Archives can mean many things to many people. They can give insight into the past; help document the present and aid prediction into the future. They can be public or private and contain different images ranging from family portraits to images of sporting events of national monuments. They can be seen as an incredibly useful tool by modern photographers, who wish to study and potentially recreate past images in the modern day or document change over time to places, people or objects. 

         One of the defining aspects of achieves is if they are publicly accessible or if they are private. For example, places such as Societe Jersiaise are public archives where anyone with an interest is able to visit the achieve either online or in person and view the images it has to offer. This is useful as it not only allows for the archives studied to become more widely publicised and popular, but it also allows for the local community to gain a broader understanding of the local area and history, potentially engaging more peoples interest and encouraging further investigation which benefits the archive. 

However, not all archives are public and private archives encompass the archives of non-public organisations including businesses, charities, religious bodies and private individuals. A vast array of societies and associations also use private archives such as political parties, pressure groups, sport and recreational clubs, and businesses. Private archives can be very useful politically, due to restricting public access to images that could dampen reputations of government officials or to restrict information given to the public about certain events and stories that may be perceived or found to be inaccurate after reviewing the whole picture.

         Another talking point relating to the question directly could be posing the question of who’s achieve actually is it? This question could be interpreted as a way of looking into the relationship between public and private archives and discussing as to who really benefits from the archives and why. For example, as mentioned briefly it could be the contrast between public perception of people or events due to images being placed in public or private archives based on what the archive or organisation would like the public to perceive.

         Overall archives can be viewed to have many uses to many different groups of people. Ranging from the photographers who captured the images, to the organisations the images benefit or disbenefit, to the people who study and review the images and who also recreate them. Therefore, making it uncertain as to who’s achieve it ever is. 

An archive is a collection of documents usually consisting of very different types of documents such as photographs, paintings and other written documents. There are different types of archives that people keep publicly and privately. Private archives are usually used to show family history and keep a record of a specific family. Whereas public archives tend to show a broader history of where the archive was made. These are used to allow newer generations of people get a greater understanding of the events that may have happened to their families or to the place they live. They function through collections of items such as legal documents and photographs from a period in history to give a broad insight of what it was like to live back then as well as more personal things such as diaries to show what a specific persons life was like. New items can be handed in to a lot of archives if they are specifically items from history, and historical areas that are covered in that archive.

Archives act as repositories of memory as they provide reliable evidence of past events and allow us to deeply examine peoples personal and collective view of how an area was like in a past time. Archives also split off different parts of history into different sections and sub-sections so that if you want to see a specific part of history, you can narrow down your search to only photography from then or different types of documents from them. They normally have cultural connections to the place the archive is from and can show how our culture has been shaped and changed since then.

Photography can perform a double role within archives. Not only can they display someone’s life or how the world was, through the informative use of documentary photography, this being the main reason for a lot of the photography in war archives. This type of photography will usually be very clear and understandable as this is the reason it was created. The other way photography can be used is through the artistic side of it, with people creating photography specifically tailored towards showing something they want to show which may not have a link to what was happening at the time and could just be separate. Though, a lot of the time photography links to things happening at the time such as war, creating a double role by showing it in either in an explicit or implicit way by creating an obvious or distant link to an event happening, and producing it in their own artistic way.

David Bate’s text allows us to see how he thinks about archives will be used with museums as they have a collection of documents and old artifacts which will allow museums to create displays of particular historical events and how culture has changed, with very accurate information on them. In his text he refers to museums use of archives as a “vast repository aiming to construct a particular story.”  This is him saying that he believes museums should be creating either a never-ending story of an area or showing the story of a particular area through a certain event. In Bate’s text he also talks about Fenton, hired in 1854 to document the artifacts within the British Museum through photography and to show what it would have been like to see the items within the Museum in the Victorian era. The images are said to “evoke a ‘pastness’”. This shows that they have been taken in a way to make the people look at them and see the past through a barrier rather than just see a place within the photos.

For my own personal study. I am going to look at the Occupation of Jersey and how it has really changed and developed the island into something completely different than what it could be. Through the landscape of the island changing due to the bunkers and historical monuments left behind from the war and the people who lived on the island through the war and how they lived during the war. The most obvious and easy part of this to see is the bunkers and war tunnels left behind from the war, and how parts of them have been rebuilt such as the guns and the bunkers have been uncovered since they were filled in after the war. The archived material from the time will also help me out to see how people lived and what people had to sacrifice throughout the war, through the use of different peoples personal diary entries or documentation such as photographs from the time, I should be able to get a bigger feel of what it would be like to live back then and may help me stage some photographs a lot more easily. The use of the archive will also give me an in-depth insight to the other things that happened in the war such as the use of slaves to build bunkers and other fortifications, and how bunkers have been eroding and falling apart over time due to the length of time they’ve been around.

Looking at the photographs and some other documents from the archive has given me a much wider view of what everything looked like in the days of the occupation of Jersey. Not only how the bunkers used to look, before being uncovered and rebuilt, but how different parts of St. Helier looked before the war, which I can use to compare to how it is now. This will allow me to get a bigger understanding of how some things have changed within the island over the past seventy-five years.  

In conclusion, archives serve a purpose to allow people to see how things have changed over time in an area, and to display history accurately to newer generations of people. They can preserve peoples artistic work, different types of photography and documents through the use of newer methods such as digitalisation and placing plastic covers over the documents. I have learnt about the importance of archives and from seeing images from the archive I have seen that these images show a glimpse into people’s lives and how things were in the occupation.

It is important that you develop your own set of images and experiments with different photographic techniques, approaches and styles to create more visual material that you can edit from in your final sequence of images as you work towards creating your ‘zine.

Essentially we want you to develop your own visual language and create a unique set of sequenced images that reflects on how you respond to Bunker Archaeology and The Atlantic Wall.

Experiment 1: CROPPING – complete by Thurs 27th June
Using cropping tool only begin to make some radical changes by selecting areas of your images for a different visual impact. Produce at least 3 different crops for 6 images.

CROPPING can create a sense of impact and drama in an image, as well as fine-tune the composition. However…cropping can also de-contextualise a subject within the frame. This can be used to great effect…or can change the nature of an image radically.

One of the founding fathers of Documentary Photography Walker Evans used cropping as part of his work.  Another pioneer of the photo-essay, W. Eugene Smith also experimented with cropping is his picture-stories

Read more here on Walker Evans and his magazine work and  his series Labour Anonymous here on W. Eugene Smith.

Experiment 2:  COLOUR > B&W ADJUSTMENTS  complete by Thurs 27 June
Using your tools such as White Balance / Exposure / Levels / Curves / Brightness /Contrasts / Colour Balance / Hue / Saturation / Colour overlay / double or multiple exposure and make radical changes to the overall aesthetic of the images.  Try and adjust images according to your visceral quality – relating to your deep inward feelings rather than how something looks! Produce 3 different adjustments with  images

Experiment 3: MONTAGE > COMPOSITE IMAGES  complete by Thurs 27 June
Using your skills in Photoshop that you learned at AS begin to work with different montage / collage / cut ‘n’ past/ composite / Layers / Masks / Opacity / Blending modes / Brush techniques using both DIGITAL and ANALOGUE methodologies.

1. Select 5 images from your bunker shoots and produce at least 3 different collages combining two or more images / people / landscapes / text / typography / colour / shapes / textures/

2. Combine your images with images from the Photo-Archive that relate to the Occupation / Liberation of Jersey. Go to the folder below and choose 5 images that you selected on our research day at Societe Jersiaise.

M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Occupation of Jersey

3. Newspaper cuttings: Select 3 photocopies from newspaper cuttings from the JEP that relates to the subject of Occupation. Combine these with either your own images and/or archive images following the same instructions as above.

4. Print out 1 of your own  images and 1 archive images on the Laserjet Printer and manipulate the prints by destroying it in 5 different ways and re-configure  using scissors / tape / cut-n-paste / glue. Try and manipulate the printed images using your body / hand/ face etc .

JUXTAPOSE AND OVERLAY YOUR IMAGES—SUPERIMPOSE OTHER IMAGES, AND CUT-N-PASTE USING SCISSORS, TAPE, GLUE ETC…

https://www.format.com/magazine/galleries/art/best-collage-artists-portfolio-inspiration

CREATIVE POSSIBILITIES…

Look at Jonny Briggs for visual inspiration
Read more here

ONCE YOU HAVE MADE A SET OF EXPERIMENTS USING VARIOUS TECHNIQUES YOU MUST MAKE AT LEAST 1 X BLOG POST THAT SHOWS YOUR DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS—INCLUDE YOUR INFLUENCES AND FINAL OUTCOMES

RE-VISIT AND RE-SHOOT – complete by Mon 1 July

Here are few things to consider for your second shoot

1. Revisit a suitable location and make another shoot. Reflect on your current sequence of images and think about what is missing, or what you need to photograph to add value to the story you are trying to communicate.
2. Collect ephemera / found objects and photograph them in-situ – how and where you found them and also re-photograph the objects as a still-life at home setting up up your own mini-studio or use Photo-studio in school.

Record sounds or video as another visual layer / audio ambience that you could incorporate into your project e.g select individual frames from video and edit as a sequence in a time line. Use audio to record conversation with people you meet or use it as dictaphone to record your own feelings in a diary form.

Here are a few pointers – but not exclusive – please add your own thoughts/ ideas/ concepts/ brainstorm etc.

• Abstract visions…alternative, “wrong” photographs
• Formalism…line, shape, pattern, tone, colour etc
• Objects | Ephemera (litter and debris)
• Make use of your senses : see , hear ,taste, smell, touch
• Old vs New vs Development
• Good vs bad…subjective approach
• Form vs function
• Juxtaposition | contrasts | diversity
• Unconventional beauty
• Typography and graphics
• Aerial Imagery / Satellite / Surveillance
• Angles | Viewpoints
• Poetic / personal point of view
• Roads / paths/ walkways
• Open space / Public realm

Remember : a sense of risk and an opportunity to go beyond the norm or unexpected is encouraged.

Archives are accumulations of of historical records. An archives purpose is to conserve artifacts like document. photography and artwork. They differ from a library because they hold both published and unpublished documents. A person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science. Archives are accumulations of of historical records. An archives purpose is to conserve artifacts like document. photography and artwork. They differ from a library because they hold both published and unpublished documents. A person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science. Archives are accumulations of of historical records. An archives purpose is to conserve artifacts like document. photography and artwork. They differ from a library because they hold both published and unpublished documents. A person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science.

Photography plays a double role in archives, one being the visual imagery and two being the story, they act as a narrative. Although a photograph is an image it also tells a story and provides evidence to historical narrative.
Roger Fenton was mentioned in David Bate’s extract named ‘Archives, Networks and Narratives’, it talks about how archives create an historical narrative via the memories savored in the artifacts. He was one of the first war photographers, he was born in 1819 into a Lancashire merchant family. He first started out being interested in art and gaining a degree in the subject but later was became intrigued by the new technology of photography after having seen early examples at ‘The Great Exhibition’ in 1851. In 1854 he became the British museums first photographer by documenting its artifacts, similarly to how an archive collects artifacts. Fenton started as a photographer of cuneiform tablets which are one of the earliest systems of writing invented by the Sumerians, once he started working for the British Museum he began to take pictures of other antiques. His time at the museum ended when money became scarce. In David Bate’s extract he talks about how photos act as a collected artifacts that we display in museums but also how a single photo is a form of archive in its own way. A quote from Bate’s extract that really stands out to me is ‘Archive photographs not only record objects and events, they also produce a meta-archive, with meanings that can be mobilised in other times and new contexts.’ I feel this highlights the idea of the double role of archives, on the surface they are just a place to preserve documents but the more you explore them, the more you find meaning behind the photos being stored.

Sadly, I feel that in the future archives won’t be so common because social media is such a big part of our lives and we share picture with everyone constantly whether it be on snapchat or instagram etc. Nowadays we just save our pictures onto the cloud to look back to in the future to remember old times. I feel as if my generation has luckily just missed the whole digital age as I do have physical film camera photos of me as a young child but my youngest siblings don’t really have any printed pictures, they are all on phones. Physically having a photo to hold in my opinion is more nostalgic and sentimental, I don’t feel that having photos on my camera roll hold as much value as a paper photo does.

Archival material will help to enrich my personal study by giving me a more in depth idea into the types of photography in the occupation, what the photographers at the time thought we essential to capture as a photo. It also highlights the importance of preserving and storing these images as a reminder of the Islands past and how much we have developed photography technology and how much the landscape has changed. For instance I will be able to identify certain landscapes in Jersey when they were in the occupation and compare tit to how it currently looks. As well as that it could provide insight into my family history and how they lived during the occupation in Jersey, this interests me as I want to know more personally about experiences along with photography, I think it would be useful to research into peoples first hand accounts of what Jersey was like in the occupation, these types of documents can be found in the Jersey Heritage Archives.Seeing raw photos from the time of Jersey’s occupation gives you more an insight into what photography was like back then, the techniques, the focal points, the people.

Looking at the archives was resourceful because it made me aware of the archive system, how it works and how you can obtain the documents for personal usage. Ir’s also just useful to know that we can as students use the photos as references to our work as I was previously unaware we could do so.

To conclude I have learnt from the trip what its like to conserve documents and the importance they hold to keeping Jersey’s history alive. Also that you don’t just put the photos in a box and leave them be, it actually involves maintenance to preserve them, I was unaware that the Societe Jeraise even existed so I have discovered a useful resource for this project. Overall I have just gained more of an appreciation for archives, even though I’m not hugely into history it is intriguing to see what Jersey used to be like and how photographers of that time used what they had to their advantage to capture the harsh truth of the occupation, in my opinion they had real guts for what they did, it can’t have been easy to do that for a living in such sad and prejudice times. Without these photographers we wouldn’t have the simplistic idea of what Jersey used to look like, we would only be able to assume and interpret. It’s very helpful for photographers these days to take old sources and base their work on them for inspiration.

Now initially the first question I should be asking is, what an archive is; well an archive is a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution or group of people. In this case The Jersey Occupation will be the main area of concentration when considering artist and time period (1940-1945). The particular archive I will be interested in is called Societe Jersiaise’ in which I visited on the 4^th of June, this helped provide me with a first-hand understanding of what an archive and how to approach them. The Société Jersiaise was founded in January 1873 by a small number of prominent Islanders who were interested in the study of the history, the language and the antiquities of Jersey.  Membership grew quickly and the aims of the new society soon widened to include the publication of historical documents, the founding of a Museum, and the study of the Island’s natural history.  The first Bulletin Annuel was issued in 1875 and continues to be the main record of our activities. It was evident that the clear purpose of this archive was to hold Jersey’s most treasured historical imagery and documents dating way back to the Second World War, and originates from the beginning to the end of the war pretty much creating its own story to tell and highlighting the importance of the event, alongside the impact it had on Jersey and the impact it will always have on Jersey. The actual practice of keeping official document is an extremely old ritual dating all the way back to the third and second millennia BC in sites like Ebla, Mari and Pylos, this gives a clear understanding of the significance an archive has on the current historical phenomenon. Archives work in the way of storing photos and document on a computer but in this instance it’s all original copy’s carefully kept away and stored, some so precious they are to only be touched with white fabric clothes to avoid finger marks being left behind on a possible major historical in detail photograph and document. So in the case of the Societe Jersiaise it stores hundred and even thousands of images dating although back to when the archive first opened in 1873. However the period we are interested is much more recent, it still hold a large percentage of images and documents stored in this particular archive when in concern with the Second World War. When we look at all these images being stored, its gets us thinking that clearly there are some historical and significant photographers to thanks for the documentation that has helped us to helped understand and develop our understanding of this particular time frame in Jersey, for example, William Collie. William Collie was most likely to be one of the original photographers to use Fox Talbot’s calotype process in Jersey. Linking some of his unrelated previous work that can be found in exhibition at the Musee Dorsay in Paris, first presented in 2008. Collie was born in 1810 in Scotland and moved to jersey just before 1850 to peruse a business before diverting his work to art, but given his undoubtedly significant position in the beginning years of British photography, incredibly he was not very well known and there is little evidence of his work. Alongside many earlier photographers he started his work as a portrait painter leading onto photographic work, which lead his to produce one of his more famous pieces he made in a series of genre calotype portraits depicting ‘French and Jersey Market Woman’ which has an extremely positive response by the photography critic of the Art Union in June 1847, later being exhibited at the London Great Exhibition in 1851. When in relation to the Société Jersiaise, there is a total of 157 photographs stored by William Collie, although none in which can be viewed online, this could be due to the oldness of the images which have been all said to be the copyright of the Royal Photographic Society. One of those listed in the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive is a photograph of Elie Jean Filleul, who died aged 102 in 1851.  Most of the recorded images in the archive are listed as portrait however there are around four which are presented as landscapes of Jersey, its said that they feature Mont Orgueil Castle, Gorey, Midvale Road and houses along Queens road all with a date around 1845-1850, clearly holding a historical value. Alongside William Collide being an extremely iconic historical photographer, we also have a man named Albert Smith. Albert Smith was from Liverpool and moved to Jersey in 1892 to start business work, and then turned to photography. It said that thousands of his images survive as glass plate negatives, with his main subjects being known to either be portraits or cattle portraits that were produced in to post cards bought by many. As well as him and his staff strongly working on commissions they also looked in to jersey’s island life capture significant scenes which they believed to portray the beauty of the island itself. It’s reported that around 3300 of Albert Smiths images are stored at the Societe Jersiaise, and that 2000 images of his can be reached online. Although Albert Smith’s photographs were made for the public to purchase and in addition to those in a negative format in the Societe Jersiaise archive there is undoubtedly many of his photographs circulating the island and around the world. These two photographs hold a key importance in the history of the Jersey archive and it is important that their work continues on. From all this research has had given a much better understanding to the importance of an archive and has lead me to be interested to explore my own history. This will help me with my project as it will give me the opportunity to really relate to the idea of family history and the changes that have happened to me and the world. I would like to think that by looking at my own image it will help provide a type of style and context that I can continue forward in my personal study, leading to a better appreciation for the overall project- this is extremely important to me as it will help develop my skill and will grow my thought to look outside the box for inspiration. By looking into more depth about archives it has lead me to have a higher appreciation and understanding for history and the preciousness it holds to many islanders and families, it has also given me the opportunity to further my knowledge and look more deeply in to my personal study’s and where I would like to move forward with my project in to the Occupation. This is essential as it will help focus my images and ideas to achieve the best outcome I can get through the history of Jersey and the support that can be reached at any point from the Societe Jersiaise.