Throughout many evolutions, including the German occupation and World Wars, Jersey has also become revolutionized and has developed its landscapes as well as it’s people over the years. The occupants who live in Jersey have recorded their lifestyle and how they have lived as Jersey has been developing. These personal memories have become something of the past, however are still kept safe for people to look back on re-live certain periods of time.
These records are kept in a place called an archive and Jersey has many of these to showcase what Jersey has become. An archive is an accumulation of historical records. Archives are kept to show the function of a person or organization. Professional archivists and historians generally understand archives to be records that have been naturally and necessarily generated as a product of regular legal, commercial, administrative, or social activities.
Here are some archival images of Jersey:
Records of how Jersey used to be and look like against photographic records of how Jersey is today allows us to compare lifestyles and understand more about the development of our beautiful island.
My Image of Harve Des Pas 2016
You can find more archival images of Jersey here http://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/ and here http://societe-jersiaise.org/photographic-archive
Romanticism (Romantic era/Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.
In photography, photographers who took up the romanticist approach aimed to sensationalise the overall look of their mages by enhancing certain colours to make the image look almost surreal, glorified and they wanted to dramatize certain areas of their photographs.
It is said that “the movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature. Romanticism was a huge step away from the subtleties of photography and instead looked very bold and striking.
In the visual arts, Romanticism first showed itself in landscape painting, where from as early as the 1760s British artists began to turn to wilder landscapes and storms, and gothic architecture, even if they had to make do with Wales as a setting. Caspar David Friederich and J.M.W. Turner were born less than a year apart in 1774 and 1775 respectively and were to take German and English landscape painting to their extremes of Romanticism.
Caspar David Friedrich – Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog 1818
Ansel Adams is an example of a modern day photographer who embraced Romanticism. Classed as the master and crucial pioneer of modern landscape photography, inflecting may of our great’s today, Adams used a black and white film in his images he captured of towering mountains, elegant lakes and snowy hills. This added an effect to each of images, differentiating his from others such as Edward Weston as it created a look to the sky which darkened the blue to a mysterious and shadowy, and quite chilling blackish grey colour that casted over the mountains etc. of his photographs. This is a romanticised example of landscape photography.
Ansel Adams
Charles Baudelaire also stated that,” Romanticism neither depends precisely on choice of subject nor in exact truth, but a mode of feeling.”
There are a variety of exhibitions and competitions where photographers are being asked to capture single images that absorb vision of the romantic qualities of nature within the landscape that surrounds them.
I firstly used the lasso tool to separate the sky from the land. This would allow me to work on the two aspects individually then bring them together at the end. It s easier than attempting to make the sky darker in colour with the land lighter in colour as a whole image.
I then made both aspects black and white and operated on the sky first. I used the brightness and contrast tool to adjust the overall colour as well as shadows, then the levels tool to perfect the levels of black, white and grey in the sky. I also experimented with curves and exposure. I then made the land the right style to complement the sky, much like Ansel Adams.
I finally used the rubber and blending tool to fix up the edges created by separating the tow aspects at the beginning. This made it look ore professional and slick.
This was Bayliss’s Garage, built to house some of the earliest motorised excursion vehicles which took visitors staying in the Havre des Pas hotels on their island tours. The garage was built immediately next to the slipway at the bottom of Green Street, opposite the Seaforth Hotel, which shows clearly in the picture above.
St Helier had no traffic-free streets until the late 1960s, when King Street, above, became the first pedestrian precinct, followed soon after by Queen Street, below. Jersey Tourism took the opportunity to commission these photographs to illustrate promotional glossy brochures to promote conference business in the island. Many of the buildings at the bottom end of King Street shown in the photograph had remained relatively unchanged, at least externally, and particularly above the ground floors, since they were built in the 19th century, but a long stretch of Queen Street, shown in the photograph, was rebuilt in the 1960s.
Traffic in King Street in the sunshine of July 1946.
This picture taken from Seaton Place in the south of the town of St Helier shows Seale Street on the left and Sand Street on the right. It was probably taken in the late 1950s, or early ’60s, by an Evening Post photographer, and as the Google Street View below shows, some things have changed in the intervening years and some have not. The view up Seale Street towards the Town Hall, which is on the far end of the left side of the street, has altered very little, as has the unusual triangular building in the middle, still with a public telephone box outside. Sand Street, although relatively unchanged on the left as viewed in the pictures, is unrecognisable on the opposite side, mainly because of the construction of a multi-storey car park.
Weighbridge in 1921.
Weighbridge Gardens in 1953, seen from the top storey of the Southampton Hotel. Queen Victoria’s statue is in the center- now situated near Peoples Park.
To left are some pictures that I have edited using the saturation and contrast tool. The final edits I used in my other course work are to the right. I decided to show these pictures as I wanted to show how photography is art and how with a little editing the most simple photo can become romanticized.
The top left photo is very abstract and almost looks as if it is a galaxy, a planet or even a unusual eye. However, it is only a bulb with some rope in it. Editing can change the whole meaning or idea of a photograph. In this photo I increased the saturation almost to the top, one side of the bulb took the colour of the sky and the left side took the colour of the wall. The orange and blues work perfectly together and brings the colours of a sunset into an fairly ugly or dull object making it beautiful and interesting. I also like the back ground; the fact that it’s split into sections of colour it works perfect with the colours of the bulb.
The bottom left photo is very romanticized spoiled by the industrial objects. Although it may look like the industrial objects have ruined a what could have been a natural photo I think they make the photo better showing the effects of these ugly containers. It shows how they don’t just pollute the air or the ground we live on but it also pollutes our landscapes. I think the photo is better with them there as now it has a meaning and it isn’t just a pretty photo for people to look at, it is showing the effects of humans being greedy. I also like that now I have edited it is has the bright orange cause the containers and trees to become silhouettes. It looks almost as if they are competing with each other. It looks as if the tree is showing what could have been such as a beautiful forest but it has been stopped by these industrial machines. I got the orange and silhouette effect by increasing the contrast and offset as well as the saturation.
Here is my response to the Typology Study. I walked around the village in St Aubins taking photos of different doors that I walked past. Once I collected a range of different doors, I cropped each image so that they were all about the same size. I then placed all the images in a collage to show. I am happy with my result, and I now understand more about what Typology is about.
We had a trip to the Jersey Art Centre where we saw an exhibition called ‘Alliance Française: Climate State of Emergency’. This showed photos relating to the change in the planet and the effect people are having on the environment.
Here is a selection of my favorite images from the gallery. In my opinion I think the middle top image is the best as it really shows a vast empty but also full environment. I also like colours and textures in the picture. With the slightly dark blue clouds in the dramatic sky contrasting with the bright orange desert, rough, dusty ground. The image is very full with things to look at but cleverly gives off this empty feeling; a feeling of isolation. I also like that the photographer has taken a picture of something that used to be alive but has died over time. I find that it really sticks out over all the other images showing something that others haven’t.
Abstract photography is an image that isn’t associated with the object world. This can be done through various unusual textures within the photograph along with striking light forms creating interesting shapes. This creates a strange and slightly unrealistic effect. Influential photographers include Paul Cézanne, Jessica Eaton, Barbara Rosenthal.
Rust Abstraction
Keld Helmer-Petersen
Boylle Family
Formalism in photography analyses and compares form and style mainly focusing on color, line, shape, texture and their purely visual aspects.
Romanticism heavily focuses on emotion and more of classical sides of beauty rather than “ugly” and “industrial” areas. It originated in response to the industrial revolution in England where people where fleeing the beautiful countryside and emigrated to the cities which spoiled the landscape. Romanticism can often be exaggerated by the artist whose interpretation and feelings towards beauty are expressed. Nowadays romanticism is focuses more on beauty of the landscape.
On Thursday the 12th January I visited the Jersey Arts Centre. The Arts centre focuses on promoting and encourage the development of art. Their website says they aim to:
“To enrich the quality of life for all residents and visitors
To encourage participation in the performing, visual and literary arts
To educate, inspire and to encourage debate”
The exhibition, known as: “Climate State of Emergency” in association with Alliance Francaise builds upon the theme of how climate change impacts different people in different parts of the world. The exhibition was responding to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.
The exhibition portrays the serious dangers of climate change exposing the level of truth despite endless politicians burying and therefore prolonging the issues that have already arisen. This exhibition successfully points out to us of ho climate change has got so bad that it cannot be an issue that is simply swept under the rug for another 50 years. In this sense it is somewhat a form of protest for the lack of things being done with the issue and how it harms everyone on an international level.
Here is my response to the Typology Study. I walked around the village in St Aubins taking photos of different doors that I walked past. Once I collected a range of different doors, I cropped each image so that they were all about the same size. I then placed all the images in a collage to show. I am happy with my result, and I now understand more about what Typology is about.
