ABSTRACT
These assumptions regarding the usefulness of photography in social analysis derive from what is often called the empirical wing of visual sociology, which is closely related to documentary photography (Harper 1997). The assertion that photography may serve both visual sociology and documentary studies in a similar way does not, however, imply that the photographs are simple representations of social reality. Making a photograph is a complicated act that is influenced by gender, class, age and other sociological attributes of the photographer and subject; technological considerations in photography and the influences of the setting.1 In other words, the photograph sees, but it sees the way it has been made to see. The best way of demonstrating this point is to present photographs in the context of how they were made and how they inform and contest other sociological knowledge. This is the strategy of this chapter.
