Photo Interview

Photo interviews, often referred to as photo elicitation, are a research method that uses photographs and other visual prompts to guide dialogue between a participant and a researcher. The images can evoke personal, social, or environmental themes, often surfacing emotions, associations, and meanings that might be difficult to access through verbal questions alone. In biodiversity-focused projects, photo interviews are particularly valuable for connecting everyday experiences to broader ecological concerns. Within the PLANET4B project, for example, the method was applied in a Swiss case study exploring how faith shapes biodiversity decisions, examining how farmers’ religious or value-based beliefs influence farming practices and environmentally oriented food consumption.

In this module Ghezal Sabir explains how Photo Interview was used within PLANET4B, in this video she introduces the case study:

Key Features

Participants:

• This method is commonly conducted 1 on 1, between the interviewer and interviewee
• Photo elicitation can be conducted with more than one interviewee, either in pairs or small groups where participants respond to the same image, event, or place, or in a focus group setting that brings together people with different perspectives

Timeframe:

• The timeframe of a photo interview project depends on the number of participants and the intended depth of the interviews. Sufficient time should be set aside for preparing interview themes or guiding questions, recruiting participants, conducting the interviews, and completing transcription and analysis
• Participants should be given adequate time to take or select their photographs before the interview. A minimum of 1 weeks' notice is generally recommended to allow them to reflect on the task and prepare
• There are no fixed rules on the number or length of interviews, however you should respect for participants’ time and capacity to contribute.

Budget and Materials:

Photo interview can be a low-cost method, however you might want to budget for the following:

• Photography equipment, participants might be able to take photos using their own devices (phones or cameras), however where this is not possible, you will need to provide cameras that can be borrowed for the project
• Display materials, if participants wish to exhibit their photos, budget for printing and presentation. Including frames, foam boards, or digital screens
• Travel costs, either your own travel to the interview site or reimbursement for participants’ travel expenses if needed.
• Participant information and consent forms, information sheets and ethical consent forms to ensure participants understand the purpose of the project and how their contributions will be used
• Gifts, depending on the nature of your project and what has been ethically approved, you may wish to offer small tokens of appreciation to participants for their involvement

Skills Needed:

• Active listening, the ability to listen carefully and attentively, allowing participants to guide the discussion and expand on their own meanings
• Open questioning, skill in framing open, non-leading questions that invite reflection and interpretation of the photographs
• Facilitation, capacity to create a safe and comfortable atmosphere where participants feel able to share personal views or experiences
• Ethical awareness, sensitivity to issues of consent, confidentiality, and ownership of both the photographs and the narratives that accompany them
• Flexibility, readiness to follow the participant’s perspective, adapting to unexpected themes or directions in the conversation
• Analytical thinking, ability to connect insights from the discussion with wider research aims, while respecting the integrity of participants’ accounts
• Technical familiarity, basic knowledge of photography and digital tools, ensuring that images can be collected, stored, and displayed appropriately

When using photo interview in a research setting, attention should be paid to the research process, the integrity of the approach, and the implications it holds for co-created knowledge in research. Some key points to consider include: 

Define research objectives

• Begin by clarifying what the photo interview is intended to investigate, leaving space for unexpected outcomes to emerge.
• Objectives may include exploring how people perceive and value biodiversity, how everyday practices shape interactions with species or landscapes, or how photographs can surface taken-for-granted features of the environment.
• Researchers might also investigate how the method itself creates space for dialogue, participation, or advocacy, aligning objectives with both participant interests and wider research aims.
• Longer-term objectives can include contributing to biodiversity policy, strengthening community engagement, or developing participatory projects.

Data generation

• Photo interviews generate multiple forms of data, including participant-taken images, audio or video recordings of interviews, transcripts or fieldnotes. If you choose to host a photo exhibition alongside the project, this process will also generate significant data.
• Managing this variety of data requires clear organisation, such as cataloguing images with metadata, linking them to transcripts, and using secure digital storage with agreed access protocols.
• Together, these materials provide a basis for analysing both what participants photograph and how they talk about their images.

Ethics and consent

• Ethical practice is central, since photographs may depict people, private spaces, or ecologically sensitive sites.
• Informed consent should be secured, explaining how images and interview data will be used, stored, and shared.
• Participants should be given control over whether their images are identifiable, anonymised, or shared publicly, and should be able to withdraw consent at any point.
• Researchers should be transparent about whether photographs or quotes will appear in publications, exhibitions, or policy outputs.

Analytical strategies

• Photo interview data can be analysed thematically to identify recurring concerns, narratives, and values related to biodiversity, drawing on traditions of qualitative coding and grounded analysis.
• Narrative analysis can explore how people construct stories around their images, situating personal experience within broader ecological and cultural frames, consistent with theories of visual storytelling and memory.
• Visual analysis can be informed by visual sociology, semiotics, and photo-elicitation theory, examining symbolism, composition, and perspective, and attending to what is emphasised or excluded.
• Discourse analysis can focus on how participants frame biodiversity through language, metaphor, or silence, linking images to wider cultural and political discourses.
• Comparative and triangulated approaches can combine visual and textual data, link across participants or groups, and integrate other sources such as observation or mapping, building on photo-elicitation scholarship that treats images and dialogue as co-constructed knowledge.

Positionality

• The researcher’s role shapes the process, from framing the prompts to guiding discussion and curating how photos are used.
• Reflexive practice involves recognising how assumptions about biodiversity, photography, or research priorities may privilege certain representations.
• Working collaboratively with participants, or a skilled and diverse research teams can help to mitigate bias and ensure that different voices are represented.
• Transparency about how facilitation choices influence what stories and images are produced strengthens credibility.

Theoretical framing

• Photo interviews can be situated within visual sociology, ethnography, and participatory research traditions.
• They connect with debates on visual methods, memory, and identity, as well as environmental communication and biodiversity governance.
• The method highlights how images can act as both data and advocacy, producing knowledge that is at once empirical, cultural, and political.
• Positioning photo interviews within traditions of participatory action research and critical pedagogy underscores their potential to support both research and social transformation.