We explore the opportunities and constraints for sharing personal and 'social group' communications through the use of multi-location interactive image displays and mobile image capture devices. Accordingly, we seek to provide a better understanding of the use of such technologies in supporting close tie relationships through the implementation of Collage, an interactive image display.Collage has been designed for immediate and lightweight modes of sharing though synchronous and asynchronous interaction between users and digital images/text. We report on the results of a technology probe with three related families over a ten-week period. Through interviews and participant data we provide a rich account of their use with the system, emergent practices and usability issues that enabled and limited their experience of sharing digital family images. We also show evidence for user driven resolution of ambiguities in the system as an enabler of new experiences -What might be called "happy coincidences".

Photography is now a highly automated activity where people enjoy phototaking by pointing and pressing a button. While this liberates people from having to interact with the processes of photography, e.g., controlling the parameters of the camera or printing images in the darkroom, we argue that an engagement with such processes can in fact enrich people's experience of phototaking. Drawing from fieldwork with members of a film-based photography club, we found that people who engage deeply with the various processes of phototaking experienced photography richly and meaningfully. Being able to participate fully in the entire process gave them a sense of achievement over the final result. Having the opportunity to engage with the process also allowed them to learn and hone their photographic skills. Through this understanding, we can imagine future technologies that enrich experiences of photography through providing the means to interact with photographic processes in new ways.

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People with cancer have to contend with a variety of physical, emotional and social difficulties. Young people with cancer are often faced with the additional burden of isolation from their peers and social network. This paper outlines early results from a collaborative project seeking to use emerging technologies to develop and evaluate a peer-based social support system to support social connectivity amongst young people with cancer. We introduce an integrated service named MyTrac, which combines online social network applications and mobile broadband telephony. Seven young people (18-25yo) participated in the three month study. The study encompassed in-depth interview data, questionnaire data and an analysis of system audit logs, which documents participants' use and experience of the system. In this paper we highlight specific communications mediated by MyTrac, showing how they are a reflection of both the individual personalities of participants and a reflection of their cancer journey. We illustrate how these individual identities construct a collaborative identity for MyTrac, one which both encompasses and excludes particular types of interaction. We conclude by articulating some design considerations for social connectivity systems which seek to support young people with cancer.