This study raises the question of why photography has not been used more in educational ethnographic research. I draw on three studies in education, where I have used photography as a data collection method, to analyse what the dilemmas and issues are with using photography in educational research. When photographs are used in educational ethnographies it is for documentary purposes or as for data elicitation in interviews.Visual ethnography, action research and photovoice are all becoming popular forms of research, but not yet in education. Institutional review boards, school and parents mostly want to know in advance what kind of data will be collected when children are studied. This is difficult since photographic research is unpredictable especially if the participants collect the images. The informed consent is one of the most difficult issues since confidentiality cannot be promised if photographs of people are included in the final reporting (Gesne, 2006). Interestingly, my experience suggests that IRBs seem more willing to give permission for children to take photographs of their own milieus than they are to give permission to researchers to photograph children. In our study of elementary school students' views of their own community, they were given IRB permission to take any kind of photograph they wanted. The researchers would not have received such a permission.This analysis dispels the myth of photographs telling the truth. Denzin (1989) points out that manipulation has become even more of a possibility with digital photography. Also an image is a production of how the participants want to see themselves and their more factual position in a societal relationship (Bourdieu, 1998; Gibson, 2005). Holm's ethnographic research of a school for teenage mothers clearly shows this tension between desired image and the more everyday position. The photographs the teens took reflect the happy images they want to give to others. The girls' writing accompanying the photos provides the reader with a sense of their unhappiness and fears.According to Flick (2002) there has not been a visual data analysis method but that "procedures of interpretation familiar from analyses of verbal data have been applied to them. In this respect such visual data are also regarded as texts: photos tell a story, visual data are sometimes transformed into text by transcription…, content summaries or descriptions are made before interpretation is carried out in order to be able to apply textual interpretation methods on visual material" (p.153). But for Pink, (2005) "the purpose of analysis is not to translate 'visual evidence' into verbal knowledge, but to explore the relationship between visual and other (including verbal) knowledge." However, photographs without accompanying text are difficult to interpret. In a photographic study of graduate students' views on what it means to be a graduate student, Holm, Fang, and Hong (2006) found that students they did not have the visual vocabulary for taking photos. For example, international students included photographs of their absent families who had stayed behind in their home countries. However, there was not clear distinction between these photographs and those that portrayed the families that were present. In other words, present and absent families were portrayed in a similar way. Hence, students and other participants need to be somewhat trained in taking photographs.There are several hurdles for using photography in ethnographies in educational research. My three ethnographic studies show that most of them can be overcome and by not using photographs especially by students themselves we loose valuable data. We need to ponder of what informed consent means and how to better utilize the full potential of digital photography in data collection, analysis and reporting.Since this is a review of other research (includeing my own ethnographic research) there are too many refernces to be inluded in the 600 words, However, I have included a partial list of references in case it is required. Bateson, G. & Mead, M. (1942). Balinese Character, A Photographic Essay. New York: Special Publications of the New York Academy of Sciences, v. 2. Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical Reason. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Collier, Jr., J. & Collier, M. (1986). Visual Anthropology. Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Damico, S. B. (1985). Two worlds of a school: Differences in photographs of black and white adolescents. Urban Review, 17(210-222). Denzin, N. K. (1989). The Research Act (3rd edn.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Farber, P., & Holm, G. (1994a). Adolescent freedom and the cinematic high school. In P. Farber, E. Provenzo, Jr., & G. Holm (Eds.) Schooling in the light of popular culture, pp. 21-40. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Farber, P., & Holm, G. (1994b).A brotherhood of heroes: The charismatic educator in recent American movies. In P. Farber, E. Provenzo, Jr., & G. Holm (Eds.) Schooling in the light of popular culture, pp. 153-172. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Flick, U. (2002). An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Glesne,C. (2006). Becoming Qualitative Researchers. An Introduction. New York: Pearson. Harper, D. (1998). On the authority of the image: Visual methods at the crossroads. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.) Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. London: Sage. Harper, D. (2000). An argument for visual sociology. In J. Posser (Ed.), Image-based Research. A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, pp. 24-41. London: Routledge Falmer. Hockings, P. (Ed.)(2003). Principles of Visual Anthropology. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Holm, G. (1994). Learning in style: The portrayal of schooling in Seventeen magazine. In P. Farber, E. Provenzo, Jr., & G. Holm (Eds.) Schooling in the light of popular culture, pp. 59-80. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Holm, G. (1997). Teenage motherhood: Public posing and private thoughts. In J. Jipson & N. Paley (Eds.) Daredevil Research. Re-creating Analytic Practice, pp. 61-81. New York: Peter Lang. Holm, G. Huang, F, Cui, H. with Ayyad, F., Bultsma, S., Gilling, M., Hong, H.H., Hoye, J., Kagumba, R., Kouame, J., Nokes, M., Skjold, B., Zhong, H., &Warren, C. (2006). Being a doctoral student: A visual self-study. Paper presented at the Ethnographic and Qualitative Research in Education Conference, Cedarville, OH Pink, S. (2003a). Doing Visual Ethnography. London: Sage. Pink, S. (2005) The Future of Visual Anthropology, London: RoutledgeProsser, J. (2000b). The status of image-based research. In J. Posser (Ed.), Image-based Research. A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, pp. 97-112. London: Routledge Falmer. Rose, G. (2005). Visual Methodologies. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ruby, J. (2005). The last 20 years of visual anthropology - a critical review. Visual Studies, 20(2), 159-170 Wang, C. (2005). Photovoice. Social change through photography http://www.photovoice.com/method/index.html. Retrieved July 19, 2006.o G. Holm, "Visual Research Methods: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?" in S. Hesse-Biber and P. Leavy (Eds.), Handbook of Emergent Methods. New York: Guilford Publications.