ABSTRACT
This chapter starts by introducing photojournalism, art, and ethnography as three approaches to working with and using images based in different histories and with different objectives. John Debes coined the term visual literacy in 1969. It 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. The old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words” is part of the advantage of thinking about and working with images as data. At the same time, this is also the challenge of working with images: Images can communicate so much because what they can communicate is often quite open-ended. Likewise, participants’ relationship with the ethnographer affects the intimacy between the two, which manifests in different types of images. Attention and respect, especially over time, facilitate the rapport and understanding of what stories to tell and which images best tell these stories.
