ABSTRACT
Second, the image is a unique form of data that stores complexly layered meanings in a format that is immediately retrievable. On the one hand, the image is tangibly objective. What you see is what the camera got, so, everything else being equal, the image is a physical record of something that happened at some time or other.1 On the other hand, the image is irreducibly subjective. It invariably reflects the focus of attention at a particular moment of the one holding or directing the camera. The image may also capture important aspects of the experience of those portrayed in the image. Thus, images usually represent complex subjective processes in an extraordinarily objective form and require careful interpretation. Image-based research encourages social scientists to pay careful attention to the explanatory potential of various kinds of data and not just to the techniques for manipulating and interpreting those data.
