As a class, we visited the Jersey war tunnels to take some photos of the war time memories.

I enjoyed this trip because it allowed me to look at these memories, and saw what it was like living on island during this time. I enjoyed taking photos here, as it allowed me to use a range of different skills and techniques in order to get the best photos I could.

Here are some of the photos I took at the War tunnels.

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I really like the way that these photos came out. I kept all the photos original and didn’t edit them as it shows off their textures and the atmosphere of the pictures.

Throughout the War Tunnels I noticed that some of the information boards had one word above them, after photographing a couple, I liked the outcome and realized that I could use them to add on top of photos or use them as my own little montage and put them together with photos to represent the words.

I really like this photo I took at the War Tunnels, as it almost represents ‘A light at the end of a tunnel’ feel to it, with the fore and mid ground being not as brightly lit, and the end of the hall being brightly lit up with the iconic figure of Winston Churchill and the Union Jack wrapping round to the end. This photo really symbolizes Liberation and is one of my Favorites.

I also really like this photo as the main part of the image is the type writer which has a main light being shone onto it, and the rest of the desk having parts of the main light being reflected off the type writer.

When we first went in we met Stuart Nicole, a senior archivist the had been working at the Jersey archives for around 20 years. He gave us a talk all about the various different things that were stored at the archive including: personal and private family records, death and marriage certificates, church records, club records, place records and government records. There are government records such as a King James I charter and a King Charles II charter.

Stuart told us about a law that had been passed called the ‘Public Records Law’ which means that the archives are allowed certain certificates and records if they are believed to be of historical or national interest. Their earliest record is from 1378, roughly 641 years old which is a charter from King Richard II. Stuart then went on to tell us various stories such as one about a prison record of a 13 year old French boy in 1912 who was banished from Jersey with his family because he was caught shoplifting, as well as one about a man in 1846 named Thomas Nicole who, when denied entry, shot the pub up and the record is relating to him having a signed pardon by Queen Victoria as he had been sentenced to death.

In relation to out investigation into WWI, we then were told of how the war cabinets decision to demilitarize the channel islands was written on the back of a envelope as well as the declarations that the islanders should surrender to the German forces. We got to see various copies of registration cards as well as various letters after the liberation to family members abroad as previously to that,we saw and were told, that on the red cross letters, you were only allowed to write 25 words. There were also old German letters that had been stolen to loved one which was emotional to read.

After that he took us us into the store rooms. Films and photos kept at 5 degrees Celsius. If bugs are found on any of the items, they must be frozen for 2 weeks. There are 3 rooms with the green room being the store for larger objects such as maps and old charters and the red room for being everything else. The final room is for the film and photos. They’re all kept in boxes.

Technically I took this photo on manual mode with my camera, I was using a slow shutter speed of 1/125, and had my ISO also low, and my white balance on daylight mode due to using box lighting on a soft sunlight type setting.

For the concept of this image I wanted to represent that Joan has seen and experienced a lot, and so I wanted to make this photo look more dramatic than some of my other more lighthearted finals. I did this by editing the image into black and white, using Adobe Lightroom Classic, and also using the ‘Sharpening – Light’ setting. I think that this was effective in achieving the aim of the image as as well as looking more dramatic, the black and white represented Joan’s age because during that era black and white photos would’ve been all that they had. Joan is also positioned in a way where she is not looking directly at the camera with quite a numb expression on her face, this added to the ‘drama’ and showed the viewer that she could possibly be quite unhappy.

After visiting the archive, we went down to the Jersey War Tunnels to take photos in there. The war tunnels started off as a place to allow the German occupying infantry to withstand Allied air raids and bombing in the event of them trying to recapture the islands. In 1943, it was converted into an emergency hospital. There is over 1,000 metres of tunnels and it is dug over 50 metres deep underground. More than 5,000 slave labourers worked on the tunnels.

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These are the four final images I have produced from a photoshoot with Bob Le Sueur. Three of them are portraits and one is a more abstract photo of his footwear.

The following photos are all half body-shot portraits which have been made black & white in order to help capture the seriousness of the moment.

For this photo I wanted Bob to look down in reflection, thinking back to the occupation. I also wanted him to look to his left as everyone else got him to look right. Although looking the other direction would give a better highlight to his jaw and face in general, looking to his left shows quite literally a different side to him, but also helps show little hidden secrets, such as any scars or other marks collected over the years or during the occupation.

Bob Le Sueur is a resident of Jersey and lived through the occupation of Jersey during world war 2. He was around the age of 19 at the start of the occupation. During the beginning of the occupation, Bob experienced a lot such as being woken by an air raid from German Bomber planes. These planes dropped two silver cylinders with parachutes attached each with a note inside telling them that the military control of the island should be surrendered to them within 24 hours. Though, there was no military on the island due to its demilitarization earlier. Due to the limited population throughout the islands, and since it was demilitarized, the British army was told to not help and stay at their posts and do their best.

During the occupation Bob helped Russian prisoners (who were seen as sub-human to the Germans) escape German hold. One of these was someone who was held by two of Bobs friends who shared a flat. He and some other people he knew, managed to get a fake German identification card for him, and a ration book so that he was able to at least stay alive with them.

Bob himself did not have a crystal set radio, but those who did were aware of Berlin falling on April 30th. Though, the Germans did tell everyone that Hitler died defending in the Jersey Evening Post. This quickly lead to the end of the war and Liberation where the surrender papers were signed. Bob also has a story of Liberation day where when using hose-pipe tires on his bike, one of them snapped, sounding like a gun shot, which made German soldiers nearby to him jump to the ground in fear. Bob then told us that this is the experience that made him realize that the Germans were human just like us. He then mentioned how he wanted to go and shake one of these German soldiers hands, but could not bring himself to do so, likely due to the fact they were still considered the enemy and if people saw him do it they may consider him some kind of traitor.