PHOTO SHOOT APPROACH:
As a further investigation into the low cost housing market in Jersey I felt as though viewing the housing estate provided by Andium homes was an important part of this as their main mission is to help struggling families in Jersey to rent and purchase homes. It was extremely import to me to shed a light on these homes as they are typically associated with the lower income classes of Jersey, bringing with it many stereotypes about the sort of people who live in these homes. I wanted to display the cookie cutter type stylistic design of these homes, their simplicity meaning they are cheap and easy to build, despite their uninspiring facade, a lot of these homes still go for upwards of £400,000. I was also able to look inside of these homes and witness how little you can get for your money when it comes to the Jersey housing market.
SUCSESSFUL OUTCOMES:
As a major aspect of my project is to retain the privacy of various people that live on these estates, I decided to only capture images of homes which were unoccupied and therefore did not posses peoples personal belongings. I was able to enter these homes and witness the bare bones of the home and the sort of conditions which they were in to begin with. The most interesting part of these photos are the continuity and pattern of the homes, all being in a continuous manner.
IMAGE ANALYSIS:
After adding a variety of post production editing to these images, I was able to produce a somewhat retro looking image which showcases a film style photo. Upon first glance, the entire estate was drab and uninviting. The streets lined with homes comparable to the mass housing style of post soviet 1990’s Russia, with the cubist style architecture and close living quarters. It was undeniable that a lot of these homes are the epitome of social housing troubles, coming with them the notion that the next generation of drug abusing, gang related youth would be spawned from them, “home sweet home” being the last description coming to my head, yet none the less it is a safe heaven for those in need. The terraced style arrangement of these homes means that there is an ever lasting repetition from the first house to the next, very little privacy is to be expected by living here. Much like the outside, there was again the cookie cutter style home on the inside, zero character or stylistic integrity to be held with it, simply the cheapest and simplest methods of building a home have been applied. Rooms have been sized to the smallest possible fraction before they could be named a cupboard, most likely leading to over crowding to any family deciding to reside here . All in all this description seems harsh and unfair for these homes which at first glance, apart from the lack of character and structural integrity, seem to have nothing wrong with them, yet taking into account the £425,000 price tag into account, the story shifts quickly. Value versus product far outweighs what money can get you, and even a public government agency is unable to truly provide affordable housing for the large variety of people that call Jersey home. As a stylistic extension from the start of my project I have continued with the film style imagery which I have produced, and even within this context it fits in well stylistically and metaphorically as these homes are comparable to housing estates from post war Britain.
ADDING GRAIN EFFECT ON DIGITAL IMAGES:
When zooming in and inspecting these images, I have added a very apparent noise filter to these images in order to get rid of the crisp and sharp nature of the digital images. Film images are also typically very warm toned, being saturated with reds, oranges and yellows and therefore I did the same with my imagery. Adding a gradient map which encompasses these colors. It was also important to add relevant contrast and highlight within these photos as film images typically look fairly washed in brighter weather conditions, and extremely dramatic in darker ones. The combination of these two factors means that these images are fairly similar to the results of normal film images.