Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This qualitative dataset is a collection of 40 open-ended interviews with people who put their personal photographs online. Face-to-face interviews were conducted, through instant messaging (IM) and email. Participants maintain their photographs on photoblogs and on Flickr.com sites. None of them make their primary living from photography.

Personal photographs, previously analysed by sociologists in relation to class, identity, family and domesticity, have acquired new social relevance with the widespread posting of personal photographs on the world wide web, and specifically on web logs or 'blogs'. The research explores how the new presence of millions of personal photographs online is changing how people understand images and themselves through images, and conversely, how those photographs are changing the way space on the internet is understood and used. By synthesising sociological literature on photography and the internet, the research contributes to academic discourse on the sociality of photographs. By working in collaboration with designers of photographic technologies, the research expands the range of sociology and contributes to the creation of new technologies and new design processes.

Further information about the study can be found on the depositor's web site Photos Leave Home

Main Topics:

Topics covered in the interviews include the respondent's photography,
other people's photographs, photoblogs, the internet community, their own web site. Links to the photoblogs are contained within some interviews.