Photovoice: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Participatory Photography Method
Photovoice is a participatory research method in which people photograph their own surroundings and then discuss the pictures together to identify problems, strengths and possible actions. It is simple to explain, cheap to run and easy for people of all ages and literacy levels to join, which is why it has been used in a large number of published projects in public health, planning, education and social work. Running one well takes more care than it first appears.
Origins
Caroline C. Wang, then at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and Mary Ann Burris, working for the Ford Foundation in China, first described the approach under the name "photo novella" in a 1994 article in Health Education Quarterly, based on a project in which rural women in Yunnan province photographed their daily lives and health concerns. In 1997 they published "Photovoice: concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment" in Health Education & Behavior, which remains the standard reference.
The method draws on three traditions: Paulo Freire's education for critical consciousness, feminist theory's emphasis on women's own accounts of their lives, and documentary photography made by community members rather than outside professionals. It sits comfortably within participatory action research and is often combined with interviews, surveys or participatory mapping.
The three goals
Wang and Burris set out three aims for photovoice:
- to enable people to record and reflect their community's strengths and concerns;
- to promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs;
- to reach policymakers.
The third aim is easily forgotten. A photovoice project that ends with a nice exhibition in a community centre, but no conversation with the people who control budgets or rules, has done only part of the work.
Running a photovoice project: step by step
- Identify the audience for change. Before recruiting, list the decision-makers the group hopes to reach: a city council committee, a hospital board, a school, a housing association. Some projects invite them to a first meeting so they are expecting the results.
- Recruit participants. Keep the group small enough for everyone to speak in discussions; most published projects work with around a dozen participants or fewer. Explain the time commitment honestly and offer compensation.
- Hold an introductory workshop. Cover the purpose of the project, basic camera or smartphone skills, and above all ethics: when to ask permission, what not to photograph, how to stay safe.
- Agree on a first theme. A broad prompt works best, such as "what makes it easy or hard to stay healthy here?" or "places that matter to you in this neighbourhood".
- Photograph. Give participants one to two weeks per theme. Many projects run two or three rounds with different prompts.
- Select and discuss. Each participant chooses a small number of photographs, often one or two, to talk about in the group. Facilitators record the discussion, with consent, and take notes.
- Analyse together. The group sorts photographs and stories into themes, a process sometimes called "codifying". Participants write captions in their own words.
- Share and act. Present the photographs and captions to the decision-makers identified at the start, through an exhibition, a forum, a report or an online gallery, and agree concrete next steps.
The SHOWeD questions
To move discussion from description to analysis, many projects use a set of questions known by the mnemonic SHOWeD, adapted from Freirean practice and widely reproduced in photovoice manuals:
- What do you See here?
- What is really Happening here?
- How does this relate to Our lives?
- Why does this situation, concern or strength exist?
- What can we Do about it?
The questions are a prompt, not a script. Experienced facilitators let a discussion run when it is productive and return to the questions when it stalls.
Ethics: the camera is not neutral
Wang and Yanique Redwood-Jones discussed the ethical issues raised by a project in Flint, Michigan, in a 2001 article, "Photovoice ethics: perspectives from Flint Photovoice". They identified risks such as intruding into private spaces, disclosing embarrassing facts about individuals, placing people in a false light through a caption, and using a person's likeness without permission. Practical safeguards follow from these risks:
- Participants carry short consent forms for adults they photograph, and a separate procedure for children, who need permission from a parent or guardian.
- The group agrees in advance not to photograph illegal activity, identifiable people in vulnerable situations, or anything that could put the photographer at risk.
- Photographers keep copyright in their images and decide which may be exhibited or published; the project asks for written permission for each use.
- Faces can be blurred or photographs cropped where consent cannot be obtained.
- Participants should not be identifiable as the authors of photographs critical of powerful people if that could expose them to retaliation, for example a landlord or an employer.
Our article on informed consent in community research covers these questions in more depth.
Strengths and limitations
Photovoice makes it possible for people who are rarely asked for their views, including children, older people and people who do not read or write the dominant language, to take part as researchers. Photographs are persuasive in public meetings and often reach decision-makers more effectively than tables. Reviews of published projects have also noted limits: some projects stop at the exhibition, photographs can be read in very different ways, and the method alone rarely tells you how widespread a problem is. Combining photovoice with a survey or with official statistics gives both the depth and the scale.
The method also travels well into housing and neighbourhood studies, where residents photograph damp, broken lifts, unsafe crossings or valued green spaces. Our guide to community-led housing research shows how residents combine photographs with surveys and maps.
Sources
- Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris, "Empowerment through photo novella: portraits of participation", Health Education Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, 1994, pp. 171-186.
- Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris, "Photovoice: concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment", Health Education & Behavior, vol. 24, no. 3, 1997, pp. 369-387.
- Caroline C. Wang and Yanique A. Redwood-Jones, "Photovoice ethics: perspectives from Flint Photovoice", Health Education & Behavior, vol. 28, no. 5, 2001, pp. 560-572.
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