Born in 1891, he was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the most versatile artists to come out of the Russian Revolution, he discovered photography and photo-montage later in life, his photography at the time was socially engaged and went against artistic norms at the time. He was first inspired to create photo-montages by the DADA movement which had the purpose of ridiculing the meaninglessness of the modern world. Rodchenko first started experimenting in the medium, using found images from 1923/24 as well as his own images. His first published photo-montage illustrated Mayakovsky’s poem, “About This”, in 1923. In 1924, Rodchenko produced his most famous poster, an advertisement for the Lengiz Publishing House sometimes titled “Books”, which features a young woman with a cupped hand shouting “книги по всем отраслям знания” (Books in all branches of knowledge), printed in modernist typography. In the early 1930s he embraced photography as a tool for social commentary, critically depicting the disparity between the idealized and lived Soviet experience. The images he made contrasted with Socialist Realism, which was declared the official style of art in the Soviet Union in 1934.
“One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again.”
My Photo-montage
This one is a combination of an image of the Radio Tower from Societe Jersaise and an image of mine from Noirmont of one of the bunker.
This is a combination of an image of Charing Cross in St Helier from Societe Jersiase and an image I took at Noirmont.
This is a combination of an image of people looking onto the Pomme d’Or hotel and one of mine of the canon at Noirmont.
Noirmoint is a headland that is based in St Brelard, Jersey. It is part of the Islands war memorial as it commemorates part of the German occupation. Within this part of land lies bunkers where some of the German’s were based and where they held fire arm, the bunkers have an exceptional strong frame of concrete which have been left undisturbed for many of years
An archive is a collection of historical records or something physical, such as a document, image or object relating to a location or an event. The archive tends to contain the primary documents that have been collected over a time period of an individual/organization or an event, the things that are going to show a role of someone or something has, to have historical proof that was what happened. Some archives such as Société Jersiaise are open to the public and they are able to show the development of someone’s life, maybe even related to the visitors and watch the individuals life evolve as you are presented with evidence and images showing off their movements and evolution.
As mentioned previously, archives are repositories for historical events, as they provide relevant and reliable evidence to individual and certain events, such as WW2 or The German Occupation. A repositories is a server, which contain a set of packages similar to an archive, as they hold information and record to events, such as the Holocaust. The records tend to be bundled together depending on what they are associated with, this allows people to access all the information on that specific event.
Example of an Archive
All around the world there are many archives and museums documenting photos and certain objects relating to certain periods of time, which are put together in sections of the museums where they can be acknowledged altogether. Later on into the future archives can be used to as resources to answer questions about our past, and they may also be used to set legal claims. Historians can use this information to dive in deeper to events and times of the past and gather more information and facts, that we can later on tell the new generations of people to come, along with filmmakers using this information if their story is set around certain historical events, by using the documents and facts held at archives it makes the film more personal and makes you want to connect to the film more to understand what people really went through during events in our history. Finally, it gives people of today a change to connect with people from the past, such as family members and helps them understand what their life was like when they were alive and it may allow them to have some closure toward their loved one.
Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin said that the ‘aura’ of an object, which has been created by the historical event and what experience it had.
Roger Fenton
Along with Benjamin, Roger Fenton being one of the first war photographers, his photographs became very well-known as they feature museum exhibitions, showing the facts of parts of life, the photos he takes aren’t necessary but they have meaning to them to show a part of history, along with the historical meaning being merged into the present. The ‘Vintage News’ said ‘his photos of the Crimean War are now considered to be the first pictoral documentation of war’ people have also commented saying his work was ‘interesting’ and ‘captivating’
Lieutenant Walter Aston Fox Strangways. – By Fenton
Men of the 4th Dragoon Guards and a woman relax by a hut. – By Fenton
Société Jersiaise was founded in 1873, its objective being ‘to create a museum and library’ and still stands today as an archive of Jersey’s history. There interest was really capturing photographic evidence as their source of recording as life could be documented visually which is said to be ‘remarkable in it insular context’ . Within this archive it holds more then 100,000 images dating back to the 1840’s. Photos within Société Jersiaise were taken by a variety of photographers, two of them being Henry Mullins and Percival Dunham.
Henry Mullins
Mullins was one of Jersey’s first photographers, producing thousands of portraits from 1848-1873 at his studio in the Royal Square, which was highly successful. Bellow are a few of his portraits which can be found by the following link; https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Henry_Mullins
Mr Aubin
Lt Egre
Mullin’s images are simple head shots of individuals from around the island, who may have been a part of war like the men above, of they could of been images of the women and children who were left on the island during the war, it also allows him to document what people wore and what was the norms during certain periods of times which he photographed.
Percival Dunham and his wife
Dunham took over one thousand glass plate negative between 1913 and 1914 and at least eight hundred where published in the daily newspaper. He began in Jersey in a boarding house at Davids Place and combined with many other occupants. Dunham’s big break came in 1910 on August 27 in the morning news where one of his images was published and credited, and after that the morning news requested more of his work to be used, whilst submitting weekly prints to win a cash prize of five shillings. He ended up being a part of the first British newspaper with illustrations. More of his history and images can be found using the following link; https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Percival_Dunham,_photojournalist
State Members arrive for a special sitting on 12 September 1914 after the declaration of war
The annual outing of newsboys of C M Brooks of King Street
Jersey Archive is a part of Jersey Heritage, which was founded back in 1981. The archive allows Jersey to hold collections of artefacts, works of art, documents and information relating to the history and culture of Jersey. The collections they have define the island as a whole and they hold evidence for events that have happened on this island, such as the occupation. During the visit to the archive, I was able to see historical objects and documents, along with images that they had been storing for years.
The two images below were taken during the German invasion in the channel island. They show soldiers in their uniform with their equipment, along with a congregation of people gathered in a small area. These two photos are only a part of the history they have on the occupation, the images still in good quality. The photos hold so much detail and history in them as you are able to see the conditions the islanders were put in.
WW2 is said to be the deadliest conflict so far in human history. The Second World War happened during the year of 1939 and 1945. The majority of the world’s countries where involved in the battle, involving over 100 million people. This threw the world completely, turning everything upside down and into chaos. This war also included the Holocaust, which relates to the German occupation that happened in the channel island, along with the rest of the world. World War Two ended up changing political alignment and global social structure as certain countries began to gain more power than others and felt they could control.
The Germans were clever about their approach to the Channel Islands, as before it began, they sent the German soldiers over in planes, where they began to machine gun and drop bombs onto the island. Two days later they invaded the Channel Islands, they were sent across the French coast and began attacking from the harbour located in St Helier on the 28th of June, along with this on the same day aircraft where arriving and landing nearby to La Rocque Harbour. From the moment the Germans landed and entered they had already killed 9 people.
The following words are from a man called Ralph Mollet and what he saw when the German’s began to invade Jersey Channel Islands – ‘Before this all even happened, two days prior the attack German planes has been flying over the Channel Islands, machine gunning which killed a man on his doorstep. Two bombs where then dropped by Mount Bingham also killing people who where nearby. They set many boats on fire along with Fort Regent’
The German occupation of the Channel Islands lasted for most of the Second World War, where during this period, thousands of islanders were evacuated from their homes to the main land to find safer places, whilst the man stayed to fight against the Germans and protect their island. Until the 9th May 1945 where the Channel Islands became liberated and shoulders where welcomed home by the Jersey community, as crowds gathered in the town centre.
At La Hogue Bie, there is a war memorial commemorating those who were involved and died in the war. We went to visit the memorial and photograph what we saw. The lighting in the underground memorial was extremely dark, so we had to adjust our cameras to cope with this light. However, as a result of this, quite a lot of the images were of a poor quality due to the high ISO and slower shutter speed. Here are my images before manipulation:
I like the photos I took of the statue and the light memorial with the names so I will choose to manipulate them. Here are my images after manipulation on adobe lightroom:
These are my manipulated images. I quite liked making some of the images monochrome then increasing their clarity and adjusting the light settings, I aslo adjusted some of the white balance for some images and did some cropping. The best images were the images taken of the statue in the natural light as it enabled me to take images of a high quality.
He is a English photographer from Manchester but now has been living in Amsterdam for 20 years. Andrew is specified in location photography and has previously worked for National Geographic, shooting travel features, as well as outdoor stories for magazines and just personal landscape photography. The project of his that am interested in is called ‘World War II Relics’ in which he has traveled to France, Belgium, Netherlands and Scotland to photograph what remains of the bunkers of war and other fortifications remained abandoned after the last world war. The famous bunkers of the ‘Atlantic Wall’ were featured in the project, which was the line of fortifications that Hitler had built along the shores of the Atlantic, from the Pyrenees to Norway. All photographs were all taken at dusk, or a few moments after sunset, because according to the author, the light of day would have flattened the photos. The project has created much interest in the international press and has featured in ‘The Daily Mail’, ‘Wired Magazine’, ‘Creative Review’ and numerous blogs and websites. I was honoured to be a guest lecturer at the ‘Willem De Koning Acadamy’ in Rotterdam, teaching landscape photography to 2nd and 3rd year students. He captured how the bunkers had been adapted to modern day life, for instance some of them bear marks of graffiti; others, have been converted into livestock barns by local farmers. The ones located near the sea are being used as diving platforms.
“At first I found attractive the geometry and shape of these structures (…) It was as if they were still on guard, and no one had told him that the war was over” – Jonathan Andrew
To fill the time during slow winter months, photographer Jonathan Andrew decided to follow through on an idea that he had a few years back: he started photographing old WWII bunkers. Based out of Amsterdam, he already had several to work with close-by, but as the project has received more and more media attention, he’s taken the time to travel all over Europe, adding more beautiful, haunting bunker images to his portfolio.
Perhaps even more interesting than the subject of his photographs, however, is how he captures them. Using a converted medium format camera, he takes 6-14 minute exposures, firing off a broncolor flash as many as 60 times to properly light the scene. In a sense, he uses a very pure form of light painting, using the technique not to actually “paint” anything, but to recreate studio quality lighting conditions on-the-go. They don’t always turn out properly on the first try, but as he’s done more of them, he’s managed to perfected his technique down to a fine art, and the results speak for themselves. In a sense, he uses a very pure form of light painting, using the technique not to actually “paint” anything, but to recreate studio quality lighting conditions on-the-go. They don’t always turn out properly on the first try, but as he’s done more of them, he’s managed to perfected his technique down to a fine art, and the results speak for themselves.
At first I found attractive the geometry and shape of these structures (…) It was as if they were still on guard, and no one had told him that the war was over” – Jonathan Andrew
To start on the bunker archaeology project, I took a series of 400-500 images at a location known for it’s German bunkers. The site at which I took my images had a wide range of WW2 German military architecture, which had been renovated by the States of Jersey in order to preserve the memory of the occupation. The following are a selection of images that I took on the day:
After taking the initial images, I imported all of the images into Adobe Light-room in order to pin down my selection of images, and to edit the images before exporting them back into my “Final Images” folder. I used a process of rating and colour coding in Light-room in order to nail down my images to ~10 final selections (these were the ones that I was going to put time into editing). Below is a series of screenshots of the editing process in Light-room:
The above is a screenshot of the editing process of a black and white image. I decided to change some of my images into black and white, as for some images it helps to emphasize the contrast between colors, textures and depth. I cropped the majority of the images that I took as a first step in the editing process. This was to cut out parts of the boarders of the images that I did not want, or to draw more attention to certain areas of the image. I used a colour coding system to label my images so that I could select images that I felt were the best candidates to edit. Green = definite final image, yellow = possible final image, red = rejected at this stage.My initial move in the editing process was to decide which images to reject, and which to give further attention to. I did this using the flag system in Light-room. The images that i rejected mainly consisted of copies, blurred images, and those that I did not feel could be improved by further editing. My edited my final images in Light-room, and my 12 final images post-editing can be seen above:
After selecting my final images, I was able to edit these images, changing some of them to black and white, and increasing the contrast of others in order to emphasize the contrasting shadows, shapes and textures. The following images are my final images from this particular photo-shoot:
As these are my final selected images from this shoot, I will be further editing them in order to use them in my photo-montage experimentation and further final images and creations for this project.
Battery Moltke in an uncompleted coastal artillery defense system located in the North West of Jersey in St Ouen. The sight contains bunkers and gun emplacements that were originally designed in order to protect St Ouen’s bay in case of an attack which the Island was under the occupation of Nazis.
Original gun still standing today My own image.
one of the original guns can still be seen there today, and could originally be rotated to fie in any direction
The Channel Islands occupation society preserves and operates a few of the bunkers as museums, however the exterior sites remain available to see at all times.
The channel islands occupation society is an organisation made up of volunteers that study the occupation of Jersey and Guernsey and seek to raise awareness of this in order to educate the public on World War 2, and the effect of it on the Channel Islands. The CIOS manage many German fortifications and archives on both Channel Islands. The Jersey branch has operated since 1971.
Our Day
We began our morning by meeting a member of the CIOS, who began by telling us the history of the sight. We then went on to see the gun emplacements, where we were told that the original gun placed there was actually French. After learning about the artillery and how it’s purpose was to defend the coast, we went on to view the main bunker that had been turned into a museum type attracting filled with many artifacts and information. The underground bunker had many different rooms. We were able to see things like original objects from the occupation such as radios, typewriters and even newspapers. The most interesting thing I saw was were the Red Cross food parcel packaging that the islanders received by the end of the war.
After seeing where the soldiers operating in the bunkers would sleep, I then went on to see a memorial dedicated to all the forced workers brought to the channel islands. Here I learnt that may polish, Russian, French, Jewish and Spanish republicans were forced to work in Jersey for the Nazi officers in order to build the bunkers. In this section of the bunker we could see a figure who was meant to represent a forced laborers, surrounded by a lot of rubble. This was especially interesting because it allowed you to really be able to empathise with what there people had to go through, an how difficult it must of been for them to have their freedom stripped away from them.
After we had finished looking around the main bunker, we then went on to see other fortifications that were still standing around the same sight.
