Photo/stories from the field: the photo-camera has a video function!

Early in the research we provided each child with an inexpensive digital photographic camera to use as part of the data production. The idea was that children would make pictures of their everyday, as well as pictures of things that matter to them – the idea that was driving most of our data collection activities with our interlocutors during the ethnographic fieldwork. The cameras however were theirs to keep and we were very clear about how they are free to make a personal use of the camera independently of the research and how they would always choose which pictures they want to give us and which ones they prefer to keep for themselves. The photographic method has proved to be a very rich source of data and has led us, among other things, to think, reflect and tremendously expand our understanding of children’s everyday life and things that matter to them. The pictures they took led to countless discussions, thinking and experiments as well as to three photographic exhibitions, a book and a rich archive of children’s photographs. Providing the children with a camera however also had a pretty unexpected twist: the video function.

Although we didn’t specifically mention when we presented the cameras and its functions to our interlocutors, most of the children found out pretty soon that their cameras could record video as well. And since then we have been viewing and receiving all sorts of video creations from our interlocutors. We are still thinking about if/how to use some of these videos, which additionally cover a pretty wide array of genres and styles. In Athens, there are ‘YouTube’ videos made by a couple of children, in which they present objects, toys, their siblings and so on, to an imagined audience. Similarly, there are a sort of video diaries made by a child interlocutor, in which she describes her day to day life. A child used it to conduct interviews among her peers at school. Then, some of the children used the camera to create fiction films with their friends and/or siblings – mostly action films. And some interlocutors used it to document events – such as school plays, or their siblings’ sports performances. All these uses, as well as the very fact that children decided to record and share with us videos, has gotten us thinking both about what to do with this, as well as about unexpected encounters with children’s agency. And then, there was another one, rather particular and pretty inventive use of video, by Natasa, a girl of eight in Athens.