With her paper Photographic visions and narrative inquiry, Barbara Harrison (2002) seeks to create a new way to look at photographs in narrative inquiry. As she writes:

A critical area of argument centres on the relationship of images to other texts, and asks whether it is possible for photographers to narrate independent of written or oral work.(2002) ​

As language will be the major form of analysis and interpretation it is also the major form of reporting. Thus the analysis can become based on the language used and the original visual source becomes secondary. Harrison (2002) suggests exploring how the visual can be used to create narrative. In the past visual records have been divided by those produced by the investigator, those made by the researched and the study of representation. It is quite different from using images as evidence or illustration.

Harrison also questions whether visual images possess the same structural elements we associate with traditional oral and written forms and/or does it have a meaning making system of its own, a field of study dominated by visual semiotics. Harrison was discussing research where participants were asked to record in a visual format. For me this raises two problems. The ‘recorder’ is creating the visual; it is not a natural phenomenon. Secondly the visual is an adjunct to the research it is not integral. The visuals that surround my work are as important as the words they are a natural culmination of my processing of information. Harrison also introduced the concept of ‘narrative picturing’ citing a Norwegian health researcher Stuhlmiller. This develops the concept of seeing the world through mental picturing or visualising images, suggesting it is easier to see experiences through remembered images.

Harrison argues that the use of visuals are not just confined to narrative inquiry and also that the purpose and value of these images have changed from being a record of the research, to being the research. It is still important that eventually these visuals will be interpreted through language. This is a point that I always return to. If I turn this around I sometimes wonder if we rely on the language of interpretation as we have lost our visual ability. As we stand in the gallery we say ‘what does it mean” have we forgotten to use our own visual interpretation and do we no longer trust it without interpretation and reinforcement.