A photo zine is a self-published, often handmade collection of photographs laid out in a magazine style. It can include written text and illustrations as well as photos. They are designed to display and share photo stories. A photo zine can be a single, one-off publication.

These are some layout ideas I have for my own zine:

Zine’s have many different layouts such as landscape or portrait, different sizes like A5 to A3. This is also similar with the photos that are in the zine. Images can range in size, some may take up two pages and some are spread out through the pages. Some zines have rhythm/sequence, such as text that relates to the image or colours relating to certain images. The visual concept of the zines varies depending on what the artist’s work is about. Not all zines just have images only in, some zines also had text printed along side the image, which compliments or tells you about the photo beside it.

Three WordsEruption of Calm

A Sentence Showing the stillness of a once kinetic site of war

Paragraph The once rife with ammunition coasts of Jersey currently sat undisturbed will be presented in a way reflecting how still and silent these concrete structures are surrendered. However, I will also show how remains have been disturbed by either nature or humans. Graffiti and rubbish disordering historical moments impacting forthcoming generations and them missing out in immersing themselves in the material of war.

For our second trip of this term we went to the Battery Moltke which is located in St.Ouens, which during those times was the central location for bunkers as it faces out to sea.

This is one of the many remarkable monuments left back to be glorified. The Battery Moltke is actually comprising four 15.5cm K418(f) gun emplacements and an associated underground complex was named in honour of Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke, who was Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914.

One of the gun placements has been completely renovated including fashionably painted in camouflage colours this is due to the fact that firstly it needs to be preserved beautifully but for it to also blend in with its surroundings. Not only has it been heavily done up on the outside people have invested years of hard work to create a display of this underground passage that used to accommodate about 27 men which when I first heard about thought it was quite a small amount due to the amount of space that was in there, however after learning that they’d have to carry ammunition through these meter and a half corridors it made more sense that a lot more things would have been going on back in the time of its use.

This bunker, with a ceiling two metres thick, was built to “Fortress” standards. It is fully equipped with original ventilation equipment, boiler, bunks, and central heating. Standing outside the bunker makes you visually image what you expect it too look like on the interior, having never been inside a bunker this big I was shocked but also amazed at how big, how clean and surprisingly how decorated it was. although having been told it had been renovated It did not look like what I had imagined. Four M512 ammunition bunkers were also built to serve the gun, three of which are now used for display purposes. The complex has been subject to an ongoing restoration project that commenced in 1979.

We started off by meeting a member of the CIOS, Tony, who gave us a brief introduction about what we were going to be seeing and a little information about the history of this place. Just after being there for literally 10 minutes it quite quickly kicked in that there was lots of things that can be photographed. The cannon above was the first thing that caught everyones eye. Having looked at the gun placements he went on to say that the original gun placed there was actually french,he later informed us about the ammunition and artillery and how they were used as there defence to protect the coast. We then went on to proceed into the main bunker that had been converted into a showcase filled with images, newspaper articles from the time, real life artillery, helmets and even a room with footage of the bunker during the occupation, it is home to many special and valuable artifacts that are now on display for tourists and islanders to go and see. Inside this bunker there was maybe 4 to 5 rooms and one of those rooms is displayed as a medical room where when the soldiers got injured for whatever reason they’d be taken there for emergency care. It was interesting to see the way it was set out and how much technology used in the medical insdustry has developed as in those days sterilisation and a clean environment would have been hard to achieve due the circumstances of the occupation.

This was the last tower we went to visit before making our way back. Nine of these towers were originally planned for the coastline of Jersey, but the increasing shortages of cement and return of forced and slave workers to the Continent at the end of August, 1943 resulted in the abandonment of the project.

Totally unique to the Channel Islands, these observation towers were also built to “Fortress” standards. Each of the five observation levels was intended to provide the distance of a target for an individual artillery battery using the long base method of range-finding, in conjunction with the other MP towers. However, this method of range-finding had obvious limitations in inclement weather, at night or if there were numerous targets on the horizon.

MP3 was intended to bypass these difficulties with the installation of a radar on the roof. This gun-laying radar version had an accurate detection range of around fifteen miles, and was of a similar type utilised by the famous pocket battleship “Graf Spee.” The generator which provided electric power for the radar was housed in a very large bunker behind MP3. This also acted as a personel bunker for the soldiers, who were ordinarily barracked adjacent to a pre-war rifle range.

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Above are some pictures from the archive taking from the Societe Jersiaise webiste

My interpretation of an archive is something that stores hardware photographs, audio books, letters, anything really that has sentimental value to its society and nation, it usually is relatively old meaning that it gives us a better insight to years that I certainly wasn’t around for. In many ways, the purpose of these archives is that they are there to protect old records that if displayed wherever could potentially be ruined and too also educate and inform younger generations of the sort of activities and events that have taken place on this island we call our home. Archives have the function to inform us of what our island’s culture used to be like. Having them in our lives is important as most of the images found in archives go way back to the 19′ hundreds which therefore gives us an insight into how much our culture has changed not just in terms of our streets and buildings but our fashion industries and government standards.

Images from the archive’s have dual meanings because what we see in these images is just an aspect of their reality, its a split second of their day whether they are working or just simply sitting doing nothing the reality of it is that we actually don’t have a clue of what the context being those images are and how those people are actually feeling.
Archives act like repositories of cultural memories because its where memories,events,important dates have been stored. By keeping them in a safe location it means that younger generations can look back on their grandparents or even great grandparents lives and see how much it has changed as the years have gone by.
Photography doesn’t just play an important role to the archives history but it plays an important role in day to day life without us even thinking about it. As previously stated, theres an idea that our feelings change once we know the context behind the image. I think it was important to photograph back in the day the reality of their lives without mobile phones,internet pretty much nothing but pen and paper if you wanted to communicate and how easy todays generations have it. I think it makes younger generations reflect that our older families did not have it easy and that just because they look happy for an image doesn’t mean that’s how they’re really feeling.
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Now in the modern days, images can be taken on many different devices but there is a part of me that enjoys looking at pictures of my parents and grand parents because they have an element of being old and they look not as highly focused and the colour balance of some images are not the right tones. I do like the old fashioned photos but i know that most pictures i will likely look back on will be freshly coloured and in relatively high quality.

Visually, looking at the archival images will enrich our personal studies because we can see how much our culture and society has developed not only with the quality of those images but in terms fashion and political aspects on the island. Seeing it on a piece of paper will make us see the changes and give us a more personal account to look at it. It will also influence what we go out and photograph as they’re are going to be certain ideas that wouldn’t completely fit into this theme.

Looking at the images has been resourceful because it has given us lots to look at and from looking at those images we can take elements and copy into what our society and culture for our new images and my response. I think that as young photographers/ Artists we can use elements of their photos and adapt and use them into our own wether its by using photo – montage or a simple over layer of the two images 70 odd years apart. Archival images can be used in many inventive and creative ways therefore just being able to see what life was like before we were all born was seemingly interesting.

To answer the title “who’s archive is it anyway” I think its hard to say because each individual has a different interpretation of an archive. Some places were not affected by any sort of conflict so wouldn’t take into account archives from the war as they have no link to it but their are some that put 100% time and devotion to make our land remembered for what really happened to it and how much we have got and what It has really come to and why.

For our introduction to our new theme for this project, we took a trip to The Societe Jersiaise to look at archives during the jersey occupation it was founded in 1873 for these following purposes.

• The Publication of Local History,
• The encouragement of the use of French, the official language,
• The study of the ancient local dialect
• To achieve, as far as possible, the conservation of all prehistoric and historical sites
• To found a library, mainly historical and archaeological
• To collaborate with other societies with similar aims

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Societe Jersiase found a permanent home in 1893 when they moved to 9 Pier Road, a large early nineteenth century merchant’s house. The extensive Museum collections are now looked after by Jersey Heritage but they are consistantly adding to the collection.  In 1977 they built a large extension to the archive on the site of No 7 Pier Road to house the library and meeting rooms.Over the years, Jersey heritage have purchased archaeological sites in Jersey for preservation and presentation. According to them their two most important sites are La Hougue Bie, bought in 1919, and La Cotte de Saint-Brélade, purchased in 1955. They’ve carried out extensive excavations at both sites.

In 1913 the Société’s activities as a learned society were organised into ‘Sections’ for the study of different aspects of the island.  These Sections, now 14 in number continue to be the backbone of their activities.  They also employ specialist staff to look after their library archives and photographic archives.

Many of their activities have been made possible by substantial gifts of money over the years and they’ve always got important projects in need of funds. In a way It shows that even over 70 odd years there are still many things on the island to be discovered and shown off as people often think that we are only an island so there’s limitations however Jersey is more precious with it archaeological discoveries. I believe that everything we find now should be preserved as something so small could contribute massively to researchers and historians interested in the times of the war and during the occupation.There are many museum and other collections that have been largely built up through gifts and bequests which has ensured its preservation of many important items with relevance to Jersey including; books, manuscripts and maps, photographs, prints and paintings, archaeological finds and historical items.