Give and Take: A Study of Consumer Photo-Sharing Culture and Practice Andrew D. Miller Schematic New York, NY amiller@schematic.com
W. Keith Edwards Georgia Institute of Technology / GVU Center Atlanta, GA keith@cc.gatech.edu ABSTRACT In this paper, we present initial findings from the study of a digital photo-sharing website: Flickr.com. In particular, we argue that Flickr.com appears to support—for some people—a different set of photography practices, socialization styles, and perspectives on privacy that are unlike those described in previous research on consumer and amateur photographers. Further, through our examination of digital photographers’ photowork activities—organizing, finding, sharing and receiving—we suggest that privacy concerns and lack of integration with existing communication channels have the potential to prevent the ‘Kodak Culture’ from fully adopting current photo-sharing solutions. Author Keywords Consumer photography, digital photography, media sharing, domestic and leisure computing, photowork ACM Classification Keywords H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. INTRODUCTION Much previous research has explored how people collaborate around physical photos [1,2,4,5]; however, much less is understood about the possibilities provided by the recent emergence of photo-sharing websites such as Flickr.com. Indeed, as some have argued [7], computers and the Internet have the potential to increase both the opportunities and the audience for images, and consequently offer the possibility of creating new practices not possible with print photographs. This potential raises important research questions that we sought to answer through an empirical study of the sharing
practices of digital photography users. For example, when one’s photographs are confined to a physical shoebox, privacy concerns are perhaps marginal; how has the move toward Internet-based photo-sharing technology affected users’ concerns about privacy? Photo-sharing is no longer limited to physical albums in the home and prints sent through the mail; does this mean that the importance of collocation has dramatically diminished? Prior work has noted the role of physical photo sharing in reinforcing existing social networks; how does the shift toward Internet-based photo-sharing affect these practices? Does it, for example, play a role in the creation of new socialization styles, when photos are shared with strangers? This study represents an initial exploration of several practices that have evolved around recent and highly-popular online sharing websites, and how those practices contrast with more traditional digital photo sharing. Rather than attempting a broad study to characterize users of these sites as a whole, we have focused on a smaller, initial investigation structured around uncovering detailed insights of a number of aspects of the photographic workflow. This choice limited us to an initial exploration of whether online digital access changed people’s sharing practices, but our results show that some people—who we called “Snaprs”—had apparently developed some novel practices RELATED WORK Richard Chalfen was among the first to study consumer photography [1]; we draw heavily on his concepts of home mode and Kodak Culture. Chalfen’s ‘home mode’ of communication showed that consumers typically share images—photographs, video footage—of traditional subjects such as birthdays and family holidays. He termed the participants in this home mode the ‘Kodak Culture’ who typically comprised family and friends and knew the people in the images. More significantly, those in the Kodak Culture know how to engage with the images, which for Chalfen meant the ability to tell stories about the photos, not just with the photos. As he explains “The narrative remains in the heads of the picturemakers and on-camera participants for verbal telling…the story does not appear in the album or on the screen; it is not ‘told’ by the images.” In other words,
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Kodak Culture photographers share oral stories around the images with others who can share and build on their narratives—friends and family. By the late 1990’s, however, consumers had adopted two digital technologies: cameras and cameraphones. Studies of cameraphone technology—often focused on photographs in the context of mobile messaging (MMS, for example) and mobile blogging (also called ‘moblogging’)—have found that digital systems afford both old and new practices. For examples, cameraphones have been appropriated to support home mode-esque storytelling [10]. However, Okabe and Ito [16] found that cameraphone users elevate otherwise ordinary objects and events to “photo-worthy” occurances; echoing Makela et al.’s [12] and Kurvinen’s [11] findings that cameraphone photos were used to tell stories with images, rather than about images as with the home mode. Other researchers also find an emphasis on telling stories with images. For example, Van House et al. [23] identified a variety of communicative uses of cameraphone photos, including self-expression and self-presentation. Kindberg et al.’s taxonomy of image capture practices lay out similar communicative forms, many of which are strikingly different than those practiced in the home mode of communication examined by Chalfen [8]. In other words, these devices seem to lend themselves to a different sort of photographic communication—one that involves telling stories with images. Researchers have also studied the adoption and use “traditional,” standalone digital cameras. Again, these studies find both traditional, ‘home mode’, and new practices. For example, the work of Frohlich et al. [4] and Crabtree et al. [2] echo the earlier findings of Chalfen, emphasizing the continued importance of gathering around a presenter who narrates the photo story (an activity that Chalfen labeled “exhibition events”). Both of these studies, along with findings from Kirk et al. [9], found continued reliance on the printed photograph as a photo-sharing object. Even images that began as digital files were often printed purposely to support sharing and story-telling showing one potential challenge to incorporating digital systems in home mode. Much study of consumer digital photography has also described new processes for working with digital images —some of which present challenges for consumers. Much of the process discussion has centered on photowork (“the activities people perform with their digital photos after capture but prior to end use such as sharing” [9]) and the photoware intended to support that work (specialized software offerings that “bite into further stages of the conventional photo life cycle, especially to support the storage, sending, and sharing of photos on-line” [4]). Our work builds on, and uses similar methods to, that of Kirk et al. [9], who studied consumers’ photowork practices. Indeed, some of our findings—particularly “pre-sharing” activities such as downloading, organizing,
annotating, and so forth—mirror their photowork practices. However, unlike Kirk et al., we also explored the “end-uses”—what happened after the photowork completed—including sharing and receiving of photos, particularly around the use of photo-sharing web sites. Further, we also explored users’ views on privacy, and how those concerns may have affected their sharing strategies. Other studies of photowork point to a challenge for photoware: software to support the workflow. A well-known challenge is the difficulty of organizing digital photographs, and the reluctance of most consumers to invest significant time in this activity [2,4,18]. Some researchers have proposed tools to support better browsing and tagging to help with photowork; see [3, 19, 21, and 24]. In the last year, another digital trend has grown: the sharing of images via websites such as Flickr.com and Snapfish.com. While these sites may have superficial similarities to photo blogging (distinct from moblogging) sites—both are web-based tools for sharing photos—they seem to involve distinct practices. In a study of photo blogs, McDonald [13] argues that photo blogging practices are distinct from photo sharing sites such as Flickr: “Photo sharing is distinct from photoblogging as the latter often carries the aesthetics and goals of traditional photography.” It is precisely this question—whether sharing is oriented around the ‘snapshot’ home-mode of communication—that we wanted to understand with respect to Flickr and other sites. Do these sites make it possible—and desirable—for the Kodak Culture to share images with remote friends and family? Do they also give rise to new modes of photo-sharing? We were particularly intrigued by features in these sites that allow sharing with everyone, including strangers. METHODOLOGY We conducted a set of semi-structured interviews with 10 people in 2006 in Atlanta, GA. We interviewed people who had fully converted to digital photography, to see how their practices have changed, and how they are dealing with current organization and sharing solutions. We examined their Internet-based sharing practices to see whether they could be seen as an extension of historical consumer photographers’ priorities and goals, and how available online sharing solutions affect the kinds of communities created and strengthened by photo-sharing. Our participants were in their 20’s and 30’s. Five of our participants were female, five male; four lived with a significant other while six did not. Five used a digital SLR while five used a point-and-shoot digital camera. Participants’ computing background varied but all were computer literate, having experience with file organization and backup, email, the web, and so forth. We recruited participants through word of mouth, e-mail and through postings on several online forums, including Craigslist and Flickr. Recruitment method turned out to be a key determiner of our sample; five of our participants responded to posts on a large (1000-member), local Flickr group,
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