Photo elicitation project #dmingml dmingml 'photo elicitation'
Exploring the past to know the present: Photo-elicitation for Callingwood Road Presbyterian Church
((tags: dmingml)) #dmingml dmingml ‘photo-elicitation’
Introduction
A local congregation like any social grouping has a history. Often this history is formalised in a written ‘formal history’ yet behind the significant events and prominent people lies an implicit history – experiences, emotions, thoughts and meanings – that is carried by the corporate group and by individuals. This implicit history, similar to the explicit history, is an interpreted history dependent upon how the context of the meaning invested in the ‘historical moment’ is ‘read’ or viewed by those persons recording or reviewing the history. One method to ‘read’ a historical moment, explicit or implicit, is with the use of photographs as Harper suggests. [Harper, 13] The use of photographs to glean knowledge about the past has the benefit of enabling the researcher or enquirer to gain insight into memories and experiences [meaning], “to capture the impossible, a person gone, a past event” [Harper, 23] that otherwise may remain hidden. Attaining such knowledge requires reflexivity on the part of the audience [enquirer and viewer] concerning the interpretation of the content of the image and any subjective meanings given to the content. [Pink, 118-119]
Henk de Roest in an visual ethnography study used photographs to research the implicit and explicit meaning that church buildings that were being closed had for the people who had been connected with them. He writes of his intent, “through the photographs taken or chosen by the informants, I tried to learn which places and signs in the church building had become important or precious to them....” [de Roest, 4] Drawing upon de Roest’s work how might photographs be used to gain insight into a local congregation? In particular what insights might be captured concerning a local congregation’s implicit history using photographs of people and events from that congregation’s past? Further to this might these insights inform the congregation’s present context ?
The Context and Method
Callingwood Road Presbyterian Church is a local congregation established in 1985. Over the years hundreds of photographs of people and events associated with the congregation have been produced with the majority being ‘snapshots’ taken by people now unknown. For the congregation’s 25th anniversary approximately forty photographs were chosen as representative of the congregation’s past and used in a power point presentation. Why were these photographs chosen? Perhaps they were chosen as a ‘collection of images of collective and institutional identities, present or past’ [Harper, 13] and perhaps these photographs evoked some meaning for the person who selected them and she hoped they would do the same for those who viewed them. We just don’t know; sadly the person who chose these photographs is deceased and her methodology for choosing these photographs is unknown.
These forty photographs formed the basis for a photo-elicitation project investigating what insights might be gleaned about the congregation’s history. Whereas classic photo-elicitation research uses photographs and interviews to “elicit reactions and information” [de Roest, 4; also Harper, 13] this project following de Roest used “photofeedback or photo- selfelicitation” in which participants wrote comments to the photographs chosen. [de Roest, 4; also Harper, 17] Both are collaborative projects [Pink, 88] with the viewer or informant and the researcher contributing to the results, though the former more so than the latter. As de Roest comments such methodology enables the possibility of the researcher’s subjectivity and the informant’s subjectivity concerning the images to intersect [de Roest, 4] and to critique and inform each other.
A general request was made to the congregation inviting individuals to select one or several photographs from the forty presented – ones that provoked some sort of meaning - and then write a personal response to the image. This response was to be 100 – 200 words and guided only by general questions such as: were you there? What is occurring?; What might this photo mean to you?; what thoughts, attitudes, emotions arise in you as you look at the photo and the event it represents?; is there something going on others wouldn’t be aware of?; why might this photo be important in the life of Callingwood Road Presbyterian Church?; does this photo cause you to think about something that you haven’t thought about for a long time, if at all? From the seventeen submissions fifteen were chosen for inclusion in the project. The two photographs not chosen were submitted by the same person who had submitted five in total and the written responses deemed to be mostly labelling – who was in the photograph. These fifteen photographs with responses were placed in a set entitled, ‘Callingwood Road Presbyterian Church: Photo-elicitation’ and posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/crpc/
The Analysis and Discussion
The images are photos, ‘snap-shots’ into the ‘collective past’ [Harper, 13] and memory of Callingwood Presbyterian Church. They depict events and people that occurred for some of the participants earlier in their own participation within the congregation, and for others there is no temporal connection other than the present [including the author]. Yet for both groups these images connect the past to the present. As images of a collective past they have contributed to a “community and historicity ethnography’ to use a typology formed by Harper [Harper, 16]; that is these images provide a ‘window’ into the people, the institutional and interpersonal behaviours, beliefs and values [Angrosino, 14] or to use a term from above they provide insight into the implicit history of the congregation. Not in its totality, only a glimpse in part due to a small number of images being used.
What was glimpse? It is noteworthy that all of the images depicted people at important events: for the building such as sod turning, the dedication worship service, burning the mortgage [five in total]; personal or congregational social events [four]; children and youth [4]; and events associated with rituals [two]. It would appear that these events and the people depicted represented meaning for the viewer – perhaps the memory of a Godly man who infused hope into a young woman, or sadness for persons once involved but no longer due to age and death, or the reminder how people and churches change over time, or how suffering of a young man binds people together across time and distance, or the building. If the collective meaning from these images could be encapsulated into one sentence perhaps it would as one writer said, “it is good to go back and remember” [Barb Bailey, First Service at CRPC new building].
It should be noted that all the writers, except one, were present in the congregation during the time depicted in the image they commented on; it might be expected that it would be these people who would select images of the past that they had some personal experience with and creating a historic ethnographic representation [Harper, 17] This might suggest that the writers as they viewed the images had memories evoked and in several cases memories with the attended emotions, for example sadness or joy or grief. To further explore these meanings group sessions [see de Roest] or personal interviews would be enlightening.
If all fifteen images, the comments and the captions are ‘read’ together what might be said, not only of the implicit history of this congregation but also of the present and the future? The sequence of the images in the sets might influence interpretation [Pink, 127-128]; they are not in order of when the event occurred but rather sequenced and grouped according to the author of the comments except the first image which actually should be the last according to author. The captions are descriptive, rather matter of fact as if to suggest that the image pointed to some definite objective knowledge of the past, but with no connection to the present. While the comments as suggested above point to something meaningful in the past and lost in the present. Overall the images and comments represent for several individuals the value of the collective history of the congregation; a sentiment the researcher concurs with.
Yet do these images also express something that has been lost? May it be assumed that the viewers being situated within the present congregation would compare the images and their attended memories and meanings with the present congregation? As this is done they see how the congregation, its people and life have changed and for some this change may be interpreted as the loss of something meaningful. This may be made more present in the situation of those who viewed the images as they view the present and ‘see’ a good part of the congregation growing old and no longer able to maintain their past level of involvement, whilst the younger portion of the congregation is growing smaller compared to the past. This potential connection would be the basis of a study [using photo elicitation?] that might suggest discernment for present and future ministry.
And what if anything does these images and comments say of the future? Anderson Campbell, a commentator of this project sensed a “now what?” and a “what’s left?” as he viewed the images and read the captions and comments. For a local congregation this is an important question, perhaps essential if the past is viewed as the best there was.
References
Angrosina, Michael. Doing Ethnographic and Observational Research. London: Sage Publications. 2007.
Harper, Douglas. “Talking about pictures: a case for photo elicitation.” Visual Studies. Vol. 17, No. 1. [2002], 13-26.
Pink, Sarah. Doing Visual Ethnography. 2nd.ed. London: Sage Publications. 2007.
Roest, Henk de. “Losing a Common Space to Connect: An Inquiry of ‘Inside’ Perspectives on Church Closure by the Use of Visual Methods.” London: Kings College. 2011.
Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies : An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials.[London: SAGE Publications. 2001.
