Sitting on the flight back home, the lights are off in the cabin and like most of the passengers K is dozing in the seat next to me somewhat exhausted. We will touch down in Narita about 9pm new year’s eve – so perhaps the rest of the passengers are saving their energies for parties that happen later on?

The laptop still has a bit of juice left and I have the relative luxury of a couple of hours with nothing to do but look at pictures from the last year and think. Life is fast, so its moments like these that serve as quality time for reflection. The sheer volume of photos from this last year is somewhat overwhelming – somewhere in the region of 30,000+ of my own, plus thousands more from my research team colleagues, user study participants (when keeping diaries) and subcontractors and scouts from different parts of the world. All of the photos trigger memories, and associations and in the user studies I’m continually struck by the extent to which every-day people lead extra-ordinary lives and the priviledge that I have in being allowed to witness and document.

To the people who made this research possible, and kept life so interesting, warm and ultimately human, thank-you.

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