Over the past half term, I have been working with the Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive implementing key ideas to developing the Archive to my own personal project. These skills have made me develop various creative perspectives involving Archive extraction, research, experimentation and documentation. Exhibition and presentation design.
Some of the skills, which I have been contributing to my Archive experience, consist of:
Scanning & storing images
Image manipulation, resizing, creating composites
Producing teaching materials for Photo Archivist’s Workshop
Re-purposing images for Jersey Projection Gallery –(Ex. Skip ton Arts)
Archive Searching database
Outputting digital prints, labeling and marking images from the
Understanding copyright policy
Retrieving original images from vintage collection in strong room
Working in secure areas, safe practice in the archive environment
Appropriate handling of original archive materials
My personal project has allowed me to evolve, as with help from Gareth Syvret, I’ve been able to manipulate photographs which relate to the history and period of my new house and how I can contrast the changes and traditions in everyday life today.
The Guernsey Photography Festival and Raven Russia Ltd are proud to present a major photography competition designed to promote the work of Channel Island and university students. The winners will be given the opportunity to gain valuable exposure by exhibiting at the next Guernsey Photography Festival in September 2016 (exact dates tbc).
COMPETITION CATEGORIES
Students 14-16 years old – Y 10 & 11 (Channel Islands only) Prize £250
Students 16+ years old – Y 12 & 13 (Channel Islands only) Prize £250
Students in Higher Education (worldwide) Prize £1000
The winners will also receive a selection of prizes courtesy of7dayshop.com
Submit 6 images and a 250 word statement
Get more information and read competition rules here
When scanning in these images I forgot to change the sizes so they are all very small. Over the holidays I’ll be scanning more in (for general family use) and so will update these images to the bigger versions.
For a competition which was set by Tom pope and Gareth, we had to search into our own personal archive and look for pictures that went way back. As I only have my mum dad and sister in Jersey, I had limited resources but found a handful of images of my mum as a baby. The earliest one I found was from 1969 when my mum was 1 year old and the last one was when she was 32. This challenge was to relate our personal lives to the archive in Jersey which started in 1993 and has collected over 300,000 archival records from the States of Jersey.
These old photographs are usually taken at special events/ less frequent occasions which is known as vernacular photography. This is the creation of photographs, usually by amateur or unknown photographers both professional and amateur, who take everyday life and common things as subjects. These photographs are more personal and special as photography was limited back then, so these photographs were more important rather than the 100 pictures we take of the same thing. Closely related to vernacular photography is found photography, which in one sense refers to the recovery of a lost, unclaimed, or discarded vernacular photograph or snapshot.
1969 – My mum and her grandfather at her home.1976 – My mum with her brother and grandma.19901994 – Wedding day.1999 – Me aged 1, Mum aged 312000 – Disney Land Paris.
For this competition I decided to look through all of the old family photo albums. I managed to get some stuff from back when I was younger in the late 90s and early 2000s but that wasn’t really long ago so I decided to go further. In my search for a great old photo I came across some old medals and photos that came from my Great Uncle Archie who fought during World War II. This really interested me and I am so proud to have had someone who actually experienced the war. I also found a diary that his father kept during the First World War and after his son was born which was interesting to read. My Great Uncle also got medals for his efforts during the war which to me stand for courage and bravery. I wish that I could ask him questions about the war and what it was like but at least I have the photos, medals and diaries that were kept during such a dark time. This also gave me an idea for an experiment to do with photo montage as part of my performance photography coursework. For a lot of the photos I don’t know the exact dates but they were done during the War between 1939 onward.
My Great Uncles’ War MedalsArchie and his war friends
My Great Uncle fought all over the world during the war effort and got medals for his contributions to the war. He got the Germany star, France Star, Africa Star, Italy Star, The Defense Medal, The 1939-1946 Star and another one but I can’t tell which medal it is. I think it is amazing how he went around the world to fight for the freedom of his country. He was born in Glasgow and so were his family. It was interesting to me as his father kept a log book of all of his children over the years.
My Great Aunt BettyMy Great Uncle and AuntArchie’s War Service BookMy Great Uncle Archie 1939
My Great Uncle’s sister and her husband
The number on the back of some of these photographs are the number of photos that they had taken, as each of them are random and aren’t dated.
For the Family Album Challenge I asked my Nan if she would be able to find the old family albums of my mum from when she was younger, so far I have found pictures from 1958-1970 and then 1974-1981, although I am hoping my nan has some pictures from 1971-1973 elsewhere.
These are the photos I have already found and I will be looking to find the rest of the images during this week.
From the task: Portraits of Childhood at the Photo-Archive we would like you to investigate your own private and personal family archives and see if you can identity photographs from your photo-albums/ personal archives that represent different decades of image making, working backwards in time i.e. 2010s, 2000s, 1990s and so on.
The student that finds the most images from different decades will win a prize given by the Photo-Archive at Societe Jersiaise. The prize winner will be announced on our last workshop day with Tom Pope at Hautlieu School Friday 10 July. Good hunting!
