Introduction to Theory
“The thrill found in a photograph comes from the onrush of memory. This is obvious when it’s a picture of something we once knew. That house we lived in. Mother when young. But in another sense, we once knew everything we recognize in any photo. That’s grass growing. Tiles on a roof get wet like that, don’t they? Here is one of the seven ways in which bosses smile. This is a woman’s shoulder, not a man’s. Just the way snow melts.
Memory is a strange faculty. The sharper and more isolated the stimulus memory receives, the more it remembers; the more comprehensive the stimulus, the less it remembers. This is perhaps why black-and-white photography is paradoxically more evocative than colour photography. It stimulates a faster onrush of memories because less has been given, more has been left out... (Peter Berger, 1992:192–193).
Berger shows how our memories pop into our thoughts when looking at pictures, bringing about certain events, and everyday experiences that we can re-enact in the present and use to reconstruct events. This story based on memories may not correspond with the experienced past reality. It becomes true and real in the present though, as if we experience the moment passed again, here and now, but differently changed by reality.
Based on these specific evocative qualities, Douglas Harper (2002) underpins the usefulness of photographs in doing qualitative research and open or narrative interviews. In fact, photos are used as an elicitation methodology in social science research. Instead of using only a SQUIN, a Starting Question Inducing Narrative, Harper develops a picture based starting question, inviting people to engage a conversation about topics that matter to them. Eventually, these pictures are part of a new interview method that can also be used as a tool for evaluation in practical settings.
“Photo elicitation is based on the idea that photos can be added to a research interview… Images evoke deeper elements of human consciousness than do words; exchanges based on words alone utilise less of the brain’s capacity than do exchanges in which the brain is processing images (Harper, 2002).
These insights are fundamental elements to engage conversations about past events. Photos trigger memories, induce people to tell a story of lived experience and share it with others. This brings us to why it is important also to use pictures and visual elements in general to develop practices of narrative accountability within communities and organizations. If we wish to show why a project has been a success and why it is worthwhile to continue, images can be supportive to capture experiences, the stories of people, the atmosphere of events. Photos actually show what people find important. What they captured as important can not easily be expressed in words or numbers. Photos help to remember, to capture and visualize and support also a more detailed story in words or images, coming from the heart and closer to people’s feelings at the time of events. Thus stories of lived experience, show a human account of activities and the values that matter to people.
This corresponds to what Loizos (2000: 98) underlines, claiming that the photograph has particular qualities that draw out memories and stories of experience: “Images are resonant with submerged memories, and can help focus interviewees, free up their memories, and create a piece of ‘shared business’ in which the researcher and the interviewee can talk together, perhaps in a more relaxed manner than without such stimulus.”
Photographs, through triggered memories are able to create connections between people in a subtle and invisible way. Sharing memories creates a bond, a sense of understanding and trust. Focussing on images and memories and their meaning is interesting material for professionals, exchanging about the values of their actions and the accountability. With Allett (2012) we stress that [ pictures]“aid memory and because it allows respondents to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ aspects of their lives” (Allett, 2012)
Asking people to make pictures about a topic that matters to them gives them a voice. They can share their views literally, instead of using words and responding to questions asked by others. These different representations and views picture why a project is worthwhile because it gives new insights, be it researchers, policy makers, project leaders or organisations and also to the people who finance the projects through subsidies.