diff --git a/web/apps/photos/.env.development b/web/apps/photos/.env.development
index 038f0237a9..548e5bbfb1 100644
--- a/web/apps/photos/.env.development
+++ b/web/apps/photos/.env.development
@@ -68,7 +68,12 @@
 #
 # NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_FAMILY_PORTAL_ENDPOINT = http://localhost:3003
 
-# The path of the JSON file which contains the expected results of our
-# integration tests. See `upload.test.ts` for more details.
+# The JSON which describes the expected results of our integration tests. See
+# `upload.test.ts` for more details of the expected format.
 #
-# NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_TEST_EXPECTED_JSON_PATH = /path/to/dataset/expected.json
+# This is perhaps easier to specify as an environment variable, since then we
+# can directly read from the source file when running `yarn dev`. For example,
+#
+#    NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_TEST_EXPECTED_JSON=`cat path/to/expected.json` yarn dev
+#
+# NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_TEST_EXPECTED_JSON = {}
diff --git a/web/apps/photos/tests/upload.test.ts b/web/apps/photos/tests/upload.test.ts
index dcd16db3c0..6e58cf0c2d 100644
--- a/web/apps/photos/tests/upload.test.ts
+++ b/web/apps/photos/tests/upload.test.ts
@@ -100,13 +100,13 @@ const FILE_NAME_TO_JSON_NAME = [
 ];
 
 export async function testUpload() {
-    const jsonPath = process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_TEST_EXPECTED_JSON_PATH;
-    if (!jsonPath) {
+    const jsonString = process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_TEST_EXPECTED_JSON;
+    if (!jsonString) {
         throw Error(
-            "Please specify the NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_TEST_EXPECTED_JSON_PATH to run the upload tests",
+            "Please specify the NEXT_PUBLIC_ENTE_TEST_EXPECTED_JSON to run the upload tests",
         );
     }
-    const expectedState = await import(jsonPath);
+    const expectedState = JSON.parse(jsonString);
     if (!expectedState) {
         throw Error("upload test failed expectedState missing");
     }