workflow that we use to take a RAW image and end with a JPEG for publication— including backing up along the way.

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Figure 9.1 RAW→JPEG: This flowchart illustrates the steps involved in taking a RAW image from your camera (or phone) through the process of making it into a JPEG for publication.

File Transfer, Folder Structure, Backing Up The first step in any workflow is the transfer of images from your recording device to your computer. When you are ready to transfer files from your device (cell phone, camera, voice recorder, or scanner) to your computer, consider the sets and collections structure system. The sets and collections structure is a hierarchical structure that allows you to organize your files

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by type of file, type of image manipulation needed, or any relevant file and folder structure you need to find or share your files later. First, create a destination folder on your computer or online site (Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, etc.) and name it appropriately (so you cannot later confuse it with other folders). Using a short, relevant term and the year (e.g., denver2015, smith19) works well; it gives you an immediate reference to the contents (and the temporal origin) of the folder.2 Once you have created your top-level set or folder, it is now time to create your collections or subfolders. We suggest not going too much deeper than three levels because it will make the URL path too long for effective and efficient transfer. We will expand on this when we discuss file naming later in the chapter. With your folders and subfolders set up, it is now time to transfer your files. Depending on your device, your preferences for transferring files, or the number of files you are transferring, this process may be as simple as emailing yourself a couple of images or dragging and dropping them into the appropriate subfolder. If transferring many image files (which tend to be large), we suggest connecting your device to your computer using a USB cable for quicker transfer speeds and greater reliability than over Wi-Fi or via Bluetooth. Wireless methods rarely function at touted speeds and are limited by the devices themselves. The hard-wired method is quick, easy, and reliable, requiring you to sort through the images to direct them to the appropriate subfolder. If you have heard it once, we are here to reiterate it: after you follow the transfer process, back up your files! Before you open the file to admire your work, copy this folder to an external drive such as a large-capacity USB Flash Drive or portable hard drive. Remember, using a flash drive for storage will eventually require you to transfer those files to another device or move them to the cloud for long-term security and back up. Be sure to label this drive both internally when setting up the drive firmware and externally with some sort of label or tag. Reilly likes to use key tags (see Figure 9.2). They are small enough not to be obtrusive but large enough to write her set or folder title. Once you have the files on a flash drive or portable hard drive, we suggest you also back them up to a web-based or cloud storage solution, such as Amazon AWS, Dropbox, or Sync. These options are extremely reliable, offer redundancy (they keep multiple copies so if one disk fails another one has the data), and afford you the opportunity to access your files from anywhere you have an internet connection. Do not consider this copy a waste of money spent for flash storage or cloud storage (they are cheap, is your research?). Creating file backups (Figure 9.3) prevents you from losing your images (data) if anything should happen to your computer or device and it’s a place to begin again if your files become corrupted. Never forget, having a backup copy may save you later! This is essential to good file management and data safety. An important related point is to never work on original files—that is why you have copies. The files you copied become your “backup” copy, while the files on your desktop will

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Figure 9.2 Key Tag: A simple key tag can identify the contents on a flash drive.

be the ones you will work with. As a simple rule, always have at least two copies of your photos; three for the paranoid (or the cautious). Files and File naming File naming is a vital consideration in the workflow that moves images from recording devices to carefully organized (and backed up) files on your computer. Every digital device has a default naming convention. These vary by manufacturer, type of device, and the kind of output file it creates. For example, your camera may create filenames like “DSCF0001” or “IMG001.” What do these mean? Not much! They’re generic referents that, over time, can become quite confusing as duplicate filenames get copied onto your computer. Once you have copied the files onto your computer—and backed them up—the task now is to (re)name your files to always be “findable” by using names that will help you organize your data. You can do this by opening them using dedicated programs or if using a Microsoft machine, right-click on the file, click rename, and type in the name of the file you have chosen.

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Figure 9.3 Folders Within Folders: This graphic shows one process for naming folders and (re)naming images in subfolders.

We cannot stress this enough: naming your images is the most important step in the workflow process! Oftentimes people (re)name pictures to refer to that specific image (e.g., Jack speaking at AAA). This “title” or file name may seem well and good at the moment, but what about when you need to find that image in the future, how can you access it? Will you remember that title in order to search for it? File names are intended to serve two purposes. First, they provide an image with a unique identifier and second, they are to serve as a memory device. Creating a short, descriptive, user-friendly, memorable, and organized file name will aid in the discovery of the file later, make them easily shareable with colleagues, and not overburden your computer. The optimum file name should be as short as possible, less than 24 characters,

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but still be memorable. Shorter file names mean shorter URL paths which decrease the likelihood of error and misremembering. They should not contain special characters, initials, abbreviations, or codes that are not commonly understood (Crowder et al. 2015). What do we mean by a meaningful and user-friendly file name? For example, an image of “Jack speaking at the 2022 American Anthropology Association meetings” could sloppily be labeled “Jack speaking at AAA.” Why is this a sloppy and flawed file name? First, it has spaces between the words. Most computer operating systems have a hard time trying to plot where spaces go. Avoiding them is best practice; oftentimes CamelCase is used to eliminate spaces but retain distinct words. Second, this is a very long file name. If it is in a folder titled AmericanAnthropologyAssociationMeetings, your URL path would look something like this: C:\de​sktop​\Amer​icanAn​throp​ology​Assoc​iatio​nMeet​ings\​JackS​peaki​ngAtA​ AA. Transferring files with long URLs from one storage device to another can stress out your computer’s capacity and slow it down considerably. The third reason why this filename doesn’t work well is that it is not very meaningful. You may know who Jack is but will others? If you are trying to find these images in a larger set of images in a folder, will you be able to remember it? Instead, the image could be named as one of the images shot during that meeting overall. An example would be a master folder named AAA2022; including a date in the folder or filename is an important aid to finding images later. The subfolder of the session Jack spoke at could be JackDoe and the file names of the pictures of Jack could be JD01, JD02, etc. This folder and file naming structure would leave you with a URL path to the exact file looking something like this: C:\AAA2022\JackDoe\JD01 This file name has an optimal length (less than 24 characters), contains no spaces, special characters, underscores, or dashes, and affords a human-readable, mnemonic name that aids recall of the relevant facts about the image.3 Despite how important it is to create optimal file names, there is no doubt that renaming each and every file is tedious. Arguably the most useful tool found in many photo editing programs is the “batch” function. This simple tool allows you to rename all of your images simultaneously (i.e., without having to rename each image individually). Performing batch operations will save you time and allow you to be consistent throughout the folder, but because there are so many programs available, you should consult the help file for your particular application to learn how it suggests you perform batch operations. Also note that the “batch” function helps when resizing, optimizing, or placing a watermark on your image files (more to come). Do not, however, use batch for image editing (e.g., color correction, cropping)—these functions require individual consideration. Finally, so you can

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find your images later, keep your naming schema consistent throughout the folders, subfolders, and images within the subfolders. Remember—once you have renamed your working images following these conventions, make a copy of your renamed images. This backup copy can now serve as your “go-to” file if your working files ever get corrupted. Figure 9.3 leads you through an example of the steps for naming your files and renaming your images. We know the impulse to immediately start working with your images can feel irresistible (we have been there), but taking the time to set up your file management (see Figure 9.4) from the outset will save you future headaches

Figure 9.4 Organizational Integrity: This screen capture illustrates the tree-like structure of a good filing system, including the mother folder (directory) with the daughter folder (subfolder) that contains the images. Such nesting of folders is an appropriate means for keeping all of your images/videos organized within one main folder (locally or in the cloud).

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if anything should happen to your images. (We have been here too, which is part of how we learned.) Selection Files named, organized, and backed up, your workflow can now move to working with the images themselves. Selecting images is an ongoing process, as you will approach your collection with different needs and intentions on different occasions over time. Basic editing requires that you open your program in a “browsing” mode, where you view and scroll through thumbnails of your images.4 Your first pass or two through the collection may simply be to select the images that best represent what you were trying to capture during the shoot.5 One habit we each began early on, and have continued to use, is the creation of a special subfolder called “keepers” (Crowder) or “select” (Marion). These folders provide a place to copy all of the images we liked/ selected, so they’re all in one place, and we do not necessarily have to re-open and review our tagged images. However, note that the “keepers”/“select” files are for copies of the images we like the best.6 This allows us to readily save or upload them but also keeps the original file in context in its primary folder/subfolder. Crowder and Marion prefer a folder/subfolder system for organizing their keepers/select images. Various photo organizing applications (on-prem or web-based) are quite useful; some of them are free while others require a subscription or one-time fee, including Google Photos, Backup and Sync, Adobe Bridge, and Magix Photo Manager, to name just a few. Photo organizing software and online systems let you manage a large number of images using tags (keywords, labels, categories, etc.) embedded in the image. They are designed to help you find and organize many images in a meaningful and useful way. Web-based photo organizing applications offer the same benefits as the software versions with the addition of archiving and backing up your files in the cloud, instant sharing to social media accounts, and privacy settings designed to protect your images from theft or unauthorized use by others. If you have hundreds or thousands of images that you plan to organize, share, archive, and protect, you may want to give serious thought to investing in an online app or a software photo organizing management system. With digital images (still or video) you will not lose time scanning them into your collection. Unlike film, you should not delete any from the collection as you never know how they may benefit you later. To visualize your collection of images, it may be easiest to think about three concentric circles (Figure 9.5), the largest of which represents all of the images and is labeled appropriately. Even the worst images (except maybe those entirely out of focus or of your feet) are included in this group.7 The next smallest circle includes a subset of images that represent all of the working photos—those you deem potentially useful for publication, talks, photographic prints, and the like.

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Figure 9.5 Organizational Levels: This simple graphic illustrates a straightforward approach to organizing your images, refining them to a select number that represents the best within that file.

Most exclusive, and in the smallest circle, are your “keepers”/“select,” those you consider the best for whatever reason and the ones you immediately look at when you need a descriptive photo of places, people, or events.8 Editing, Adjusting, or Treating an Image It is at this point in the workflow that you may want to start altering some of your photos. Whether called image treatment (IT), editing, or adjusting, we are referring to a variety of functions, from basic rotating and cropping to color balancing, watermarking, and red-eye reduction.9 Any images that have been edited should go into an edited subfolder(s) using the same file name as the original. If you decide to crop or color balance, there are a few important things to consider. To crop means to relimit the image, or define new boundaries of the photograph, effectively reformatting it. Photo editing programs provide tools that help crop for specific print sizes in inches (e.g., 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10) or pixel dimensions (1200x800 or 720x540) or formats that may not match the aspect ratio of the sensor in your digital camera. As such, if you were to print your digital photographs as you took them, the resulting prints might have thick white borders or other telltales of the mismatch between the aspect ratios of the sensor and the paper. As noted in Chapter 5 (see Figure 5.6), digital sensors come in a variety of sizes, so you may well need to crop your images depending on the size you wish to print them. Color correction is achieved in multiple ways and is beyond the scope of this book to cover in detail (but see the references listed at the end of this

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chapter). The basic tool set for color correction includes lines and curves; hue and saturation; and contrast and highlights. You can use any single tool, or any combination of them, to adjust an image’s color. Whatever you do, though, do not forget to save these edited images in your edited subfolder. Additionally, be aware that editing images in software programs may change the metadata. Copyright and Watermarks At this time in the workflow, it is good to add a rights management statement to your images (watermark or copyright, or both). Regardless of how you intend to use your images, know that if you are the creator of them (they are considered artistic works); you own the copyright—the intellectual property associated with those images—as soon as the image is taken. This means that you have the final say about whether the images may be used by others or not. For example, if and when you publish an image in a book, or if someone wants to use the image in an online publication, the managing editor will ask you for permission to reproduce it—often in an official form or written statement (others may accept an email). However, if you place the image online so others can find it, they may use it without your permission. There are several ways to ensure that you get credit, or can later determine if the image is yours. If posting on the internet, you can adjust the resolution of the image to less than 120 dpi so that if anyone tries to print it, it will pixelate and be unusable. You may also place your name, date, and copyright terms in the metadata fields (see Chapter 10), but this may only be effective in proving the image is yours, it will not prevent it from being used by others. Also note, if you post the image on social media, the platform may strip it of all metadata and resize it, deleting all traces of your ownership and copyright. Another option is to embed a watermark on the image itself. The watermark could include your name and date, the copyright symbol (©), a URL, or any other text or graphic that identifies the image as belonging to you or your project. These data are usually placed in the image using editing software and may be visible at 10% to 20% opacity, light enough to be seen but not distract from the content. Figure 9.6 illustrates the judicious use of a watermark, although this example’s opacity is set at 75% so it is legible in this printing. There are pros and cons to watermarking, and it really depends upon your intent with sharing the images. Unlike commercial photographers who embed watermarks for branding and selling their images, researchers are most concerned with receiving credit for the image. Depending upon where it’s placed, a watermark could be cropped out of the image, or if placed across the center, it may “ruin” the image and discourage people from using it altogether. If you feel that placing a copyright or watermark in your images

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Figure 9.6 Protecting your Images: Basilia makes chuño in Tiwanaku, Bolivia. This watermark includes the copyright symbol and date, shown at 75% opacity. © Jerome Crowder 2007.

is important, be sure to work that feature into your workflow so the photos are properly marked before you upload them to a website or social media. There are multitudes of instructions and ideas on the internet about watermarking your images. We leave those technical details to you but advise you to consider what kinds of protections you (and those in the images) deserve and how to best share the images from your research. Perhaps the most ethical way to do so is not the easiest, and with that in mind, the internet/social media may not be the ideal media for doing so! Metadata Once you have transferred your files to your desktop or destination folder, backed up, renamed, and adjusted them, the third pass through your folder is a good time to start attaching descriptors to the images. Descriptive text that you place in the database is called “metadata” and can include fields for where each image was shot, the names of the people in the images, notes about the context of the photo, etc.10 The following chapter outlines the processes involved, the decisions to make, and the value metadata brings to the organization and optimization of visual research. In this chapter, we mention it only to signal its place in the workflow.

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Optimize/Resize/Reformat/Export Once you have gone through your images and applied the previous steps, it is time to optimize them, which makes them easier to use, share, and maintain. Large image files are often clumsy and unnecessary, especially when being downloaded to another computer or from a website, viewed on a monitor, or opened in a web browser. Also, realize that larger files do not necessarily look any better on a monitor (desktop, phone, projector) than a smaller file, as their resolution depends upon the number of pixels per inch (ppi).11 Furthermore, sharing large image files with colleagues or friends without knowing exactly how they will use them (or the hardware they have to open them) can prove problematic (e.g., many, if not all email servers, specify the file size limits for images, documents, spreadsheets, or other media).12 As such, it is a good idea never to send large files from the outset but to provide images that are easily viewable (but not necessarily printable or otherwise usable).13 Resizing is a form of optimizing, in that you are changing the visual dimensions of the image for an intended use, for example to print a 5x7 from an 8x10 inch original. In this case, you are effectively lowering the dots per inch (dpi) of the image itself. If you are resizing photos to be published on the web or placed in a presentation, you are changing the pixels per inch (ppi). Optimizing is compressing the image but maintaining the resolution. The difference is important if you want to put your images on the web. To optimize effectively means making the file appropriate for its use; in most instances resizing them to be smaller and easier to deal with (e.g., emailing, posting, projecting). When optimizing or resizing, be careful to preserve the metadata you have placed in the image files; this usually can be done by checking a box to keep the metadata with the optimized/resized files. However, in some cases, such as placing the images in a presentation, you may not need to preserve the metadata. To resize your images you can return to the “batch” function to process all of the selected images so that they are all the same size and resolution. As you optimize/resize, place the smaller images in a subfolder named to denote this change from the original, e.g., “optimized.” If you resize your images for various uses, say printing, electronic sharing, and presentations, be sure to keep track of which images have been optimized in which ways (i.e., in different subfolders or with different suffixes). To summarize some of the key ideas regarding resizing/optimizing images: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Place the images in their own appropriately labeled subfolder. Crop them to the appropriate size and resolution for their purpose. Use the “batch” function to resize/optimize more than one simultaneously. Change the image names to denote the resizing.

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Reformatting is changing the digital image from one format (i.e., file type) into another, for example, RAW to TIFF or TIFF to JPEG. This may not be an issue if you are using your cell phone to take photos as they will always be in JPEG format. While TIFF files have traditionally been the archival standard for the long-term preservation of digital images, many archives are keeping JPEG 2000 for archival storage and working/access files. For simplicity, when creating images for archiving purposes try for 300 ppi/dpi when taking the photo with either your phone or camera. Save the images that you plan to use for presentation or uploading onto the web at no less than 72 ppi/dpi and no more than 120 ppi/dpi. If you upload images with lower resolution, you lessen the risk of others using your images without your permission. This will save you the step of having to watermark them. Although Chapter 8 is dedicated to using your images, it is exporting, the last step in the workflow, that gets you to that point. The term “exporting” means sending your images from the software program or web-based application into a folder someplace else; for example, to social media, in an online gallery, in a slide presentation, or in an application such as PowerPoint or Keynote. Being clear about how you want to use the images is a strong motivator for sizing the images correctly. As already noted, uploading or downloading overstuffed PowerPoint files to a cloud drive, or emailing large image files to colleagues (or family) can be frustrating and time-consuming. You can create files within your directory file for just this purpose.14 For example, if you are building a slideshow for a lecture, you know that you will need the images to be at 72 dpi and probably no larger than 8x10 inches. Resizing the images to fit those dimensions will create smaller files you can then easily export to a slide deck application such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, or SlideDeck.15 Working, Storing, and Archiving Working files and archived files are not the same. Working files refer to keeping images available for easy access. These can be images you currently work with, have worked on, or may work with that are on-prem or online (also see Reilly and Thompson 2020). Archiving files is not about current activity or concerns. The purpose of archiving is to secure your images, preserved and usable over time, i.e., in a format that will be available in 10, 15, or even possibly 25 years (you choose). Archived files can also be held on-prem or in the cloud. This last section of the chapter concentrates on strategies for storing your working files and archiving your files for the long term. Taking the former into consideration, you realize that storage is a dynamic process and you can move and copy files between various media with the implicit understanding that none of them are permanent. Therefore, your decisions about storage will change, depending on the context of the work and the ways your needs

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develop over time. On the other hand, the decisions you make now regarding archiving digital data will affect you for a very long time. Therefore, you need to think through exactly what you want to do with the data you plan to archive and what you are willing to spend in order to do that. Storage The cloud will be the most useful place to store your images both now and in the future, although many of us place them on-prem immediately to work with them. You may place your images in free or for-pay space on the internet with the idea that you will have access to them whenever you want (if you have an internet connection). Still, depending on where you go, you may have limited bandwidth, so uploading/downloading files to the cloud may not be too dependable. If so, on-prem is an obvious option given your situation. Cloud storage and archiving have become inexpensive and reliable. There are many companies offering in-the-cloud services. The advantages of availing yourself of these services are multi-fold because they include storage for your working files, long-term archiving, super-fast computing servers, and collaboration opportunities. Chances are you are already familiar with cloud storage.16 The best choice of provider depends on your needs and budget for basic cloud storage. If you are looking for a whole host of storage, archiving, and computing (servers, virtual machines, and networks) solutions, there are many fee-based companies available, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. You do not have to go with a cloud-based solution if it does not fit your needs or budget. Computers with large internal hard drives, as well as standalone external hard drives, are inexpensive, for sale in many locations, and easy to install and format. Some internal solid-state drives hold up to 2 terabytes, are exceptionally fast, and are advantageous because they decrease noise, heat, and energy consumption; however, they can be more costly per GB than a spinning disk. Having a large solid-state drive in your laptop (on-prem) offers you quick access to working files, especially if you are scanning photos or working with large video or RAW image files, but you would not want to use it for archiving. USB flash drives—sometimes known as jump drives or thumb drives—also employ solid-state technology. They offer a relatively large capacity in a small, portable, and durable device, but are less frequently used today as we store more of our working files in the cloud.17 Archiving We move into a completely different realm when we consider archiving digital data. Our incessant plea to back up your work data becomes a constant drone when archiving, as the discussion no longer concerns amounts

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of storage, but longevity and retrieval of data. Archiving is about storing “originals” rather than “working” files or copies. Your archived file is the unadulterated file—without any processing (compression, cropping, color balance, etc.)—that you can return to if and when you need to see it. Longterm or preservation archiving is easily achievable with a cloud solution. They also ensure recoverability, reproducibility, and most important to longterm archiving, redundancy. Alternatively, archiving can be achieved with large external hard drives. An option that may work for a time would be to use the largest drive you can afford upon which you store your data once and then just turn it off and store it in your closet. As of this writing, there are some very affordable, large “spinning” drives that hold 10 terabytes and more of data. The longer your drives are on and spinning, the shorter their “lifespan.” Infrequently using a disk to store your “originals” and keeping it unplugged and safe is a form of dark storage—dark meaning that the machine is turned off. If you were to be hyper-vigilant about this method, you could rotate two more drives in this process, effectively copying new work to every other one, so that there is always redundancy. Archiving relies upon recoverability and reproducibility in the future. You need to ask yourself, “how will I access this file in 10 years, in 15 years?” This question points to the interface, the media, and the file type. As we have seen over the years, print, image, sound, and movie formats have changed drastically. For digital native images, you will want to archive them in the format they were shot in. Scanned images are a different story. While we expect most readers will be making digital images, you may also find yourself working with research participants who have collections of old photographs or historical documents that can be scanned. When scanning photos or documents you should always make TIFF files, as these are rarely compressed and are considered the standard when RAW images are not available (some companies claim to create RAW files from scans, but they do not behave as camera-generated RAW files do/will). For digital photos, RAW is preferred but TIFF format will do. One caveat is not to archive your JPEG files unless that is the only format you have of the file. Creating a TIFF out of a JPEG is not normally a good idea, nor will it really improve the quality of your file. Like many processes, the adage “garbage in, garbage out” holds true, so do not expect much if you try to make “beefier” files from compressed files. As with photos, you should always shoot video at the optimum quality possible, archive the original files, and then compress it for working files. By following a preset workflow, choosing file formats wisely, maintaining multiple copies in various types of drives and media, keeping files in different states of revision, and archiving open-source or industry-standard formats, you will help ensure the long-term usability of your images.18 The following case study illustrates how Michelle Reilly, an information scientist, addressed vital organization and storage concerns in research utilizing large data and image sets.

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Case Study: File Naming Practices to Maximize the Discoverability of Digital Cultural Heritage Images Michele Reilly University of Arkansas, USA File naming is an ongoing issue for researchers and information scientists alike. Evolving technologies (devices, platforms, and applications) heighten the necessity of consistent file names to organize, find, and share data. My research explores the significant role that file naming plays in discovering and reusing digital cultural heritage images, in search engine optimization, in indexing techniques, and other naming reliant endeavors. In other words, I wanted to know what file naming practices help people engage with digital images successfully and easily on the web, via social media, or in collaboration with other researchers. I identified one hundred cultural heritage digital images uploaded to websites by Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) using specified selection criteria, such as images highlighted on social media by the owning institution or an aggregator, the number of days posted to social media, and the number of responses such as “likes” or “comments.” I collected the images’ associated metadata such as file name, title, creator, date of creation, and GLAM institution. Additionally, I gathered descriptions of all eighteen GLAM institutions and hundreds of literature review articles. This project created thousands of records, data points, and computer files, compelling good data management and efficient data organization. I designed multiple backups as fail-safes against loss, original data and cleaned data for preservation and reproducibility, and a multi-layered computer “folder, subfolder, and file” approach to provide working data for analysis. My file naming strategy was consistent and human-readable so that if I needed to go back and find an article, spreadsheet, or document, I could search my computer using a known word or phrase, such as an author’s last name, an image title, or article, spreadsheet, or document title. This strategy saved me more than once when trying to find research material and was especially useful when validating the accuracy of the reference list for my publications. An example of my strategy appears below: FOLDER: LitReviewArticles (I used CamelCase to create short folder and file names). SUBFOLDER: Used (these were the literature articles I referenced in my final thesis).

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FILES: Reilly2017 (this is an actual pdf, it is a file named by the primary author’s last name, year of publication). FILES: Reilly2017-summary (this is the article summary template I created to supply close readings, notes, and quotes for writing literature reviews). SUBFOLDER: Unused (this folder is for articles I have read but do not intend to use. I keep them because I realized after I got into my research that some may become useful later). FILES: Reilly2014 (this is an article in the Unused subfolder that I did not use in my final thesis) (Figure 9.7). I developed this file structure before I began my research and stuck with it throughout the project, allowing me to retrieve resources when I needed them and keeping data findable whether I used it often or seldom. Without such a system, I would have jeopardized my research agenda. My research discovered that 92% of users of images they find on the web are changing the file names to suit their own file naming practices. Additionally, these users were more likely to adopt some combination of title, creator, and/or date when generating reused image file names. While I didn’t investigate the intent of this behavior and can only

Figure 9.7 Folder Structure: This graphic illustrates the folder structure Reilly developed for organizing her literature review documents.

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speculate based on existing literature (file naming to serve as a memory device), the results indicate that typical file naming behavior embraces the employment of descriptive file naming, in particular a pattern of title, creator and/or date. After deterring that users were changing file names I compared search results for the aggregated file names and the original file names and found that the aggregated file name search queries are 25% more likely to produce hits of the original image than the original file name queries. My research found that using user-friendly file names will result in your images being discovered on the web more easily and more often. Your images will be much more shareable and you will be able to find and organize your files more efficiently.

Summary This chapter emphasized the need to create a consistent workflow for moving your images from your device (camera) to your computer and establish an organized approach to naming and storing files. Here we covered the various steps you should consider when developing your own workflow and discussed the most basic concepts: copy, rename, adjust, optimize, and back up. For each concept, we explained the how and the why with examples to clarify exactly what we mean. Along with the many ways you can adjust your image (resizing, cropping, or color correcting), we also discussed copyrights and watermarks as a means for protecting your images if/when you share them online. We also introduced metadata as a means to tag your images, a topic covered more completely in the following chapter. We identified renaming your files as the most important step in the workflow because the way you name them will affect how you categorize and find files in the future. Even so, if there is one thing to remember from this chapter: do not forget to back up your files. Finally, five key things to keep in mind when working with your computer and image files: 1. Always use passwords to secure your data. External drives are password protectable, too! 2. Plug all of your computer equipment into a power strip/surge protector at all times; or better yet, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), if possible. 3. Use antivirus, spyware, and malware programs to protect your computer. 4. Always update your software. 5. BACK UP YOUR DATA!

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Further Readings and Resources • Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow Handbook: A Guide to Staying Ahead of the Workflow Curve (Russotti and Anderson 2010) • The Digital Photography Workflow Handbook: From Import to Output (Steinmueller and Gulbins 2010) • Visual Methods in the Field: Photography for the Social Sciences (Heng 2016) • The Copyright Zone: A Legal Guide for Photographers and Artists in the Digital Age, 2nd edition (Grenberg and Reznicki 2015) • Modern Post: Workflows and Techniques for Digital Filmmakers (Arundale and Trieu 2014) • Archive formats by the United States Library of Congress • www​.digitalpreservation​.gov​/formats • Lucid Chart (for help making your own flow charts and diagrams) • www​.lucidchart​.com • Speed test (for testing your internet connection’s upload and download speeds). Remember, having sufficient speed in both directions will allow you to most effectively and efficiently place your images online • www​.speedtest​.net Notes 1 Because audiences differ, the conventions we suggest for presentations and social science research are not the same as those promoted or endorsed by information science or professional archivists. Different groups have different needs, knowledge, expectations, and understandings. 2 Using lowercase filenames makes it considerably easier to tell the difference between a lowercase letter o and a zero. 3 File names should be kept as short as possible because the deeper into your folder structure you go, the longer the file path will become. The longer the file path is, the more likely the path could be broken when uploaded or downloaded and back-up occurs. We stress human-readable file names because they serve as a mnemonic device that aids recall of what the folder contains. Try not to use underscores when creating file names because this “_” character is harder to read; software and web applications mistake it for a URL. Spaces and special characters can also confuse systems and platforms. Some platforms will either not recognize the blank spaces or will change the file name to make it compatible. 4 It’s fine if you prefer the filmstrip or loupe mode, as each provides a specific means for engaging with the images. 5 See Chapter 10 for a discussion of tagging and ranking images as you select them. These terrific features help track your previous thinking whenever you revisit your images. 6 Over time which image you retain in your “keepers'' or “select” folder may change. That is understandable, and another reason why the images in this folder are copied from files you still have elsewhere. 7 One argument for keeping all images may not have to do with the photo itself but possibly the metadata it provides (see Chapter 10 for a full discussion of metadata). For example, perhaps the time and date stamp may be useful in locating

O rganization and Storage  175 a situation or moment when something happened. Like a cash register receipt, you may remember you took the photo, but not when. This timestamp will help establish that moment for the record. 8 Remember you can name these anything that makes sense to you; for example, Reilly states that in her digital library, these same groups and circles are respectively named Preservation, Access, and Collection 9 Newer devices and programs can usually determine when images need to be rotated for proper viewing (i.e., so a vertical photo doesn’t appear horizontally). The spatial orientation of data from the camera (when the photo was taken) may be lost when resizing images, however, so be ready to rotate images manually. 10 This is a good time to use the or actions to highlight multiple images, so the metadata you type into the fields will be applied to all of the highlighted images. 11 When making electronic slideshows, only use images sized to 72 ppi. Sometimes presenters mistakenly use full-size images in their presentations, creating huge (over 200 MB) rather than equally resolved slides at smaller file sizes. 12 While there is a growing trend to share images via the cloud, most people will continue attaching image files to emails, and large files will quickly (and frustratingly) fill up recipients’ inboxes. 13 Beyond facilitating ease of use, optimizing and resizing your images provides a small level of security. Downsampling your images to no higher than 72 dpi will ensure that while they’re easily viewable on the web, they are not resolved enough for others to download and print against your wishes. 14 Purists may argue that all images should be kept in one large file (without subfiles) and that you should use the database in order to cull through your images to find the ones you need at the time and then export those files for use. Experience has taught us that sometimes it is just easier to keep images of a certain type in their own folder (even when duplicating images). But this is exactly why keeping your files properly named and separated is paramount—that way you can grab and go, knowing exactly what you have. Today storage is so inexpensive that keeping multiple copies of different sized photos is not problematic. 15 You can create a photo album in PowerPoint and import the images into the application which will place each image on its own slide. You can then manipulate the backgrounds and animations. 16 We feel that as of this printing, the best current cloud storage providers for photographers are iDrive, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Photos, and Box. 17 Now available in sizes exceeding 1 TB of storage, it is possible to store your work on solid-state media (no moving parts) that require very little physical space (your pocket or keychain). 18 Because of constant technological progress, it is hard to predict the best methods and formats to archive your materials. Our suggestion is to archive formats that are either open source or industry standards. See the suggested resources at the end of the chapter. Today, there are a variety of options for archiving your data, each of which requires redundancy.

References Cited Antonijević, Smiljana. 2020. “Digital Workflow in the Humanities and Social Sciences: A Data Ethnography.” In Anthropological Data in the Digital Age, edited by Jerome Crowder, Mike Fortun, Rachel Besara, and Lindsay Poirier, 59– 83. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

176  Organization and Storage Arundale, Scott, and Tashi Trieu. 2014. Modern Post: Workflows and Techniques for Digital Filmmakers. New York and London: Focal Press, Taylor & Francis Group. Crowder, Jerome W., Jonathan S. Marion, and Michele Reilly. 2015. “File Naming in Digital Media Research: Examples from the Humanities and Social Sciences.” Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 3, no. 3. Greenberg, Edward, and Jack Reznicki. 2015. The Copyright Zone: A Legal Guide for Photographers and Artists in the Digital Age. New York and London: Focal Press, Taylor & Francis Group. Heng, T. 2016. Visual Methods in the Field: Photography for the Social Science, 1st edition. New York: Routledge. Reilly, Michele, and Santi Thompson. 2020. “Understanding Data Management Planning and Sharing: Perspectives for the Social Scientist.” In Anthropological Data in the Digital Age, edited by Jerome Crowder, Mike Fortun, Rachel Besara, and Lindsay Poirier, 13–30. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Russotti, Patti, and Richard Anderson. 2010. Digital photography Best Practices and Workflow Handbook: A Guide to Staying Ahead of the Workflow Curve. Waltham: Focal Press, Elsevier Inc. Steinmueller, Uwe, and Juergen Gulbins. 2010. The Digital Photography Workflow Handbook: From Import to Output. Rockynook: O’Reilly Media.

Chapter 10

Images, Metadata, and Research (with Michele Reilly)

In this chapter you will learn: • The types of metadata and the value they hold for visual researchers. • How to access and input metadata in your research data. • How to utilize metadata to organize and optimize your research.

In the previous chapter, we introduced the concept of a workflow, a routine for consistently moving your digital files from your device to your computer (or to the cloud) and effectively organizing them. Part of that discussion concerned the need to properly name your digital files to facilitate future recognition and retrieval. In this chapter we build on this organizational foundation, highlighting the advantages of writing metadata (file descriptors) about your digital files, be they audio, video, or photo. Such descriptors are foundational in making your digital files searchable across editing software, web browsers, social media, and collaborative tools such as Google Docs, Microsoft Teams, and others (Reilly 2021). Without them, such applications could not do their jobs. Further, as suggested in all qualitative methods courses, writing regular, thorough notes is the key to strong research. Here we offer you new places for those notes that can potentially be more powerful for your research and your organizational needs than writing simple notes on your computer or tablet device.1 Capturing and Using Metadata Each digital device, editing software, website, or social media account embeds certain types of data into every file it generates or displays. These data include very usable, basic references such as the date and time the file was made (timestamp), as well as more nuanced specifics like the f-stop, shutter speed, or orientation of the camera when making an image. The thing to remember is when you record digitally, you are recording more than the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-14

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image, video, or audio file. Your digital device captures technical metadata about each file; some of this data can be quite useful when organizing or analyzing your files in the future. Not only is metadata automatically recorded by your digital device, but you can also add and edit metadata in every digital file that you create. For example, when Crowder conducts an interview with a resident named Donald at his house in Houston, he uses his cell phone to capture the conversation and makes use of the camera to make a few images and short videos of him. When Donald goes outside to show off his garden or describe problems in the neighborhood, Crowder makes photos and videos of those things as well. Later, when Crowder copies the audio, images, and video files to his desktop, he follows his workflow, renaming them and saving them to an external hard drive (so they are safe) and backing them up to the cloud.2 At the appropriate place in his workflow, Crowder adds relevant metadata to his files. In the Windows operating system, he begins by right-clicking on the audio file icon and scrolling down to the bottom of the menu for “Properties.” Releasing the mouse opens up a box with tabs across the top, where he can view the file’s descriptive fields (date/time, file size, file location). Clicking on the “Details” tab accesses many empty fields divided into sections, including Description, Media, Origin, Content, and File. Working in the Description section, he gives the file a subtitle (maybe the name of your project?), rates the file (think of the possibilities for this feature), adds tags, and places comments in a specially designated “comments” field. Unlike other fields, “comments” allows you to use prose, or strings of words, to describe the file. This feature allows you to comment on the context of your image, video, or audio file. Context, in this sense, is a description of what was going on when you made the photo/video or audio recording. Context captures all of the elements that affect(ed) the creation of your media file. These are not the obvious data but are unique to the situation at hand. For example, bad weather could postpone a dance or a ritual, the family you work with could be fighting, or it may be a holiday and the kids are home from school. Even if you do not recognize its importance when you write it, situational context can play a huge role in your future analysis—providing information that helps inform your inquiry. As qualitative researchers, we want to emphasize the importance of context for any photo, video recording, or audio file. Like writing field notes, writing notes in this box immediately following a fieldwork experience provides an opportunity to revisit the discussion and identify the most important parts of the conversation and its context while it is still fresh in your mind. For example, Crowder adds “comments” about the location where Donald was speaking and who was present, just so he has a record of any audio oddities and of the people whose voices he may hear when he replays it later (and not remember). Later, copying/pasting these “comments” to his fieldnotes (Word file) initiates the process of writing more detailed fieldnotes,

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especially when/if Crowder decides to return to the audio file to transcribe it.3 Context has the potential to improve an article, presentation, or analysis of a topic or situation simply because it helps you elaborate on what was happening at the time you made the image (information that may prove useful in the future).4 Additionally, when Crowder copies the audio file to his flash drive, replaces the copy on his external HD, or uploads the file to his cloud storage, all the metadata travels with it. At this moment you may not understand just how amazing this feature is for ethnographers (and other qualitative researchers) who rely upon their notes for accuracy and details. Filling the metadata fields with details enables one to inquire more profoundly about the ethnographic data later. Given the depth of your folder/file name strategy, you also may be able to discern whether you need to transcribe the interview or not. You can also note the timestamp so you can immediately return to an important part of the interview (and maybe only transcribe this portion). There are many other useful metadata fields to populate such as “title,” “subject,” “tags,” and “author.” These can be simple descriptions that help you remember who is in the image, where it was made, and the occasion for making it. Tags must be descriptive yet simple for them to be most effective.5 When inputting tags or codes (e.g., Sara; New York; agriculture), be sure to separate them with semicolons, as these will auto-populate once you have inputted them. In other words, when you type the same tag in the following image, a list of tags will appear and you can check the box next to the tag. In this way, the database assures that the tag is spelled and cased consistently each time you use it. Be sure to click the “apply” button at the bottom of the “properties” box so all of your metadata will be added to your file. The best thing to do is experiment with a few of your files to get the hang of inputting metadata and notice which files provide you with what fields. Returning to the example of Donald, Crowder can later search to find all of the files dealing with Donald or maybe all the files dealing with “neighborhood conduct”—since this may be one of his tags (and also appears in the comments section). Best of all, one does not need a fancy, expensive, sophisticated application to help one organize; instead, you just use the search engine in your operating system. Figure 10.1 shows the metadata box opened by right-clicking the image file itself as it is found in File Explorer on current Windows operating systems. The various fields have been completed, and if you were to scroll down you would find more fields to fill, if necessary. Note that the “title” field is a descriptive term of your choosing; it need not match the file name. In these metadata fields, your choices add contextual information about the image. Figure 10.2 illustrates how the metadata appears when the same file is seen in context with others in the folder. Note that the metadata are editable via the File Explorer window as well (there’s a “Save” button at the bottom of the column in case you make any changes to the fields).

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Figure 10.1 Accessing Metadata: Right-clicking on a file will bring up the “properties” box. This example window has the “details” tab selected with the “tags” field highlighted; place your general codes here and they will auto-populate the next time you add codes to another image.

Types of Metadata Metadata make visual content easily accessible through words/terms or through machine-readable codes/strings. There are multiple types of metadata embedded into image files. The three main types are: 1. Technical metadata describing how the image/source file was generated. 2. Descriptive metadata describing the content of the digital object. 3. Administrative metadata describing the use, rights, and context of the file. We mention them because it is important to understand which types of metadata are automatically embedded and which ones are not. Further, image

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Figure 10.2 Viewing Metadata in a Folder: This screenshot illustrates the “Documents” folder where the image files are kept. Clicking the “View” tab and then toggling the “Details pane” will show the thumbnail and metadata for each image in the folder.

management applications vary in how little or how much editing access they allow to these metadata. The most common embedded metadata are Exif and IPTC.6 We will discuss these two in a bit more detail. An exchangeable image file (Exif) is a type of technical metadata used by most digital capture devices (such as cameras, cell phones, audio, and video equipment) to describe the image size, orientation, camera settings, date, and time. Many of the values in this metadata scheme cannot be changed by the user; they are set by the camera. Various applications such as ExifTool (see description below) and some of the operating systems of your capture devices can make these data visible. This type of data is beneficial when sorting by time, date, or device. A descriptive type of metadata scheme is the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), a standard set of fields used to describe photographs. These fields offer the user an opportunity to input data such as a title, description, author/creator name, image location, genre, copyright, and the like. It is a very flexible and useful format in which users can add multiple lines of text, manage intellectual rights, and input specific data important to the project. Administrative metadata is a standard set of fields used to describe the rights and responsibilities of the object and its provenance. For ethnographers, this includes the copyright (whether you explicitly state it or not, if you made it, you own it), the date it was made, your ownership, and restrictions.

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Metadata Languages In addition to metadata types, there are also metadata “languages,” standard metadata schemes that exist for digital files and allow users a common lexicon for categorizing their files. One of the most well-known is called the Dublin Core. Another popular set of codes for ethnography called the Outline for Cultural Materials Subjects List (OCM) was developed by George P. Murdock when creating the Human Relation Area Files (HRAF) (see Murdock and White 1969; Goodenough 1996). Using a standard set of metadata terms and definitions makes your files more discoverable, findable, and accessible if you share them beyond your own research community. In other words, interoperability—the ability to more easily share files with others who can then benefit from our work—is highly facilitated by the use of a shared “language” (see Poirier et al. 2020). Your work will potentially have more impact if its metadata conforms to vocabulary libraries used by other researchers. As you become more familiar with your image editing and viewing software you may find very powerful ways to use metadata. One possibility is using the same codes in both your field notes (text) and image data. Then, when you conduct analysis, you can pull images as you find relationships in your field notes (or vice versa). This enhances the viability of your images, allowing them to become integrated with your text (and not just supplemental). As this option suggests, however, it is crucial to be consistent with your word choice when inputting your metadata. Since inputting metadata is a long-term process, it is a good idea to keep a code key or local vocabulary, much like that made for written field notes. A local vocabulary offers a handy memory device when searching images; you could even create a glossary and keep it as an additional sheet in your spreadsheet file. Search Techniques Using common lexicons or local vocabularies to place information in your metadata fields allows for powerful search options. The more information you place in your metadata fields, the more powerful your search, and the more productive your database will be for analysis. But placing too much text in metadata fields may yield inaccurate or excessive hits later, which means you waste time sifting through results for no reason. Inappropriate, inaccurate, or insufficient metadata will not return much for you when you begin analyzing your images. When conducting searches on your images (and accompanying metadata) keep in mind a few things: • What is the question you are asking of your data? • What are the appropriate terms you placed in the database? • How much detail do you provide in order to resolve your questions?

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Two popular search strategies involve the chronological search and the rank and tag search. Chronological searches provide a powerful means for locating images within a time range. You can browse for images you took on certain days or weeks if you are trying to figure out when you visited a certain place or person or hoping to coordinate your images with your field notes.7 Photo imaging software—stand-alone, cloud-based, or those that come bundled with your image capture device—as well as management software like Picasa and ACDSee provide very basic search and browsing functions. Most fundamental are those associated with the date/time stamp created when the image (or file) was first made. Since the timestamp is metadata (some programs allow you to change these dates), most searches are going to operate on the date/time in the header file. Typically, applications provide date boxes or calendars so you can select the range of dates you are interested in searching. Alternatively, you may be presented with a calendar upon which specific dates appear in bold, signifying that there are photos in the database taken on those dates. When you select a day or week, thumbnails appear corresponding to the photos taken on those dates in the selected range. Please be aware that many social media sites, such as Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook, will change many metadata elements, i.e., time and date stamps, filenames, image orientation, and location stamps.8 Chronological browsing is useful when you need to insert metadata beyond date and time into a group of images. For instance, Crowder knows the date and time he was in the village of Tiwanaku when he was taking photos in Bolivia in 2007 (see Figure 10.2). A chronological browse will help him readily find the photos taken in Tiwanaku. Once found, he can then select all of the images and add Tiwanaku as a keyword. He can also add additional metadata (such as the name Basilia in all photos in which she appears) and any other appropriate information (like making chuño). In future searches he can simply use location (Tiwanaku), subject names (Basilia), or activities (making chuño) to locate images from that location and other images he may have of that subject or activity (see Figure 10.3). These basic searches are especially useful when (re)writing your field notes. As you review the content and context of the image(s) to enhance the details provided in the notes, you may be reminded of specific conversations or issues discussed at that time and other such details. For example, while browsing through the images Crowder made that day, he adds a note “we made a watia (for cooking potatoes in the field) that afternoon,” which spurs his memory about a conversation he had about food preferences and helps him recall details on how to build the watia from dirt and hay to cook the potatoes. Then, he can return to his field notes to include more details of that experience and its relevance to the subsistence and health of migrants in the Andes. In this way, the context associated with the image is data he can place directly into his fieldnotes; oftentimes these are data only the researcher is cognizant of in relation to the image itself.

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Figure 10.3 Specific Image Metadata: This screenshot illustrates how the search for “chuño” brings up this image because it is tagged with that word in the metadata.

An alternate search strategy involves ranking and tagging your photos. Often during the selection process, when we are working through any set of images, we will “tag” the images that, for whatever reason, we like most. These are usually copied into our respective “keepers”/“select” subfolders for later use. In some programs, to tag an image you only need to place a simple check mark in a box surrounding the thumbnail representation of the image. This Boolean (on/off) tag allows you to quickly identify the ones you like or those you want to use from those you do not. Once tagged, you can sort or inverse select to further treat the images (by placing metadata, for instance). Ranking your images adds levels of discrimination to your tagged selections. No longer are we dealing with on/off values, but rather 1 through 5 rank orders. Some applications use the star system, others provide circles with numbers or colors to differentiate between ranks. A number or star does not have to represent “rank” (i.e., those you like the best, second best, etc.),

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but instead can represent concepts or people or locations, so you can quickly browse or sort without having their corresponding keywords embedded (yet). For example, when editing a group of images for an exhibit, Crowder will first pull in all of the images he is considering and then go through them to identify those that: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Must be included. He likes, but which may not help tell the story. Tell the story, but may not be as visually strong as those ranked 1 or 2. Other people suggest. He wants to compare with the rest, but doesn’t consider “keepers” for the final selection.

Alternatively, you could assign a certain number of stars corresponding to different photographers (e.g., if you are participating in a group project or had some of your participants making their own photographs). You could then combine all the images into an overall project file and separate the images based on rank tags (number, star, or color code) simply as a means of identifying people or groups involved in a project (Figure 10.4).

Figure 10.4 Desktop Management: This screenshot illustrates the ACDSEE desktop with images “tagged,” “ranked,” and sorted with a “color” stripe, denoting the selection process.

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Figure 10.5 Desktop Management Detail: Screenshot of desktop with specific images selected, ranked, and color-coded.

We provide a closeup of the screenshot to show how this particular management software allows the user to rank, color code, and arrange images on the desktop, while simultaneously seeing the metadata in the fields to the right (Figure 10.5). All of these features help researchers organize and think about their images. There are many ways to use these features when working with your images, so be creative and develop a system that works best for you. Editing Metadata Understanding the primary types of metadata, standard metadata lexicons, and strategies for inputting, coding, and searching your own metadata, we are ready to consider editing and extracting your metadata so that it becomes optimally useful to you. There are three basic ways to work with your data, each complementary to the other so using one will not preclude trying another. You will need to decide which is best for you given the situation. First, we recommend ExifTool, a free application allowing metadata extraction, editing, and analysis of the types of metadata generated upon capture. ExifTool has a graphical interface that easily allows you to enter, read, and edit the metadata in your files. This is a very powerful application that is useful when you would like to batch-edit metadata in a folder or a series of files. Another suggestion for editing metadata would be to build a spreadsheet to capture the metadata for your images. Librarians and digital archivists often build matrixes, spreadsheets, or online finding aids to account for the various descriptors, context, or metadata that accompany their objects (see Figure 10.6 for an example of a metadata matrix constructed to account

Figure 10.6 ExifTool GUI Metadata Extractor: In this example, Reilly shows the process she developed for organizing her files as well as the metadata she collected for the images in her research. ExifTool allows her to see different levels of data simultaneously.

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for any digital format—audio, video, or photo). If you choose to keep your images organized in a spreadsheet, a matrix serves as a searchable and sortable database that can help you quickly identify files that may be most useful to you. Using a common spreadsheet (Figure 10.7) is a great way to enhance your metadata and keep information readily at hand. For example, Reilly used a spreadsheet for ranking and analyzing the number of times a cultural heritage image showed up in a Google search (see the case study in Chapter 9). You will need an application like EXIFextracter to scrape select metadata from your images into a.csv file which may be opened with Excel or another spreadsheet manager. While spreadsheets are particularly good for sorting and searching, their biggest disadvantage is the time involved in recording each image’s metadata. One suggestion for this problem is to only enhance the metadata on the images you plan to use or edit—then just remember to save this spreadsheet to the same subfolder as the “selected” or “enhanced” images. The third option for editing and analyzing images is to develop an image database, either on your own computer or online. Image management systems will do this for you and can output their data in​.x​ls or​.c​sv format. This database could hold the image files as well as the metadata related to the image. Choosing an online suite of tools, such as Google Drive, affords you the opportunity to organize your documents, image files, spreadsheets, etc., and to share those files with others either singly or as a group. Additionally, online tools offer the ability to work collaboratively, are regularly updated and usually free to use, and make backing up and sharing easy. Photo-specific applications and sites like ACDSEE or SmugMug provide space for storing and sharing images, especially if you want to track their views and downloads. These sites are made for photographers who are actively promoting

Figure 10.7 Basic Metadata Organization: The simplest way to organize metadata is to create a spreadsheet. Use columns to account for descriptive fields while the rows represent each image, video, or audio file.

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their work, which can be useful depending on your research and the people who will want access to your images and videos. Metadata for Images Online The descriptive text placed in the image’s metadata is a very short abstract of what the image is depicting. Appropriate “content” information in the metadata will allow you to search and compare images more easily, especially if you cross-reference your photos with your field notes. An additional benefit of adding content to image descriptions is the boost in discoverability on the web. This boost is called search engine optimization (SEO). Briefly, search engines cannot find an image if that image does not have any content described either within the file name or alt text. SEO engines are unable to analyze the content of an image (e.g., house, tree, woman, man, etc.). They can only discover what the tags describe about each one, hence the file name and alt text fields are what internet search engines use to discover images or documents. User and search-friendly file names are discussed in Chapter 9. Here we describe the importance of adding alt text when embedding images in a document or posting images to a webpage. Alt text, or alt tags, is the written copy that appears in place of an image on a webpage if the image file fails to load on a user’s screen; Alt text is what screen-reading tools use to describe images to the visually impaired. It is easiest to add alt text at the moment when the image is embedded into a document or loaded to social media (WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). Although each platform is different, you can add alt text in the properties tab or upload menu when prompted by the online application to insert or upload an image. It is also possible to edit the alt text once the image is uploaded. Search engines will be able to find this image within the document or the webpage from the alt text. Additionally, images embedded with alt text are now understandable to those with low vision or those with no vision. Secondary Analysis If you have taken time to input the metadata and cross-reference your comments, tags, and other descriptors with your field notes, you’ve created the potential for powerful analysis. Revisiting data with new questions becomes easier, too. With well-developed metadata, you can perform new searches on “old” images, video clips, or audio files to ask new questions that may not have been relevant in your previous round of inquiry. For example, in Crowder’s research investigating how residents over 65 years old in an “underserved” part of Houston engage with technology such as computers, the internet, and cell phones, research participant Donald regularly mentions his declining health and bouts with various hospitals and health care

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professionals. At the time, Crowder wrote about these statements in his fieldnotes and in the metadata—as he photographed the piles of bills Donald collected over time (Figure 10.8) and the cigarettes he was continually smoking. After completing the research on technology and the elderly, Crowder returned to the data a year later to find discussions about health care and alternatives to biomedicine in the neighborhood. Having relatively thorough notes, his basic searches on keywords like “health care,” “biomedicine,” and “physician relationships” turned up a variety of discussions and images that had not been part of his original focus. Just as importantly, organized fieldnotes correlated with images allowed him to ask new questions of old data, such as: (a) how do the elderly conceptualize their health and health care, (b) where do they turn for support, and (c) when are they most likely to seek health care? More central to Donald’s situation, new questions concerning the quality of care he received while a patient in local hospitals and the subsequent turmoil he faced when having to pay his bills were all present in the data—just never previously gleaned.

Figure 10.8 “Daily Stuff” (Donald’s Medical Bills): As part of his research in East Houston with elderly residents, Crowder asked participants to photograph the things they liked about their lives and what they wanted to change. Donald took this image of the medical bills he had received over the period of a few months, which his insurance was not going to pay. Courtesy of Donald. 2007.

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Reread your field notes as you go to find information to transfer into the metadata fields. These data become usable immediately, as you can begin rethinking the meaning of the images. Since Crowder began this process, for instance, he has found portraits of people who have since passed away. These become invaluable as he can send JPEG versions via email or direct message apps to family members, who are often highly appreciative of receiving them. Remember, this is an exercise, a process. You must be patient with yourself and your field notes. As the authors have experienced, revisiting notes and images often triggers memories and inspires rethinking of previous research. Over time new patterns may appear, sometimes based on new knowledge but often based on our own changing attitudes toward our work (see Crowder 2013). Where the image may show us one thing early on, as our perceptions mature we become critical of why we took the photos and what we wrote about our participants. Summary In this chapter, we built upon the basics presented in Chapter 9, specifically the role of metadata and how to use them for future search/retrieval of images. More specifically, good metadata make the job of finding specific and applicable images (and all research data) considerably easier. By inputting thorough metadata, a researcher can use images for asking questions and conducting analysis, expanding the role of images beyond a simple illustration of the text. We also discussed the use of collaborative tools like Google Drive, the powerful use of spreadsheets, and the opportunities for data visualization tools. We presented different search strategies for images, including chronological and rank/tagging. Furthermore, we considered how properly configured metadata allow researchers to revisit images with new questions, a technique we call secondary analysis. Further Readings and Resources • “Cataloging Images in Millennium: A Central Repository for FacultyOwned Images” (Reilly and Singleton 2008) • “Identifying and Interpreting Prewar and Wartime Jewish Photographs in Polish Digital Collections” (Sroka 2011) •  ”METADATA” (Lange 2009) • “Metadata and Digital Information” (Greenberg 2009) • “News Photographers, Librarians, Tags, and Controlled Vocabularies: Balancing the Forces” (Neal 2008) • “Semantic Metadata Interoperability in Digital Libraries” (Alemu et al. 2011) • Common metadata language schemes

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• International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), a standard set of data fields used to describe photographs https://iptc​.org/ • Dublin Core www​.dublincore​.org/ • Human Relations Area Files: Outline for Cultural Materials Subjects List www​.ingramanthropology​.com​/uploads​/6​/8​/1​/1​/6811328​/ocm​.pdf • Applications allowing metadata visualization, editing, and analysis • ExifTool https://exiftool​.org (free application!) • Applications allowing metadata extraction • EXIFextracter https://br​-s​-exifextracter​.software​.informer​.com/ Notes 1 For some photo editing software, the applications will (if not manually checked) overwrite existing metadata, particularly location, file names, and editing dates. With regard to social media uploads, this overwriting of metadata is done automatically in order to protect the user’s privacy. 2 Effectively, Crowder now has three copies of the file. He can erase the audio file on the recorder once he inputs all of his notes and copies that over the earlier version on the hard drive. 3 This is an excellent means for cross-referencing your field notes with the metadata in your files—especially if you identify that the notes are the same for a specific recording. 4 There are some caveats to overloading this and other fields with too much information, as the increased file size could be problematic or become corrupted when copying the file or sharing it online. 5 Note that not all file types permit additions to the “tags” field; JPEG files will but PNG files will not, for example. 6 Others include Exif, Composite, IPTC, ICC Profile, JFIF, XMP, and App14; some of these are technical, some are descriptive, and some are administrative. 7 Make sure that the date and time on your camera are set correctly, so when the metadata are placed, they are accurate (especially if you regularly travel between time zones). To be safe, check your time zone every time you change batteries. 8 These metadata are stripped to improve the speed at which the webpages load (as the browsers have to go through all of that data before the image appears). Whether on a phone or desktop monitor, the browser has to size the image appropriately and the metadata hinder its progress.

References Cited Alemu, Getaneh, Brett Stevens, and Penny Ross. 2011. “Semantic Metadata Interoperability in Digital Libraries: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Approach.” ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 7–16. Ottawa. Crowder, Jerome W. 2013. “Becoming Luis: A Photo Essay on Growing up in Bolivia.” Visual Anthropology Review 29, no. 2: 107–122. Goodenough, Ward H. 1996. “Murdock as Bridge: From Sumner to HRAF to SCCR.” Cross-Cultural Research 30, no. 3: 275–280. Greenberg, Jane. 2009. “Metadata and Digital Information.” In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd edition. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Images, Metadata, and Research  193 Lange, Holley R. 2009. “Metadata.” Technical Services Quarterly 27, no. 1: 139–141. Murdock, George P., and Douglas R. White. 1969. “Standard Cross-Cultural Sample.” Ethnology 8, no. 4: 329–369. Neal, Diane. 2008. “News Photographers, Librarians, Tags, and Controlled Vocabularies: Balancing the Forces.” Journal of Library Metadata 8, no. 3: 199–219. Poirier, Lindsay, Kim Fortun, Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn, and Mike Fortun. 2020. “Metadata, Digital Infrastructure, and the Data Ideologies of Cultural Anthropology.” In Anthropological Data in the Digital Age: New Possibilities New Challenges, edited by Jerome W. Crowder, Mike Fortun, Rachel Besara, and Lindsay Poirier, 209–237. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Reilly, Karen, and Nancy Singleton. 2008. “Cataloging Images in Millennium: A Central Repository for Faculty-Owned Images.” Journal of Library Metadata 8, no. 1: 37–42. Reilly, Michele. 2021. “Digital Image Users and Reuse: Enhancing Practitioner Discoverability of Digital Library Reuse Based on User File Naming Behavior.” Doctoral dissertation. Humboldt University. Sroka, Marek. 2011. “Identifying and Interpreting Prewar and Wartime Jewish Photographs in Polish Digital Collections.” Slavic & East European Information Resources 12, no. 2–3: 175–187.

Conclusion

In the first section of this book, “Image Basics,” we introduced the foundational topics of visual ethics, thinking visually, and thinking of images as data. We consider this to be the most important section of the book, as these concepts are the foundation for all visual research. The next section, “Making Images,” started with an overview of the history of cameras in social science research, introduced technical and production issues associated with photography, video, and multimedia for social research, and explored using images to present your work (both to research participants and professional audiences). The concluding section, “Organizing Images,” highlighted organization and storage (including archiving) and recommended helpful ways to enhance doing research from your images. Showing What You Mean Given the amount of human neural capacity dedicated to visual information, visuals can be powerful tools.1 That said, visuals are a method of research and presentation, and are poorly used when utilized from a one-size-fits-all approach. Just as there is no such thing as “the best research method” (only better matches between question and method), there is no such thing as “the best visual research/presentation strategy.” Visual materials and modalities should be chosen for specific communicative aims, never simply for the sake of using visuals. Matching Method to Message Matching method to message requires asking a few key questions. First, what is the thrust of the material being presented? Is it about behavior, architecture, land use, or artifacts? Or is it about subjective experience or individual narrative? Any one of these topics might make good use of visuals, but not the same ones. Looking at behavior as an example, what behavior is being addressed, and to what ends? A video clip panning across a landscape is more useful in some situations while a map of the same landscape would be more DOI: 10.4324/9781003214083-15

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appropriate in others. But what if the points being discussed concern indigenous persons’ feelings about their traditional lands? Perhaps visual materials help orient an unfamiliar audience or allow the research participant to speak for themselves. Conversely, however, the same visuals may ultimately serve more as distractions rather than allowing the focus to remain on the feelings of those being discussed. In such a case, the choice not to use visuals (or at least not to do so in conjunction with that part of the project) may well be the best decision. General Guidelines Following these simple guidelines can provide clearer use and a more direct presentation of visual materials, thereby facilitating your efforts to effectively show what you mean. • Do not use visuals for their own sake. Does a photograph, a chart, an illustration, a map, or a video clip best reveal (as part of your research) the issues you are assessing, or best represent (as part of your presentations) the understandings you’ve gained? Use whichever one(s) do this best, and if none add to your message, do not use anything! Whatever doesn’t help make the point distracts from it. • Less is more. Where three bulleted “titles” draw attention to key themes, a full screen of text does not. Likewise, a variety of animations, wipes, and fades typically distract—and hence detract—from content, and only rarely augment an underlying point. • Know your audience. You need to know with whom you are trying to communicate in order to decide the best means of presenting your materials. Think about this at every step of the process (planning, in the field, and while preparing your finished materials). • Use the tools. Too many presentations use colorful backgrounds with embedded patterns and graphics in an effort to present a more “finished look.” On the contrary, however, pertinent materials often become nearly impossible to discern amidst superfluous backgrounds, colors, and graphics. • Simple, solid-color backgrounds are often best. Likewise, lightercolored text on a dark background is easier to read than dark text on a light background.2 • Evaluate what will actually be seen. What shows up to good effect on a laptop screen doesn’t always “translate” well as projected imagery, in a printed book, or as part of a display—so evaluate your materials as they will be presented. • It takes time. However long you spend creating visual data, plan to spend at least twice as long reviewing, sorting, selecting, and editing. After all, what’s the point of having the data if you don’t take the time to assess it and use it?

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Thinking Visually in the Field The key to good research is finding a way to investigate something and then having a way to make sense of whatever you find. This is the same for visual research. Where visual research differs—and as the materials in this book have been discussing—is in how imagery represents reality. The guidelines above are just that, guidelines. They are not rules. There is no “right way” to do visual research after all (which does not mean there are not lots of wrong ways, such as those that ignore important ethical considerations). Just to show you what we mean, go back and skim through the case studies featured in each chapter of this book. As you can see, the issues and topics introduced in this text can be applied—and are equally valuable—across vastly different fieldwork scenarios. So what should you take away from this book? Not a summary or a step list for “this is how to do visual research.” Rather, we have provided you with a new, broader, and more nuanced way of thinking visually. Further Readings and Resources • • • • •

Audiovisual and Digital Ethnography (Grasseni et al. 2021) Doing Visual Ethnography (Pink 2021) Doing Visual Research (Mitchell 2011) Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work (Strong and Wilder 2009) Visual Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Awakening Visions (Spencer 2011)

Notes 1 The sections “Showing What You Mean,” “Matching Method to Message,” and “General Guidelines” are adapted from Marion (2008). 2 Indeed, using a white background is an unfortunate and outmoded artifact of overhead projectors, producing the greatest glare (and associated eye strain) possible. Using lighter-colored fonts against dark backgrounds is one of the easiest yet least-used ways of providing a strong visual impact.

References Cited Grasseni, Cristina, Bart Barendregt, Erik de Maaker, Federico De Musso, Andrew Littlejohn, Marianne Maeckelbergh, Metje Postma, and Mark R. Westmoreland. 2021. Audiovisual and digital ethnography: A practical and theoretical guide. New York: Routledge. Marion, Jonathan S. 2008. “Using Visuals in Conference Papers and Panels: Showing What You Mean.” Anthropology News 49, no. 3: 62. Mitchell, Claudia. 2011. Doing Visual Research. Los Angeles: Sage. Pink, Sarah. 2021. Doing Visual Ethnography. Fourth Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Strong, Mary and Laena Wilder, eds. 2009. Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work, Austin: University of Texas Press. Spencer, Stephen. 2011. Visual Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Awakening Visions, New York: Routledge.

Appendix 1: Glossary

Alt text  Textual description added to image files that aids search engine discovery and provides written copy if an image fails to load Angle  See Perspective Aperture  The adjustable opening in a camera lens that determines how much light reaches the sensor (per unit time) B-roll  Supplemental footage used to add context and meaning to a sequence Bandwidth  Rate of data transfer, aka throughput or bit rate, usually in bits/second (bps) Cinéma vérité  Style of filmmaking that engages directly with the film’s subjects, avoiding bias, artificiality, and artistic effect Codecs  Applications that compress–decompress data, encoding for storage, encryption, transmission, and decoding for playback or retrieval Code key  Memory device created to track and organize metadata descriptors applied to image files Composition  The arrangement of subject and objects within a frame Contrast  The range between the darkest and brightest parts of an image Crop  To define new limits for an image Dark storage  Saving data to a hard drive, which is then turned off until the data are needed for retrieval. One type of archiving Depth of field (DOF)  Zone of acceptable sharpness both in front of and behind the main focus point dpi  Dots per inch DSLR  Digital single-lens reflex camera Ethnofiction  Genre of filmmaking using actors and fictionalized scripts to represent issues informed by ethnography Exporting  Sending images from a computer or web-based database to other applications, e.g., social media, presentation media, online forum Exposure/Exposure value (EV)  The amount of light received by the camera sensor (or film) F-stop  See Aperture Framing  Choosing what to include in the image



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Gimbal  Handheld stabilizing accessory for cameras and cellphones to keep the shot smooth and balanced Highlights  The brightest parts of an image Image resolution  The number of pixels in an image Image stabilization  Camera and lens technologies that adjust for natural shake and movement Informed consent  Participants’ uncoerced willingness to participate in projects they fully understand (including the right to withdraw approval at any time) ISO setting  The sensor’s sensitivity to light Lens speed  Maximum aperture of a lens Lighting  The amount, source, and location of light sources in an image Metadata  Searchable file descriptors added to digital files Mise-en-scène  The spatial organization of the frame Multimodal  Encompasses multimedia but attends to the ways (or modes) information is gathered, interpreted, or experienced Non-linear editing  Digital video editing applications that enable direct access to any video frame in a digital video clip Normal (perspective/lens)  A perspective approximating the field of vision of the human eye Observational cinema  Blends the methods of scientific observation with the storytelling of documentary filmmaking Optical zoom  The lens’ capacity to make a subject appear closer to the camera Optimize/Resize  Make the image file appropriate for its use, often reducing size ppi  Pixels per inch Prime lens  Any lens with a fixed focal length (i.e., cannot “zoom”) Perspective  The position of the camera relative to the subject (e.g., straight on, from the side, eye level, below, or above the subject, etc.) Photo/image elicitation  Using photos/images to trigger responses and feedback. Includes photovoice where research participants produce their own images Pre-visioning  Imagining in advance the image you wish to capture Read/Write speed  Speed images “write” from the camera’s processor to a memory card and speed images download (read) from card to computer Reformatting  Converting a digital image from one file type into another Rule of thirds  A type of composition using an imaginary tic-tac-toe grid to help create more visually interesting images Search engine optimization (SEO)  Metadata content that impacts the ability of search engines to identify relevant images Secondary data  Research data collected by government and non-profit agencies and made available for broader use Sensitivity  See ISO setting

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Shadows  The darkest part of an image Shutter speed  How long the camera’s sensor is exposed to light SLR  Single-lens reflex camera Storage capacity  Amount of digital data able to be stored on digital memory cards or drives Telephoto  A narrower perspective than the field of vision of the human eye Thumbnail  Reduced size image; facsimile of the original, just smaller Timestamp  Sequence of characters denoting when something occurred, like saving a file or making an image (e.g., date and time) Visual ethics  The ethical concerns of working with and using visual images Visual literacy  Competence in discerning and interpreting visual experiences and encounters, including actions and objects, and fundamental to visual learning and communication (coined by John Debes in 1969). For more see the International Visual Literacy Association (www​.ivla​.org) White balance  Camera/display setting used to make sure that whites look white; accounts for color casts of different light wavelengths Wide angle  A wider perspective than the field of vision of the human eye Workflow  Sequential steps to achieve a specific outcome. Each step is necessary before moving to the following step, thus the idea of “flow”

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures Page numbers in bold refer to case studies ACDSee 80, 183, 185, 188 Adobe: Bridge 163; Creative Cloud 106; Lightroom 80; Photoshop 80; Premier 98, 106 alt text 189, 197 angle/perspective 27, 30, 82, 197 anthropology: use of cameras 55–64; see also ethnography aperture 73–76, 76, 88n2, 197 archiving 155, 168–170, 175n18 art 24 Asch, Patsy and Timothy 57, 96, 122 audio 60, 97–100, 115, 144–145, 178, 181, 188, 192n2 backgrounds, colors 125, 137, 138, 195–196 backup 155, 156, 158, 162–163, 171 ballroom dancers, images 5, 11, 30, 35, 44, 72, 77 bandwidth 138, 144, 169, 197 batch operations 161, 167, 186 Bateson, Gregor 25, 56, 57, 124, 140, 141 batteries 84, 105, 108, 192n7 Belize 136 Biella, Peter 43, 122 Bishop, John xvii, 32–33, 97 blogs 121, 144–145 Blue, Carroll Parrott 122 Boas, Franz 25, 56, 57, 59 Bolivia, images 6, 29, 32, 85, 166 Brims, Michael 98, 105 B-roll 102, 113n11, 197

camera bags 84–85, 98, 108 Cartwright, Elizabeth xviii, 94–95, 95 cell phone see smartphone Chagnon, Napoleon 57, 122 Choose Life 33 chronological searching 183 cinéma verité 58, 61, 96, 112n5, 197 cloud, digital storage 104, 130, 156, 158, 163, 169–170, 175n12, 175n16, 178, 183 codecs 145, 150n3, 197 code key 182, 197 Collier, John Jr. 26, 28, 57, 60, 139 Collier, Mary E. T. 27 Colombia, image 46 color correction 161, 164–165 colored backgrounds 125, 137, 138, 195–196 communication, with subjects 13, 20 composition 197; photographs 25, 27, 30, 69, 81–84, 86–87; video 33, 100 consent 13–15, 16, 18–19, 69, 73, 93, 102, 112n3, 120, 144, 148, 198; see also informed consent content 11, 44, 45, 57, 77, 109, 112n1, 117, 123, 124, 140–142, 158, 159, 165, 178, 180, 183, 189 context 4, 12–14, 20, 29, 40, 42–43, 44, 91, 102, 138, 142, 144–145, 166, 178–180, 183, 186 contrast 28, 101, 138, 165, 197 copy, digital data 156, 158 copyright 165, 166, 181 cropping 155, 161, 164, 167, 197 Curtis, Edward 25, 139



202 Index dancers see ballroom dancers Dane-zaa 122 dark storage 170, 197; see also archiving data, images as 40–50 database 123, 166, 179, 182, 188 Datta, Gaurav xviii, 3, 14, 18, 109 The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing 122 decontextualitzation/circulation of images 12 depth of field (DOF) 30, 75, 77, 86, 197 detail, of image 42–43 digital data: archiving 155, 168–170, 175n18; metadata 165–166, 171, 177–193; organizing 155–168; searching 182–183; secondary analysis 121, 189, 198; storage 155, 168–173; transfer rates see bandwidth digital photography, storage media 79–80 digital single-lens reflex camera see DSLR digital storytelling 144–145 digital zoom 79 DIY: aerial photography 133; ethics 16 dog, imagery 23 dots per inch (dpi) 138, 165, 167, 197 DSLR 73, 89n6, 96, 103, 197 Dublin Core 182 editing, definition 155 elicitation see photo elicitation ethics 9–21; see also decontextualization/circulation of images; DIY; informed consent; outcomes, of image display; rapport, with subjects; representational authority Ethical Traces 64 ethnofiction 109, 109–110, 197 Ethnographic Terminalia 142, 143 ethnography: ethnographic triad 31–33; films 57–59, 95–96; images 25–27, 26, 27, 28–35, 33; multimedia research 125–126, 126; theoretical turn 58–59; video 91–93 exchangeable image file (EXIF) 181 EXIFTool 181, 186, 187, 192 exporting, digital images 168, 197 exposure/exposure value (EV) 28, 73, 75–76, 103, 197

Facebook 144, 183, 189 fades 137–138, 195 Feld, Steven 100 field notes 40, 91; images 41–42, 42; metadata 121–122, 178–179, 182–183, 189–191 filenames 159, 161, 174n2 flag, imagery 23 Flaherty, Robert 25, 57, 65n9 flash drives 158, 159, 169 flash lighting 32, 82–84, 83 Fletcher, Alice C. 42, 42 framing 27, 29, 42, 197 France, images 87 Franzen, Sarah xix, 124, 125–126 Frost, Karl 46 f-stop 74–75, 197 Gardner, Robert 57, 59, 95, 139 Geertz, Clifford 123 Ghana 133–134, 134 gimbal 85, 97, 104–105, 105, 198 Guinea-Bissau 131–133, 132 Haddon, Alfred 25, 56, 57, 96 hard drives 158, 169, 170, 192n2 Hawthorne effect 91 headphones 98, 99, 106, 113n7 Heider, Karl 42–43, 139 Henley, Paul 100 Hennessy, Kate 122 Hey Watch This! Sharing the Self Through Media 144 highlights 28, 198 Himalaya 33, 47, 47–48 Himalayan Herders 33 Hockings, Paul 60 Housepaint, Phase II: Shelter Exhibit 122 Human Relation Area Files (HRAF) 182 hypermedia 122 I am a Whisper, My Dear 110 image resolution 105, 145, 165, 167–168, 198 images: as data 40–49, 47–48, 49n1, 58, 79; to illustrate, explain, evoke 43–45; meaning and understanding 45–46; online posting 15, 121, 148, 165, 189; photographic intent 71, 72, 88; publishing 142–143; revisiting 174n5, 189; selection 138, 163–164, 184–185, 185; in social

Index  sciences research 55–67; using 46, 71, 130–149; see also digital data; photographs image stabilization 77–80, 78, 97, 165, 167–168, 198 image treatment (IT) 164 India 109–110 Indonesia 16, 123–124, 141, 141 informed consent 13, 19, 93, 144, 198 intent 25, 31, 67, 71, 72, 88, 92, 108; see also images; photographic intent The Interactive Village 123 International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) data 181 Internet: data storage 158, 169; ethics of dissemination 14; posting images 117, 133, 144–145, 165, 189; see also multimedia ISO setting 74–75, 198 Jones, Ryan Christopher 74 JPEG files 80–81, 156, 157, 168, 192n5 Kashmir 18–19 Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) 133–134 Kroeber, Alfred 56, 57 Lange, Patricia 145–146, 146 Lemelson, Robert Jr. 123–124 lens speed 198 Les Maîtres Fous 109 LGBT 109–111, 111 Lighting: photographs 27, 32, 81–82, 83, 198; video 103–104 Lord, Austin xix, 47, 47–48, 48 Luvaas, Brent 141, 141 MacDougal, David 57, 59, 61, 95 Magnum agency 23 Malawi 122 Malinowski, Bronislaw 57, 60 Marshall, John 57 Mead, Margaret 25, 56, 57, 60, 124, 139, 141 medical technology, videos 94 memory cards 79–80 metadata 166, 177–193, 180, 181, 184, 188, 198 microphones 98–100, 98, 99, 105 Mihai, Mariangela xix, 109, 109–111, 110 mise-en-scѐne 25, 198

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Moog, Steve xix, 15, 16–17 Mooney, James 42 Morocco, images 74 multimedia 47, 62, 115–129; advantages and disadvantages 124; blogs and webpages 144–145; data gathering 119–122; definition 116; digital storytelling 144–145; ethics 120; history 116–119; hypermedia 122–124; posters 135, 136; PowerPoint 118, 137; uses 119–124, 138–145; see also Internet multimodal: definition 116, 198; evolution of 117–119; examples 122–124, 125–126 naming, digital files 159–162, 171–173 National Geographic Magazine 24, 37n3 Nepal 33, 47, 47–48, 48 NM2 New Media for a New Millennium 123 non-linear editing (NLE) 96, 198 non-verbal signals, video filming 100, 102 normal (perspective/lens) 79, 82, 89n6, 198 objectivity, of images 58–60 observational Cinema 57, 59, 198 optical zoom 79, 198 optimizing, digital images 138, 167, 175n13, 198 organizing, digital data 163, 164, 172, 177–189, 188 originating moments 64 the Other, images of 56, 57, 59 outcomes, of image display 12, 15 Outline for Cultural Materials Subjects List (OCM) 182 perspective 27, 30, 49n5, 81–82, 86, 106, 198 Perú, images 27, 70, 83, 119–121, 119 photo elicitation 28, 70, 119, 198 photo essay 139–142 photographs/photography: advantages and disadvantages 69–71; composition 81–84; equipment 84–85; ethics 9–21; exposure 28–29, 103; history 25, 56–58, 57, 65n1; photographic intent 71–73; see also images; in sensitive areas 18, 18; in social sciences research 55–67; technology 60

204 Index photojournalism 23 Picasa 183 pixels 75, 77–79, 78, 80 pixels per inch (ppi) 167–168, 198 portraits 86–87 posters 135, 136 post-production 96, 98, 100, 103, 111 PowerPoint 137 presentations 135, 138–139 previsioning 35, 37n11, 71, 83, 85, 198 privacy, of subjects 13, 109, 192n1 punks 16–17 ranking, images 174n5, 183–186, 185, 186 rapport, with subjects 10, 11, 13, 36, 131 RAW files 80, 89n4, 156, 157 read/write speed 80, 198 reformatting, digital images 145, 168, 198 Regnault, Félix-Louis 25, 56 Reilly, Michele xx, 155, 171, 172, 175n8, 177, 187 representational authority 12, 59 resizing, digital images 161, 167 resolution: images 77, 78, 80, 145, 165, 167, 198; video 96, 104 rituals, images 70 Roque del Pinho, Joana xx, 131–132, 132 Ross, Cody 46 rotating, digital images 164, 175n9 Rouch, Jean 57, 58, 61, 95 rule of thirds 28, 37n9, 84, 85, 198 scale, of images 42–43, 44, 49n5, 77 scanning, old images 169, 170 search engine optimization (SEO) 189, 198 searching, digital data 182–186 secondary analysis 189–191 secondary data 121, 198 selection, digital images 163, 184, 185, 186 sensitivity see ISO setting sensor, digital 73–75, 77, 78, 82, 97, 104, 164 shadows 28, 32, 75, 83, 84, 199 shutter speed 73–75, 105, 177, 199 SLR see DSLR smartphone 68, 78, 78, 85, 91, 96, 104–106, 105, 116, 132, 144, 168, 178

sociology, photography 11, 49n7, 59, 65n6, 149n1 software, image organization 80, 163, 183 sound baffle 98, 100, 101 sound see audio Spencer, Baldwin 56 spreadsheets 171, 182, 186–188, 187 stabilization 86, 97, 98, 105, 198 still images see photographs storage, digital data 155, 158, 168–170, 175n16, 199 storytelling, digital 47, 144–145 subfolders, digital files 155, 158, 160, 162–165, 162, 171–172 subjects, relations with 10, 12–14, 69, 71, 130, 132 tagging, images 183–184, 184, 185 Tajen Interactive 123 technology: photographic 60–62, 81; video 95, 104–106, 108 telephoto lens 79, 82, 106, 199 text, with images 138–144, 148; see also metadata theoretical turn 58 thumbnail 163, 181, 183, 199 TIFF files 80–81, 168, 170 timestamp 175n7, 177, 179, 183, 199 Toronto 63, 122 United States 11, 26, 28, 30, 35, 42, 44, 77, 95, 101, 102, 107, 125–126, 143, 144–145, 144, 190 USB 158, 169 Verheijen, Janneke 122 video: advantages and disadvantages 89–92; audio 60, 97–100, 98, 99, 101, 102, 105, 115, 120, 144; B-roll 102–103, 113n9, 197; composition 33, 96, 100; equipment 101, 102, 104–108, 105, 107; evaluating 108–109; intent 92–93; lighting 103; non-linear 98, 117, 123; nonverbal signals 102; pitfalls 106–108; practice 106; resources 112; smartphone 104–106; stability 97, 98, 105; training use 94–95; zoom 113n8, 127 Vimeo 98, 145 visual ethics 11–21, 199; see also ethics visual literacy 22–34, 199

Index  watermarks 165–4 webpages 115, 122, 142–144, 189; see also Internet Weissman, Eric xx, 62–63, 63 Westmoreland, Mark xx, 133–134, 134 white balance 81, 89n5, 104, 199 wide angle lens 29, 199 Wi-Fi 68, 73, 158 Williams, F. E. 56, 57 workflow 156–168, 178, 199

Wright, Terence xxi, 85, 86–87, 87, 123 Yanomamo Interactive 122 YouTube 98, 99, 122, 145, 146 Zeki, Smir 43 zoom 138 zoom lens 79, 88n1, 198

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