COURSE DIVIDER
This shoot consists of some strong images however, there are also some images that weren’t so strong and didn’t come out how I pictured them too. The images that I found where stronger I have experimented on. The image I thought was the strongest out off the 10 was the last image out of the ones that I edited as I think it clearly shows something that has been forgotten from the abandoned building and the old bikes which is something that I planned to capture. Furthermore, when editing these images I went though different processes of editing. I firstly wanted to keep them in colour however when further editing them I found they looked stronger in black and white and increased the derelict look of the buildings and enhanced the shadows which I found made them stand out more. The images that I have made large are the three images I found where the strongest out of them all as I feel they were the ones that represented my original ideas the most out of the whole shoot.
The area assigned for me to research and photograph is the zone in red. This area consists of the old police station, which is beginning to look run down. This area includes multiple hotels such as the Savoy and the Norfolk lodge hotel which would be interest subjects and locations too shoot as I could capture its history by finding archive images of the hotels and to find out about the hotels history. Furthermore, Rouge Bouillon school is also in the given area and would be a interesting subject to shoot as I could have the opportunity to capture the school in a different way. I would also be able to capture the community around the school and also the area. The school and the police station creates a strong contrast due to the safety from the school and the criminal action and danger from the police station.
My intentions for the photo shoot is to not only explore and portray the area in the way I percieve it to be but to also capture a sense of what the area once was and could be in the future. I intend to focus on three main elements. This will be the community, the history of the area and the modernization/future of it.
I believe that St Helier is moving forwards with intent to make money within projects like the finance center. It is likely to benefit Jersey however, these money making investments are orientated towards the finance sector and living complexes which does not positively impact Jersey as a community. Also, the tourism industry is clearly ignored buy the development teams of St Helier with many attractions collapsing and little investment in new leisure facilities.
There are multiple areas around St Helier which have been massively improved however, there are also areas which have been forgotten about and need to be improved for example Fort Regent. This used to be a massive location for tourists and locals which is slowly becoming less and less attractive resulting in it becoming less popular and in desperate need of improvement. However, a location that strongly contrasts this is millennium park and how this area has been improved and made to attract people and resulting in this improvement it has done the job it was set out to do. Unfortunately, iconic locations such as the fort are slowly being forgotten about and left alone creating a waste of space. A location like this shouldn’t be forgotten about as it was an iconic location for many and should be redone and made to full fill the space it is using up.
I plan to show the contrast of the modern vs the old as it will help to show the potential for development and the future of St Helier. I will do this by capturing the dereliction of buildings as well as the construction/modernised buildings. I plan to do two shoots which will all focus on different themes. I plan to produce them in black and white which I feel will create strong contacts between each image showing of the old, run down buildings and the newer modernised buildings.
My first shoot will focus on the locations prompt for development and also how these areas take up unnecessary space that could be used and transformed into things that people in that area could benefit from.
My second photo shoot will involve capturing the back lanes where no one usually visits which are unseen and unused and again taking up valuable space within that location. I will capture how people have left vehicles or belongings in that area and have forgotten about them resulting in the space being used up by unnecessary things. I also intend on bringing a strong contrast between the old vs new of St Helier which would truly show how wasteful the abandoned buildings are.
18th century – Until the end of the 18th century, the town consisted chiefly of a string of houses, shops and warehouses stretching along the coastal dunes either side of the Church of St Heller.
19th century – Military roads linking coastal defences around the island with St Helier harbour allowed farmers to exploit Jersey’s temperate micro-climate and use new fast sailing ships and then steamships to get their produce to the markets of London and Paris before the competition. This was the start of Jersey’s agricultural prosperity in the 19th century.
20th century – In the 1960s, income from the Jersey States Lottery was used to excavate a two-lane road Tunnel under Fort Regent, enabling traffic from the harbour to the east coast towns to avoid a torturous route around the fort. About the same time, the Fort was converted into a major leisure facility and was linked to the town centre by a gondola cableway – closed and demolished in the 1990s.
21st century – Liberation Square is now a focal point in the town – the former terminus of the Jersey railway housed the Jersey Tourism office until 2007.