 Collier extended the method to examine how families adapted to residence among ethnically different people, and to new forms of work in urban factories, interviewing families and communities with photographs created by researchers.Reflecting on the use of photo-elicitation, Collier (1957, p. 858), argued that ‘pictures elicited longer and more comprehensive interviews but at the same time helped subjects overcome the fatigue and repetition of conventional interviews’ and noted the technique's ‘compelling effect upon the informant, its ability to prod latent memory, to stimulate and release emotional statements about the informant’s life’.Photo-elicitation with researcher-initiated productions has been taken up by a range of researchers across the social sciences and related disciplines (Mannay 2016)

This technique of data collection is mostly used by researchers who believe in Positivist or realist view of the world.