NOTES:

• Joan Tapley was 6 years old when the German Occupation began. She lived in the north coast of Jersey, therefore she could hear the bombings in France.

• While the Germans were in France they wanted to invade the Channel Islands. The citizens in Jersey had to put up white flags or sheets as a symbol for the Germans to enter.

• Joan Tapley would watch the planes fly over ahead and was fascinated by the white vapour trails. It was dangerous for her to admire them on the fields so she had to hide in the bushes to be protected from the bombings.

• Les Platon, located in the centre of Jersey, is the highest point in the island and was used by the Germans for their artillery to aim and shoot towards France.

• Even though Jersey traded with France, there was still a lack of food so people were served rations. The servings were small and the islanders were competing for food. Many citizens started growing their own food in their gardens.

• The Jersey citizens had substitute food. For example they substituted tea by using parsnips and sugar by boiling sugar beets.

• There were several military zones all around the island where citizens were prohibited to enter; These zones included beaches & cliffs. The Germans even introduced a curfew so people had to return back to their homes by 9pm in winter and 10pm in summer. The people in Jersey definitely felt restricted from movement.

• Jersey also had blackouts where the islanders had to turn off their lights and cover their windows. The only advantage of the blackouts was being able to see several stars at night since there was no light pollution.

TECHNICAL:

After listening to Joan Tapley’s stories about her experiences during the German Occupation in Jersey, we were given the opportunity to photograph her in the studio. In the studio I used the manual mode to capture portraits of Joan. I set my IOS to 100 since the image was captured in a bright scene and had my aperture at F16 for a large depth of field. My shutter speed was at 1/125. These adjustments made my settings appropriate for studio photography.

LIGHTING:

In order to capture images of Joan, we used a two point lighting setup. One light faced towards Joan and one was illuminating the white backdrop. This allows the photographer to manipulate the lighting of the image so the subject can be illuminated in various ways and to either emphasise or eliminate shadows. The Key light is the most important light a photographer will use in a lighting setup. the purpose of the key light is to highlight the form and dimension of the subject. We also used a flash trigger which is a method of achieving flash sync without the need for a wired connection between the camera and the flash units illuminating the scene.

EVALUATION:

I wanted my images to conceptually represent Joan as a Jersey citizen who has experienced a lot during the German Occupation. To create a dramatic yet historical effect to my images, I decided to convert my photos into black and white. The filter represents the time period during World War 2 since only black and white film was available.

Hearing Joan’s stories of what life was like during the German Occupation has allowed me to gain a better perspective of what life must have been like during World War 2. I believe my images manage to contextually showcase Joan’s stories. Overall it was a nice and informative experience since she explained her stories in detail and cooperated well during the photoshoot.