ABSTRACT
Over the last ten years, following a burst of enthusiasm in psychology for developing and using analytics for visual data, most researchers still tend to use the visual to elicit data rather than attempting to analyse visual data itself. Many of us find photo-elicitation to be a dynamic tool that aids communication and reflection in the interview process, enabling deeper reach into sensitive and abstract topics, and with participants who find the interview itself a challenging environment. Social scientists have long held that “the visual representations of society are both methods of research, and resources, or topics to be studied in their own right”, Psychology struggles with the visual and lacks confidence in visual methods. Visual elements of the data can be used to illustrate, when they have been discursively “worked over”, but they cannot be used to convey or exemplify an interpretation. The interpretation rests in the language, not in the image.
