Intro

During the time and effort i put through doing my investigation and investigating with the project (Occupation vs. Liberation) i gained a lot of experience and skills with working on portraits, environmental photography, photo shop skills……. .And in this blog post i’m going to write and overview of these stuff i learnt as well as the inspirations that inspired me throughout my work.

Knowledge

The occupation

I gained a lot of knowledge about the island through this project as i have lived in jersey for almost a year and a half without even knowing that there was an occupation that occurred before i came. so through this project i now gained knowledge about almost everything i can know about the occupation from when it started to what they ate during the occupation.

Home

Moreover i also gained knowledge about the family i lived with as i lived with them without knowing that much about them but when i was working on my Home Sweet Home project i learnt a lot about them by photographing what they do at home throughout the day.

Skills

Light Room

Throughout doing this project i gained a lot skills with practicing photo editing specially using Light room as i have always been using Photoshop but we had to use light room in this project which really worked to my advantage because i got to explore all the new ways of editing photographs.

Camera Handling

I also expanded my photography techniques specially with environmental portraiture and still object photographing through the project (Still Life). And got more professionalized with using camera skills and adjusting settings.

Conclusion

in conclusion this project really taught me a lot of stuff but mainly just gave me experience about the whole idea of being involved in the history of the German Occupation in Jersey.

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Diana Markosian is was born in Moscow in 1996, making her a Russian American who left Moscow to live in California with both her mother and brother. She was family orientated due to not having contact with her father until age 23 before travelling to Armenia to see him 15 years later. Markosian is known as a Russian American artist of Armenian Descent.

Markosians most recognised work is “Inventing my Father” where she explores her fathers absence throughout her life through using archival imagery and landscapes to support her lost memories. She also used physical elements such as newspaper articles, letters and objects which is photographed in a still-life way to represent a personal element to the project, showcasing raw emotion to her audience through using black and white edit and through portrait images of her father.

Relevant Quote- ” I often wondered what it would have been like to have a father. I still do.”

Her Style..

• Black and White Edits
• Burns images
• Fully focused Images
• Birds eye view
• Photo Manipulation

Mood Board

Analysation Image

Technical Analysis- Technically this image is seen to be taken in a poorly lit room which adds to the emotion of the raw image, there is shadowing going on to show that there is a light source coming from somewhere in the room. The image is fully focused and good quality showing that a goof camera has been used to take the depressing photograph.

Visual Analysis- Visually, we can see a printed photograph of Diana and her mother with a cut out image which we can assume would have been her father, representing a broken family photograph. The image has been cut out physically through scissors. Due to the background we can also see that this image has been taken in a photo album due to the type/ texture of the paper.

Conceptual Analysis- Conceptually, this image can be seen that there is a clear disappearance of a family member in the image which represents lack of responsibility and absence in the family home. This can further be looked into by the cut out showing the audience how important Diana’s mother was to her due to being the only adult influence she had.

Contextual Analysis- After research, this image contextually portrays an image which Diana’s mother had cut out after being stuck into the family photo album. The cut out represents the loss of a family member.

Meaning behind this choice

After researching the artist Diana Markosian in detail, I have decided that I would like to use her as an inspiration towards my first photo shoot as I feel as if our imagery is in relation to each other. Although her images have depressing backgrounds to it and mine will be showing good times in my life, I still feel as if she is a good basis on what archive images can been to a certain personal emotionally which is an element I was aiming to use in my project.

HOUSING CRISIS IN JERSEY:

A topic which I personally extremely interested in is the housing crisis in Jersey and the lack of affordable housing for the middle class population living here. As a young person who is wanting to live and stay in Jersey, I am keen to explore the difficulties sand extreme challenges faced by my generation to get onto the property ladder. According to a report from Statistics Jersey, shortages are now predicted for every size of flat and house, with the exception of a small surplus (70) in the number of large homes of four or more bedrooms. And the situation has worsened considerably since the last Future Housing Needs report was issued, covering 2015-2018, with almost twice as many more homes now needed. The gap between the number of people looking for homes and the number of homes available widened by 90%. The news comes as a former assistant minister said the States were drastically failing to meet its commitments to provide affordable homes. The dearth of properties will be worst in the owner-occupier sector, where there is predicted to be 1,830 fewer homes available than households wishing to buy or move, with the biggest shortfall being in the three-bedroom category. The report makes a number of predictions based on different inward migration figures, but every scenario between now and 2021 forecasts more demand for homes that the Island can supply. These projections are based on numbers before various building projects intended to increase supply are completed, Statistics Jersey noted.

In the registered accommodation sector, there is expected to be a shortfall of 600 units, with two-bedroom homes in most demand.In the previous report covering 2015-2018, there was a projected surplus in registered accommodation, but ‘the latest potential shortfall has been largely driven by recent levels of migration’, Statistics Jersey said. Qualified accommodation numbers are expected to be less affected by migration trends and no shortfall is predicted in the supply of larger homes of four or more bedrooms, where a small surplus is predicted. According to the report, there will be 70 more homes in this category than needed. However, there could be a shortage of over 1,000 three-bedroom units and 900 two-bedroom homes. The private rental market is also predicted to fall short of demand by nearly 500 houses of all sizes – except those over four bedrooms. However, a surplus of flats of two bedrooms or less is predicted. And while there may be a surplus of flats for social housing, there will be a shortfall of 160 houses in that category.

Migration is expected to fuel most of this burgeoning demand in the next three years, with almost a third coming from newcomers to the Island. Of that demand, 70% will be looking for registered accommodation and most will be seeking one-bedroom housing, according to the report.

SHARON O’NEILL:

Ringing all the doorbells on her estate one by one, Sharon O’Neill was glad to find almost everyone welcomed her into their flats to take a snapshot into their lives. ‘Flats’, a touching artistic project looking at the diverse population of the Fitzhugh Estate in Wandsworth, south London – where O’Neill has lived for 12 years – proved to be a great way to get to know people around her.

NICK HEDGES:

Photographer Nick Hedges spent three years visiting areas of deprivation throughout the UK to create this seminal body of work for the housing charity Shelter. Launched in December 1966 (the same month as Ken Loach’s influential television drama ‘Cathy Come Home’) the charity’s campaign put paid to the myth that only people living on the streets were homeless. Hedges’ photographs were central to its message. He photographed slum housing in major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and London, documenting the distressing conditions faced by more than three million people.

Mood Board:

A 2010 graduate of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (ENSP), Dorothée Smith was the breakout star of the Rencontres d’Arles 2012. This 27-year old photographer surprised and charmed viewers with her portraits of teenagers coming to terms with their own sexuality, diaphanous beings inhabiting changing bodies, pushing the boundaries of the masculine and the feminine towards a new gender defying the laws of nature. Smith works around the notion of gender which she tries to deconstruct in her work.

Her work can be seen as an observation of constructions, deconstructions, displacements, and transformations of identity. Photography here rubs shoulders with video, hybrid art and the use of new technologies, and has led to collaboration with a research team from the CNRS/IRCICA (French National Center for Scientific Research) in 2012.

A lot of her photos feature the LGBTQ+ community which shows her diversity of different communities in her work. Her photos are also very personal as the models are usually topless or in underwear, showing the vulnerability of the models and LGBTQ+ community. Also in her work, you can see a lot of intimate scenes, which is what I also want to show in my work.

Photo Analysis:

Technical:

This image looks like it was taken with natural light to capture the raw moment. This image is quite under exposed to give a more saturated feel to it. The aperture for this photo is very quite high and the depth of field is quite sharp. Also, the ISO will be around 400 and the white balance looks to be either daylight or shade.

Visual:

The colour of this photo is very saturated and is quite dark to give it a ominous and mysterious look to it. Also the cropping of this photo leads the eye to the person sitting on the bed. Also, the person being the main thing in the photo makes it stand out a lot, putting the person next to a white wall also helped them stand out.

Contextual:

The historical context of gender is very taboo and Smith tries to go against general stereotypes of gender and the law of nature. Also, all her models are in the LGBTQ+ community, which shows the diversity of different people in that community which again challenges gender.

Conceptual:

Her work portrays teenagers coming to terms with their own sexuality, diaphanous beings inhabiting changing bodies and pushing the boundaries of the masculine and the feminine towards a new gender defying the laws of nature. Her work is around the notion of gender which she tries to deconstruct in her photos.

For this the project of Occupation VS Liberation, I have learnt a lot of new skills such as learning how to properly use InDesign, how to get the best lighting for photos, how to tell a story and produce a narrative in my zines, learnt more about archives and the history of Jersey occupation in WW2 and how to use light room. The part I enjoyed the most was making and designing my zine as I liked making it visually aesthetic and making a story. To develop my personal study I will research different photographers and take inspiration from past students work to spark an idea that I can work with.

The themes that have inspired me the most were portraits as I would like to explore intimacy with a person and the camera. Also self portraits are something that I would like to experiment with as I am really interested in this method of photography. Jude Luce (a past student from Hautlieu) has inspired me to experiment with love and vulnerability which is something I also experience everyday. I would also like to experiment with gifs and photo montage as these methods are something I like to use in my own work. Another idea I want to explore is abstract portrait photography. Some key photographers that I would like to do research on are Nan Goldin, Larry Sultan, Yael Malka, David Kirscher, Lin Zhipeng and Dorothée Smith.

Photographing WW2 Objects:

When photographing objects from WW2 I learnt more about still life and the techniques used for this art style. I also learnt how to use the flash light with a camera and how to use a coloured backdrop.