1. Visual Diary

Visual methodology researcher Gillian Rose provided a critical approach to visual analysis: take images seriously, think about the social condition and effects of visual objects, and consider your own way of looking at images. Her framework for exploring visual content includes the site of production, the image itself, and its audience.

I chose to centre my visual analysis on the image itself, believing there are multiple layers of meaning in a single photograph: photographer intentions, choices, and narrative. I examined the photographic images through a designer’s journal — a process of sketching, recording, and reflecting, that induces idea development.

Ideas were recorded and developed in a dairy while conducting workshops, collecting participants’ photographs and photo stories, and doing my studio practice. I read between the lines of their photo­graphs and photo stories and tried to unpack the visual elements, their content, tone, and emphases. My pencil drew out ideas as a small-sketched response to what I see. They are my ideas in response to the collected visual data.

Excerpts from this diary are shared below.