The Channel islands were the most heavily fortified part of the ‘Atlantic wall’ (a line of massive defence works that ran from the baltics to spain). The channel islands were the only part of the British isles that German troops would set foot on, Hitler poured resources into defending the islands from British forces trying to re-capture them; the amount of resources and funds that he put in the islands far outweighed the genuine strategic value of them.
Batterie Lothringen was made so that it could cover the whole island at close range, it was made to mainly protect the south of the island it has an effective range of 14,000m and had 47 permanent implacements from artillery to flamethrowers.
This diagram shows the effective range and protection of the fortification and the main direction of fire.
An archive is a place that forms of documentation are stored, this can include text, paintings, sculptures and pictures. They are mainly set up so records can be kept of times and so that people can reference work and events that occured in history. Most of the time the work in archives is unpublished, this is the main difference between archives and libraries.
The way that I will be making use of the Jersey photographic archive is by looking at the old images and then either using them to make photo-montages with work of my own or to reference when taking my own photos.
The photos that I have requested from the archive are ones that relate to my grandfather. I have been able to find a copy of his registration card and his identification registration form. I was only able to find my Grandfathers as my grandmother may not have been old enough to have one.
The registration card that I have been able to obtain has important information on it that could be useful to me in the future. This includes the image of him and the writing about him. The card tells me where he lived and gives another iteration about his occupation which reads “Fisherman” This i already knew but it is a vital part of the story about him in the occupation.
Nazi forces first invaded Jersey on the 1st July 1940 soon after the German forces started to bring in fortifications like anti aircraft guns and cannons. The Islands held no strategic value to the Nazis it was mainly occupied as propaganda as they could say that they had control over British land. The occupation started off with bombing attacks on the islands in late June in which 44 islands were killed. However before the islands were invaded they were de-militarized and declared an “open town” which is when a city does not defend against invaders to avoid destruction and loss of life.
During the occupation a large number of forces were deployed to defend the islands and lots of fortifications were built to defend the island which would never be used. There were also large restrictions and bans on things that were common before. Things that were banned include: radios, driving, firearms and cameras. And restrictions were placed on things like how many people could be in a crowd, singing and fishing. To fish which was a major part of the Jersey culture and the way of life for people. The only people who were allowed to fish during the occupation were ones who had a licence to do so and this was difficult to obtain so there were less fish being brought in as there were less fishermen and there were more people to feed due to the invading forces so many people were forced to start working in agriculture. And people had to tend fields and grow vegetables.
The liberation of Jersey occured on the 9th of May and the occupying German forces surrendered without any resistance and then the ally forces went to the Pomme d’or, took down the Nazi flags and raised british flags and the Jersey one.
When I looked over the images some had parts that were overexposed, this wasn’t a problem as I was shooting in raw so I was able to fix any exposure issues. I also cropped some of them but I had to maintain the scale so that they will fit on my final presentation.
These were only minor changes, the main one that I had to do was to make sure that all of them had the same levels of saturation, the reason for this is because it was an overcast day and the only light source that I had available was the sun, due to the cold light a lot of the images were under saturated so I had to boost it and have it so they all look like they are all equally saturated.
To change the saturation All I had to do was move the circled slider, the problem I had was getting them all to be the same, the way i overcame this is I had one image opened with the correct levels of saturation on one monitor and I was editing all of the other ones to make sure that it matched of the second monitor. This worked well as I could easily refer to the colours that I wanted.
As can be seen below the images turned out well and I am happy with the colour grading and saturation that they all have.
When I went to take the images I changed the way that I did the images and set them up. One way that it changed was that I was planning on taking the photos so that they lined up perfectly with the background, the way that i re did this is that I lined up one major feature within the picture and the same in the background like a door frame or a window.
For the first image there are multiple attempts as I was trying to line up the shot and then changed to the style of showing that I am in the same location by including features and the scene.
My plan is to go to the locations depicted by the photos and then have my camera set up on tripod and either hold the images or suspend it from fishing wire. The images will either line up almost perfectly with the background, or if that is too difficult I will have the image so that it is in a position where it is clear that it is where it was taken there, and some major features line up but it shows a wider field of view and area is shown clearer.
For my project I will be following the style Koenig and the subject of it is my late Grandfather as I have a large amount of photos from his life and from when he lived in his house which is now empty and being redone for renovation, and it is almost completely empty with no wall paper not carpet and no ceiling just the floor above.
The project is an exploration in the sense of loss and change. The photos will be framed as such that they will be in the position that they were taken and should line up with the main features that still remain in the house, I will then take a step back and take a photo en capturing the photo and the background to show how the area as changes and how that his absence from the space has meant that a change has come about. It will also comment on how that the house and the area reflected his personality and that once he left his personality left not long after.
The style I want to follow is one that shows “When Time was Prime”. This is in the style of the american photographer Richard Koenig and his work with pictures hanging in a scene, they depict the scene but when it was older and full of life.
The main area of his work that I will be looking at is the ones where he has a photo he has frames the picture in the scene and suspended it in front of the real area to show a different time.
My main inspiration for it is this image where he has shown the man sitting in his chair in the two images that are hanging up and in between you can see a gap where the man is missing.
This image to me represents loss and the lack of the identity of the area and the subject, because the chair that he once sat in now lies empty and unfilled, also Koenig has used a shallow depth of field to make the chair and the background have less detail and to make it so that the viewer focuses on the photos and ‘what it was’ rather than what it is.
Born in 1960, Richard Koenig received his BFA from Pratt Institute. In 1998 he received his MFA from Indiana University and began teaching art and photography courses at Kalamazoo College, Michigan. Koenig has done lots of work but the portfolio of his that I am focusing on is called “Inserts/Koans”. In this he takes old prints and of images showing a frame with something or someone in then in the same framing he removes the main subject and then takes another picture with the first photo with the main subject in suspended in front of the new framing with the area lined up and the main markings lined up.
The effect of these images is that the viewer sees the image before it has undergone change or before something has been removed. And i have chosen this for identity and place because I can depict something that has lost its identity and is missing the identity that it had before when the main subject was there.
