questions i've recently come to think about as central to my work on photographic practice by everyday folk include:
- what do we think we're doing when we make photos to share on Facebook, Flickr, or similar social media?
- what motivates someone to make images either truthfully, authoritatively, ironically, playfully, or with some other value system in mind? how does one know when or why to make images of one kind and not another? what factors contribute to that decision-making process?
- what factors, social, economic, or otherwise, deter people from making images in certain capacities, or from making images at all?
- what cultural narratives (such as those around art, science, journalism, etc.) contribute to motivating, and what to deterring, people's photographic image production?
although i think there is still rich work to be done with analysis of specific images and forms of imagery, it seems that there's still a paucity of understanding around how we come to images and make sense of them—whether we're materially making them ourselves, or symbolically taking their meaning from others.
for me, social media might play a significant role in understanding personal, interpersonal, and social behaviours surrounding how visual imagery, including photographs, are activated in everyday life. then again, and with wary attention focused squarely on the term "behaviour" and its connotations of effects-laden psychological theory, social media may not be of help at all.
still, with increasingly more individuals centering formerly isolated and private "home mode" communicative practices on networked spaces like those Facebook and Flickr provide, there must be some conclusions that can be drawn about how one makes these photos, how one makes them make sense, and where that leaves us as a society.
