I started this project when looking at the exam booklet. The title “Variations and Similarities”. The first question I asked myself was, “What is completely the same but so significantly different?” My initial thought was people. We are all the same, we all have the same organs but are so differnt in terms of lifestyle, appearance and beliefs. When putting these things into a plan I thought cuklture would be the ideal experiment. To explore how different we all are from each other. We all have a culture and all come from a background that most are proud of. I started off by looking into more depth about my own culture. The people from the Portuguese community all tend to follow the same patterns, some of which come from old ways of thinking and some which are only recently accepted.

When looking into other photographers who capture photographs of people, I found Mahtab Hussain. His album “You Get Me?” captured my interest at first glance, especially as my strongest point in photography is portraiture. His images felt very powerful and I could relate to these images to a further extent. While looking at these images, which were photographs of the Muslim culture, I found that to some extent they lived in a similar way to the Portuguese and so I made my project idea broader by focusing on how Portuguese people live in a foreign country. I also noticed that many of his images consisted bright and enhanced colours, some of which, in my opinion, purposefully represented flags and so I also decided to play and manipulate colours to achieve the same affect. I also came across other photographers such as Michelle Sank who also captures images of different people, however, with the idea of showing distinct personalities and also Philip Toledano who focused on objects and their meanings.

I felt that I could put all the pieces together and construct a project which included, the main concept, culture, while also including different lifestyles for different generations and also archival objects which play a huge part in this culture. It total I completed a few shoots but after thinking about the way I was going to approach this project, I thought it would only make sense to photograph some people in their natural environments, acting as natural as possible in order to achieve a true and real project. I then diminished all these images to finish with a total of 10 images. I removed some images from this final piece as I thought the essential way to present my work was to make it into a small story telling piece.

I decided to present these images on foam board almost as if it is a storyboard of the Portuguese culture. It was a very difficult project to do as it was trying to find ways of visually representing my culture trying not to stereotype, however, extremely entertaining. I think it went really well as people got involved and I was able to reach out to different Portuguese people. I think I could’ve improved it in a sense of possibly presenting it differently in order to show a timeline and maybe adding more archival photos to show the modern vs old fashions. I believe that I explored this theme very closely and broadly. I explored the young and the old generations as well as the difference between genders.

Above is a photograph of my final layout, all photos are on a large piece of foam board and a selection of some are slightly raised which I thought would make it look more pleasing to the human eye.

In these photographs I aimed to show how immigrants work on the island. In this photograph the man is working on a roof. This is also to reinforce the idea that men are the breadwinner in the family, they go out to work while the women typically are in charge of domestics.

These photographs are showing young love stereo typically for young Portuguese girls and boys. I was trying to achieve the idea that girls tend to not have as much freedom as boys. In my opinion, Madeiran families in particular follow old ways of thinking, there are elements of respect for the parents and therefore I took these images at a window where the female figure is inside the house leaning out of the window while the boy is outside to represent the freedom.

Below I have published my images from my second shoot. I chose to take these photographs in the church as I come from a very religious background and I think a big reason for this is due to the fact Christianity is the main religion for a huge percentage of Portuguese population.

The statue seen on the wall is of Nossa Senhora de Fátima which translates to “Our Lady of Fatima”.
Our Lady of Fatima is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary based on the famed Marian apparitions reported in 1917 by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria, in Fátima, Portugal.

This statue is located in St Thomas Church, Jersey and if often visited by the Portuguese immigrants who live in Jersey.

Other photos in this shoot contain hands holding a prayer book which is in both English and Portuguese.

For my first photo shoot I decided that I was going to take photos of a Madeiran folklore group. I did this because folklore is the physical expression of culture as a group of people. It conveys the projects and the traditions that link with a culture. It projects the traditions common to that culture. They include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade instruments common to the group. This particular group is of folk dancers which is very traditional in Madeira only rather than Portugal.

This group of people are organised by a woman and each member of the group has immigrated from Madeira. I decided to photograph these people, as they are the strongest link to culture in Jersey, whist keeping the tradition alive for the people who have migrated.

They do folk dances in Portuguese festivals here in Jersey and train all year.Many families are part of the group. There were fathers, mothers and children. I thought it was very interesting to see the children in the traditional outfits, as the folk dance is very traditional for the older generation.

After getting in contact with the group I was able to produce the series of images above. These photographs were taken as they did traditional dances, played traditional instruments, and sung traditional songs. I enjoy taking photographs of people when they are distracted to make them as real and as natural as possible and I believe that I was able to do this with the images I produced.

I decided that I was going to capture this image after looking at Philip Toledano’s work. I did this because I thought it would be really interesting to fit this into my project looking at culture identity whilst also being inspired to explore the past of my parents and how they grew up and lived at my age.

This photograph was taken in natural lighting. I wanted to get a sort of abstract feel to the image, coming relatively close up in order to show the Portuguese writing and enhance the wear and tear. The lighting was coming from the right of the image creating small shadows around the frame of the image.

I also added high contrasts to the image as well as saturation to bring out the rust in the metal letters in the top right hand corner. Manipulating the image with colour allowed me to enhance the texture of the old frame, emblems and fabric on the left hand side. I also added a vignette to ensure that the focal point remained in the middle and not so much on the frame around. I took the image from an alternative angle making the foreground slightly blurry, manipulated by the camera using a smaller f-number which equates to a larger aperture whilst using the manual focus.

The lighting in this image seems like a glimpse of natural light, possibly coming through a window creating the shapes of the shadows on the subject and background. There are shadows created by the positioning of the image and it gives the impression that the envelope is floating. The shadows in the background are out of focus however the envelope is sharp and clear creating a macro effect. The photo seems as it has been taken using f4 considering the background and middle ground is blurry with a short depth of field. The shutter speed could have been set as 1/30, allowing light in the photograph but not until it becomes highly exposed.

Contextually, this is an image of my fathers certificate from when he completed his time int he army. In the days that my parents lived in Madeira, it was compulsory for all men to go into the army when they became young adults. I was inspired by Philip Toledano’s image and looked around for old documents and objects that are owned by my parents. This certificate came over from Madeira and has been well looked after in a frame for over 30 years.

“This work was a way of getting to know Claudia.”

Philip Toledano

Toledano was born in 1968 in London, to a French Moroccan mother and an American father. He grew up in London and Casablanca. He received a BA in English literature from Tufts University in Boston. Toledano considers himself a conceptual artist: Everything starts with an idea, and the idea determines the execution. Consequently, his work varies in medium, ranging from photography to installation, sculpture, painting and video.

The image below comes from a set of images produced for an album by Philip Toledano called “When I Was Six” I chose this image to analyse as it is not the area of photography that I look most into. I have always enjoyed taking portraits and engaging with the subjects, however, after looking into the meanings of these photographs it has shown me that they can potentially be ore powerful and have more meaning.

The lighting in this image seems like a glimpse of natural light, possibly coming through a window creating the shapes of the shadows on the subject and background. There are shadows created by the positioning of the image and it gives the impression that the envelope is floating. The shadows in the background are out of focus however the envelope is sharp and clear creating a macro effect. The photo seems as it has been taken using f4 considering the background and middle ground is blurry with a short depth of field. The shutter speed could have been set as 1/30, allowing light in the photograph but not until it becomes highly exposed.

The image does not have a filter nor does it seem like it has been manipulated after being taken. The focal point is the envelope and the black background maintains this focus. I would say this photo has low light sensitivity and it is clear and focused rather than grainy. The textures are not enhanced due to little contrast, however, it is clearly shown that the envelope of completely intact after over 40 years which portrays the fact that all his sisters belongings were well looked after and cared for. The simplicity of this image is what makes it most powerful.

“…things I’d never seen before, neatly packed away, a museum of sorts, created by my mother.”

Philip Toledano

After researching more about this image, I found that Toledano had bee going through things, possibly a clear out of the things left behind by his family as he says that he found a box of his sisters’ things after both his parents passed away. This shows that he could potentially be photographing these objects as a form of closure, after being very sensitive he found himself ready to explore things after being alone. In my opinion, I think that he took these images to remember his childhood and is grasping on to these belongings as his loved ones are no longer around. I though thsi images was very inspiring as the letter is addressed to his parents regarding the death of his sister and so capturing images of these belongings and working with them, made him feel almost as if he was with them again.

He says that “Claudia (his sister) was a constant but unknown presence” in his life which for me, emphasizes the idea that he was ready to find closure, and as if he had nothing else to lose now. He also talk about these images being a way of getting to know his sister, as he was so young when she passed but grew up suffering with the loss in the family.