What is Photovoice?

Photovoice is a participatory qualitative research method that can be an effective means of empowering participants to document and share their stories in a public forum. Through this opportunity to amplify their voices and share their stories, men can challenge the stigma associated with trauma, incarceration, and substance use.

Shifting Focus Project

Shifting Focus: Snapshots of Resilience is a photovoice project that took place between February and October 2020. Participants for Shifting Focus, all formerly incarcerated men, had previously participated in a trauma and resilience awareness workshop as part of our larger project. The workshop, titled “Making Sense of Traumatic Stress and Resilience: A Primer for Formerly Incarcerated Men,” discussed traumatic stress, including how it works and what causes it; drew connections between the different elements of traumatic stress and what it might mean in the context of the participants’ lives; and finally, discussed how men can develop resilience and better manage traumatic stress. 

The photovoice project was intended as an opportunity for participants to apply the knowledge they gained in the workshop as they explored their own life stories. Seven men agreed to participate and six completed the project. The participants met as a group once a week for four weeks to learn how to use digital cameras (provided by the project) and photography basics. The sessions were facilitated by professional photographer, Jeff Topham, and project manager, Kate Roth. Each session included lunch, a discussion of each participant’s work from the week prior, and a new photo assignment. The assignments included interpreting photos and creating captions; taking photos with direct prompts such as people, places, humour, colour, shapes, and self-portrait; and taking photos with more abstract prompts, such as frustration, fear, resilience, anger, success, pride, challenge, “The Best,” and, “The Worst.”

After the fourth session, held March 13, 2020, we had to suspend all research activities due to COVID-19. This included additional group sessions and photo assignments. In July 2020, we were able to resume limited activities but did not hold any additional group sessions. Following COVID-safe procedures, participants were encouraged to continue to take photos using the prompts they had already been given. Jeff met with each participant to collect their final photographs and from these collections, we selected 10 - 12 photos for photo elicitation interviews. These in-depth discussions took place over the course of two meetings with each participant. We selected a final six to eight photos for each participant and drafted photo captions based on the discussion transcripts.

All of the photos and captions included in the Shifting Focus exhibit and book were edited and approved by each participant.