Personal Investigation (Occupation vs Liberation)

Occupation of Jersey

From studying the theme ‘Occupation VS Liberation’, it has allowed me to explore many different themes within the second world war (WWII). My first way into my project was starting with archival imagery which I collected information and images from the ‘Societe Jeriase’ trip me and my class mates took. This trip included searching through archival images from world war two, such as images of fields, homes, german soliders as well as occupation ID cards. Looking into these aspects allowed for me to gain a standard historical understanding into the subject and also changed my insight to how important archives are. To represent my understanding on the subject, I produced an essay where I explained the importance of archives while including artist references. I was then set the case of looking into bunkers in Jersey which allowed me to gain experience in landscape photography. Overall I made two different bunker shoots which lead me to gain experience in landscape photography and allowed me to show Jerseys history through photographic evidence. This also led me to exploring aspects in the Jersey War Tunnels which helped to me to gain understanding of war. This photo shoot linked with our title of looking into ‘Occupation Objects’ and by photographing objects in the dark tunnel and exploring with different lighting sources allowed me to develop my overall project.

After these investigations and photo shoots, I then went into making a zine (photo book) where I explored different aspects such a sequencing and narratives. This was my first time at using Adobe InDesign and allowed me make a photo book, digitally. This photo book included my own images from shoots such as the batterie Moltke, batterie lothringen, jersey war tunnels etc. These all helped me to gain experience in zine making, as well as to help convey a narrative through imagery.

After making my first zine, I then decided to spend most of my focus on portraiture within my ‘Home Sweet Home’ tasks. I began my looking into portraiture photographers such as Francis Foot which helped me to explore different types of portraiture photography as well as give me an understanding of successful ones. This led me onto looking into the photographer Richard Billingham who focused on ‘Candid Photography’. Looking into and trying different styles helped for me to gain experience and in this particular style influenced the way I took my images. This led me to exploring more portrait styles such as detail photography, enviromantal photography, establishing shot, as well as looking into interior and exterior photography. We were also lucky enough to take portrait images of occupation survivor Joan Tetley who also shared her experiences with us.

After looking at portraits it was time to look at ‘Objects’ which included a Still-Life project. My first time looking into photographing objects was with objects from the occupation which I photographed in a studio under artificial lighting. Taking part in this allowed me to gain more experience with using studio/ artificial lighting as well as take my images with a tripod. This project also inspired me for my photo montage project where I used the images in mix with archival ones.

In conclusion, I have found that this overall project has allowed for my photographic skills to be enhanced by both researching, experimenting and editing and has allowed me to gain more insight on different types of elements in taking a good image in landscapes, portraiture and in a studio setting.

Through my personal investigation I have learnt and researched about Jersey throughout the second world war going through its occupation by the Germans and its Liberation in 1945. The images I have taken mostly relate closely to occupation and liberation, though they vary due to some being portraits, some being objects and some being landscape images. The portrait imagery initially taught me about different types of lighting and how I can set it up to get a nice bright clean image of the person within the photograph. The object imagery, which was of lots of different items found within the occupation, gave me much more freedom of what I can do with them creating simple montages of related items and teaching me more lighting techniques. The landscape imagery, which I have taken of bunkers to link with occupation, is the main thing I am going to try and develop with my personal study. This will allow me to further develop my skills with a camera by setting it up differently depending on the weather conditions or lighting levels outside, and also allow me to explore a lot more of Jerseys bunkers and heritage to get a much better view of what life would have been like in Jersey during the second world war.

I believe portraiture inspired me during my personal investigation. I believe portraiture inspired me due to the realization of the amount of things a person can do within an image and how much emotion some people are able to create within an image, which can be used to emphasize a point or show someones views on something.

Landscape imagery has also inspired me a lot due to the amount of unique areas of land you are able to find and use, especially all the landmarks within Jersey relating to the German occupation. This has also inspired me due to the amount of different angles and ways you can photograph these areas, such as in different lighting or weather, like at night or during the rain.

The theme I enjoyed most over the course of this unit was probably portraiture as it was always varied and we covered a lot of different ways of approaching portraits. For example I did some research on contemporary photographer OLGAÇ BOZALP along with historic photographer Ernest Badoux. Despite being from two very different time periods, Baudoux and Bozalp still photograph their subjects in a similar way. Both photographers incorporate the subject’s home/background in their photos, this can be seen more in the Bozalps however it is still evident in Badoux’s photos as you can decide what class the person/person is in through looking at the background and their gestures in the photos. I also enjoyed taking photos of Bob Le Sueur and hearing about his experiences. It was a good way to experiment with trigger flashes and photographic equipment in the studio.

Another historic photographic technique that I found interesting what the use of Autochrome in the 20th century. The first practicable method of colour photography was the autochrome process, invented in France by Auguste and Louis Lumière. Best known for their invention of the Cinématographe in 1895, the Lumières began commercial manufacture of autochrome plates in the early 20th century. This was especially interesting as Jersey Photographer Emile Guiton began experimenting with it early on, and it is strange to recognise the landscapes in some of his photos. Such as the image below which was taken well over a hundred years ago in a forest near where I live.

Occupation vs. Liberation. Overview of what we have been doing and working on in this unit:

LANDSCAPE
Research 1: SJ Photographic Archive
Research 2: Artists references
Essay 1: Whose Arcvive is it anyway?
HW 1: Family archives/ photo-albums
Photo-shoot 1: Bunkers – school trip
Photo-shoot 2 & 3: Bunkers – independent
Experiment 1: Crop / Colour / B&W
Experiment 2: Photo-montage / composite
Zine: Research and Planning
Zine: Design and Layout
Zine: Printing and Bound
Feedback: –
PORTRAITURE
Research 1: Artists References – Historical
Research 2: Artists References – Contemporary
Research 3: Jersey Archive
Research 4: Family History
Photo-shoot 1: Jersey War Tunnels
HW-Assignment 1: Environmental and Candid portraits
HW-Assignment 2: Establishing and Detail Shots
Research: Occupation babe
Studio-shoot 2: Occupation babes
Experimentation: 3 variations of 3 images
Feedback: –
Overall attainment for this set of assessments based on the sum of all assessments
OBJECTS
Research 1: Historical context: Still-life
Research 2: Analysis: Still-life painting
Research 3: Emile F. Guiton and Autochromes
Research 4: Contemporary practice: Still-life
Studio-shoots: Objects/ Still-life
Experimentation: Objects/ Still-life
Extension: Food Substitutes
HW-Assignment 3: Exterior and Interior
Zine: Research & Planning
Zine: Design & Layout
Zine: Printing and Bound

During my personal study I have learnt to do lots of different things to help me develop my study, For example when we were creating our zine layout, I learnt, how to do this effectively, shown below is an example of the zine layout that I found was successful as the message on the side matched the image.

I also learnt about the process of how photographers had to use to create colour images, This had me interested as it showed me the difficulties that the photographers had to go with to create the image, that we can take for granted today. This is an example from Emile Guiton:

We also learnt to take portraits using the flash in the studio, I enjoyed this area of photography as I enjoyed taking images of people. heres an example of an outcome which I edited.

To develop my personal study, I have decided to look further into the memories of the occupation of Jersey of the islanders who stayed in Jersey. By doing this I hope to extend the knowledge and importance of these difficult situations, people were placed in. Therefore meaning that I am going to focus on portraits, and interview people and take images.

I focused on different themes through out my personal study, I decided go choose this is evident in my zine where I decided to go with 2 different themes, which was opposing for example at the start of the zine I decided to go with the start of the war and the views of people, then by the end of the zine I decided to go with, the views at the end of the war, I believe this was effective. We also focused on a Artist called Rafal Milach and his work: The First March of Gentlemen. I did a response to his work which was to create my own montage, I liked this artist as his work captured peoples imagination and thoughts, which then created a different view on what was going on in the image. Heres an example of what my response was:

Also throughout my personal study, I looked at different artists for example the contemporary photographer Martin Parr, I liked the way he took his images as they told a story, but also how they had a big depth of field, I also looked at the historical Photographer Francis Foot, I chose to look at this photographer because he focused on taking images of people, this is my focus of my development of personal study.

As my final layout of my zine, I have accomplished a ‘dos a dos’/accordion layout but displayed it on a different coloured spine. I wanted to do this because my overall idea was to create my own identity cards, like the ones given out during the occupation.I wanted to include my occupation related shoots and montages in the first section, then have images that relate to my life and my liberation. This personal section includes environmental shots of my family, alongside detail shots of my family. This overall I think was successful in the way it is laid out and how the content fits the title, however I was indecisive as to adding my photo montages due to the intensity of colours. However, this now in my opinion is very effective due to the pop of colour being needed to break up the rest of the content.

Zine 1

Zine 2