INTERIOR: Photographing the home with no people, choosing locations where I could shoot or have shot portraits, considering rooms with interest eg. space, decor, furniture, display etc
EXTERIOR: Photographing the home from the outside, considering different angles, details as well as deadpan approach.
For the Interior and Exterior portion of the ‘Home-Sweet-Home’ I have decided to not just focus on my own personal house where I live as due to schedules changing I begin to spend less of my time in my personal house. As a child I could’ve considered my Grandparents house ‘home’ as this was where I was everyday for the majority of the day. For these reasons I am going to photograph other interiors and exteriors as well as my own home now that may have a deep personal connection to me.
Mood Board:
Below shows my mood board of ideas to start off this part of the Home Sweet Home project. I personally chose these photographs because of how there I feel there is no noise coming from the photographs, they are very still and I want to try and incorporate this into my photographs.
Plan:
For this photoshoot there are specific spaces that I wish to capture, I am hoping to spot spaces or displays that I did not think of initially to photograph, however I do have a couple of initial spaces in mind:
Living room portrait display: On my wall mounted is a large portrait of Lily Langtry of whom I am named after, this portrait has been in every house my mother has moved to so holds a significant place in our house.
Framed England football shirt: Although seemingly tacky this shirt is signed and framed in my house and is something that significantly reminds me of my dad
Staircase window: This is one of the only physical aspects I actually like about my house, it is the oldest part of the house dating back nearly 300 years and is the main part of the house that is Listed
Grandparents front house: My Nan and Grandad built their house together before they married 50 years ago. Both me and my mother grew up everyday for our childhoods in that house so holds a lot of significance as a place of ‘home’
Henry Mullins moved to Jersey in 1848 from London. He was the first professional photographer to come to Jersey and establish a portraiture business when photography was still new. Many of Mullins’ images are held in the Société Jersiaise photo archive depicting Jersey people from his era. Henry charged Jersey’s residents half a Guinea to have their portraits taken by him.
Overview of his work
Mullins is known for taking environmental style portraits. His style appears to be very formal and proper which is typical of the early days of photography he worked during. His approach, much like his style, is also very formal. As you’ll see in the mood board on the left, he positions his subjects in the centre of the frame, using very polished backgrounds. This style of portraiture is quite limited compared to candid portraiture as not being able to naturally see people in action means we learn less about subjects through the image.
Analysing his image
Contextual: This portrait is called “Mr Anley” Visual: In this image we see a man in the centre of the frame. The background is a plain white colour which shows that the photographer wanted the focus to be on the person himself. The subject is positioned at an angle where we see the left side of his face facing the camera. Something that immediately catches my attention is the person’s attire. It appears as if he is wearing some sort of military uniform as we can visibly see many medals on the uniform. Conceptual: I think that Mullins wanted to emphasise the fact the man was military involved as his clothing is the only distinct part of the image which gives some indication to the person’s identity, history and story. Technical: The subject is at the centre of the frame and the image is black and white due to the era this was taken in.
Yury Toroptsov
Yury Toroptsov mood board.
Images are not my own.
Yury Toroptsov is a native Russian photographer based in France. He spent 6 months in Jersey due to a photography residency. His project “fairyland” was commissioned by the Société Jersiaise. Yury decided to name the project “fairyland” after seeing a float from the Jersey battle of flowers parade with the same name. He then researched the concept of “fairyland” further by visiting the Jersey archive to find out that one of the 1937 battle of flowers floats-created by the Vibert family- had the same name. He then found negatives of cattle photographed in the 1900s, and saw that cows and bulls in that era would have names like “fairy maiden” and “fairy boy”. His Video goes into a little more detail about his inspiration for the project, and explores the whole concept of “fairyland” in depth.
<a href="http://”>Video
Overview of his work
As you can see in the mood board above, Yury took a more modern approach to portraiture. Unlike Mullins, his subjects appear to be photographed in seemingly normal surrounding and not appearing overly “clean-cut”. I think this approach to photographing people allows audiences to understand and be able to more realistically see the people in the photos. You can also see that Yury also takes more candid images of people, and he also captures objects in to show Jersey’s identity. I think that Yury’s style is a lot more contemporary, which could perhaps appeal to a more younger generation.
Analysing his image
Contextual: This is an image of a person walking down a street in Jersey. Visual: In this image we can see a lady walking down the street. She is wearing formal attire which probably means she works in finance as this was something that intrigued Yury about Jersey as he mentioned it in the video linked above. The image is taken from far away which means we can’t see many of the lady’s features. We can also see a shadow from the person as the sun is beginning to set, which further supports the theory that she works a finance job as this is the typical time a person working in finance would finish. Conceptual: I think that Yury wanted to show the “finance” aspect of Jersey in a more fun and mystical way to fit in with the “fairyland” theme. I think he manged to do this well in the image with the shadowing and the different lines and textures in the image created by the road and brick wall. Technical: The woman is positioned in the middle of the image and the photographer appeared to use natural lighting from the sun.
Based off Michelle Sank’s work, I intend on interpreting the idea in my own way. I’m taking my intial aims from ‘My.Self’, a series produced by Sank to reflect ‘what it means to be a young person in today’s society’.My initial ideas include covering the topics and ideas of: self expression (i.e- fashion, hobbies), gender, status, sexuality, empowerment, culture and ethnicity.
In December 1940, the Germans who occupied Jersey the summer before released a decree that ordered ever person over the age of 14 to register under the Registration and Identification of Persons (Jersey) Order, 1940. This resulted in all inhabitants of the island over the age of 14 being issued with a registration card, which included photograph of the owner, their address, name and other personal details. Children under the age of 14 were recorded on the back of their fathers card. The purpose of the cards was to provide clear identification of an individual if they were stopped by a German official, gave occupiers a rounded consensus of Jerseys population, and assisted in identifying and deporting certain individuals based on their nationality. Below is a selection of some of the registration cards given to people living on Jersey during the occupation:
The stories of the people who owned the above registration cards can be found in the Jersey War Tunnels, where some of their stories have been documented, and photocopies of the registration cards are available to look at and keep. Their stories reflect only a handful of the stories available from the German occupation, all of which tell a different tale of the struggles the people of Jersey endured under the strict rules and regulation of the Germans during the occupation.
The entire civil population of Jersey was required by the German authorities to register under the Registration and Identification of Persons (Jersey) Order, 1940. The archive has over 31,000 registration cards of those individuals who lived in Jersey during the German Occupation. Each registration card has personal details such as name, address, date and place of birth, maiden name and occupation. The cards also include a passport sized photograph. Any children under the age of 14 were recorded on the back of their father’s card.
People in story: Maurice Edwarde Green
Location of story: Jersey Channel Islands
Background to story: Civilian
Maurice Edwarde Green was only 12 years old when the German planes flew over. He was a diabetic on insulin from early at birth. Everyone in Jersey thought the war would be over in six to twelve months. Maurice had just over one year’s supply of insulin. Up until D day the diabetics survived on insulin imported by the Jersey States Department of Health. After that day insulin was a life saver. Diabetics were put into hospital. He ended up being the only diabetic to survive in the Channel Islands. Life was hard since there was no insulin at all. Later they were informed that the Red Cross ship ‘Vega’ would be arriving with food parcels and medicines. The ‘Vega’ arrived and his doctor took him to the docks but sadly he returned with the bad news of there being no insulin amongst the medical supplies on board. The second visit of the ‘Vega’ was different. His doctor took him down to the ship again and came back to inform him that there was insulin on board.
Jersey Archive was established as part of Jersey Heritage in 1993. The Archive has archival material from public institutions as well as private businesses and individuals. Jersey Archive’s purpose is to preserve the written cultural heritage of the Island so that future generations can access the material in order to learn more about Jersey’s past. Since 1993 Jersey Archive has collected over 300,000 archival records and are now stored in monitored strongrooms.
Family History is one of the most popular subjects for researchers at the Jersey Archive. Archive records allow members of the public to go on a journey through their past and meet the ancestors.
Michelle Sank was born in Cape Town, South Africa and currently resides in the UK. Sank is well known for her ‘youth work’ among projects: thematic series of portraits of young adults, often dealing with an adolescent struggle to find their place in the world or define their identity. Her ability to evoke these human states through a direct yet deceptively potent vision has led to numerous commissions and residencies photographing young people in diverse cultural settings: Belfast, Northern Ireland; San Francisco, USA; Manheim, Germany; Wolverhampton, England etc.
Writing about her work, the photographer David Goldblatt has observed: “Michelle Sank uses a simplicity of means that falls way below the zealous art critic’s qualifying level for success”
Insula is a photographic project that Sank took part in in 2013 on the island of Jersey where she arrived in April and had a residency on the island for 6 months when geographic and historical influences also loomed large.
Working outside of particular demographic scenarios Sank’s Jersey imagery continues to develop lyrical vision within which the defining influences are place and cultural geography. Insula eschews a specific brief though the work responds to the wealth of nineteenth century portrait photographs within the Jersey Photographic Archive that it now joins as a powerful point of interpretation. The beguiling qualities of these new photographs call to mind the position that Lewis Baltz found for photographic series “somewhere between the novel and film”. As such, Sank’s photographs offer a visual poem to the island.
I have chosen to look at Michelle Sank’s work as I enjoy and like the visual aesthetic of the photographs when they are produced I like how they are taken and what they are representing which is why I have chosen her as one of my photographers.
I have chosen the photograph below as my chosen image to analyse as it was one of the photographs that I was most drawn to. The women shows to be in the centre of the photograph lying close to the foreground, she is the only figure that can be seen in the whole frame and I find this quite interesting as it singles her out and I feel almost enhances her surroundings as there is no other noise coming from the image apart from her figure and it creates a quiet background and surrounding which I feel is effective here. The way her mouth is formed suggests she may could have been talking, from the squint it suggests the natural sunlight is lighting her from the front, as we might guess that she could be talking it makes this a much more personal shot as she would be having a conversation with the photographer, it feels more personal and less staged; almost just in the moment.
Both of the artists explore portrait photography and capturing citizens within different cultures. Within Sunk’s work she looks at randomly capturing different teenagers within different parts of the UK, to represent diversity and individualist, where as Foot was a family photographer who only captured upper class citizens of Jersey, who could afford for Foot to capture images of their family. This outlines how the methodology and type of portrait photography differs from one another, as well as the types of models that both photographers used to be apart of their photographic series. Conceptually, the two images have been taken for different reasons, and the reasons where considered important at the time the photographs where taken. In Foot’s work he showed the concept of family honour and purity, where as Sunk showcased the ideology of diversity and celebrating individualism, which creates a contrast but helps to showcase the time frame, presenting the contextual factors of things important at specific times in history, and change between the work of Foot and Sunk.
Visually, the two artists share similar compositions in order to showcase the subjects, the people within the photograph (main focus point of the image). In the classical piece, the photograph is taken at a straight on angle, putting the focus on the three children. The layout and positing of the children is kept simplistic and naturalistic, which helps to emphasise the purity of the children. The foreground is kept simplistic, only having the children, and the background also follows the simplistic rule, by just having a field creating a sense of space. The quality of the camera helps to present a textural quality towards the piece. Similarly, in Sunk’s work the captured the main focus point at a straight on angle, as well as keeping the foreground and background simplistic and personal to the model, in order to clearly present their personality. The only difference made in the visual aspects of the two images is that, the positioning of the model in the contemporary piece is less naturalistic, which looses the sense of them presenting their real identity, as it seems that the girl could be putting on an act for the camera.
Technically speaking the two images are somewhat similar, one thing to consider when making this comparison is the quality of the camera during the classical piece and during the contemporary, again showcasing the sense of time. In the classical piece the shutter speed used is quick due to no intended blur. The ISO seems to be higher due to the noise presented in the photograph, however this could have been created by the poor camera quality. The exposure seems to be high, due to faces of the boys seem brighter as well as the background, creating a slight blur. This then showcases how a narrow depth of field is used as well as the aperture being low, making the three children the main focus point within Foot’s photography. The lighting is natural, from the sun making a more naturalistic image. Similarly, in Sunk’s work the shutter speed seems to be quick, due to no intended movement blur, as well as the ISO being low due to no noise produced by the natural/artificial lighting, sunlight alongside lamps located in the rooms, helping to light up the model. The whole frame seems to be in focus suggesting a wide depth of field as well as the aperture being high as the photograph is sharp. The white balance seems to be appropriate for the lighting used, a daylight setting, which allows a sense of warmth to be presented to the photograph. The similarity in the technical elements in the photographs, showcase the settings which make a high quality portrait photograph, no matter what the reasoning behind the imagery is.
To conclude, both images share the same simplistic and naturalistic methodology in order to showcase the subjects of the photographs, even though the conceptual and contextual factors significantly differ. Alongside the technical elements being similar which outlines what makes a successful portrait photograph and how even after a set period of time the same settings and methodology is still used, due to the success it brings to the final outcome. On the other hand, the two images differ significantly in conceptual and contextual factors, due to the time period , which was expected as both artists had different aims and ways around the broad topic of portrait photography.
Francis Foot was born in 1885 in the channel island Jersey to mother and father, Francois Foot and Louisa Hunt. His father was a china and glass dealer in Dumaresq Street, at a time when the area was one of the more affluent in St Helier. Francis soon became fascinated by photography and the early phonographs and gramophone records and realised that he could earn a living from them, from this his family took on a second shop in Pitt Street where Francis worked as a photographer, while his father and mother sold gramophones, records and other wares.
Francis Foot’s father Francis
Francis Foot on a photography outing – probably a self portrait
Francis Foot was in and among the most prolific photographers of early Battles, he was better known for his shop in Pitt Street, selling, among other things, early phonographs.
From 1905 to 1920 Foot was a regular visitor to the Battle on Victoria Avenue and many of his pictures survive in a collection held in La Société Jersiaise’s photographic archive.
Foot’s pictures are notable for their depiction of the people involved in early events. Whereas the first photographs of the Battle of Flowers from 1902 onwards concentrated on general views of the arena and the audience and later they were generally interested in the spectacular floats which gradually came to dominate the event. Foot homed in on the participating adults and children, for without them there would have been no carnival.
Below shows one of Francis Foot’s photographs, it shows a women and child stood outside their shop. For the time this was a common thing to happen, I have been able to relate this type of photograph to some of my own family photographs I found when researching my own family history (also shown below). This style of photograph was very common, almost like an environmental portrait, usually the owner and their family stood outside their owned shop, it was their life work and these images were taken to preserve these histories. Francis Foot was looking at the people rather than the surroundings.
Francis Foot – Margaret and Dora outside one of the family’s shops
Michelle Sank originates from South Africa, but left in 1978 and permanently moved to the United Kingdom ins 1987. Her passion within photography lies within portraits, as she “documents the diversity of young people” (Michelle Sank: http://www.michellesank.com/portfolios/my-self). This illuminates her passion of exploring social groups and the idea that everyone is unique and different. Sank’s recent photographic series ‘My.Self’ captures teenager’s in their “bedroom so that the objects and decoration within became metaphors for their individuality and their cultural contexts.” (Michelle Sank: http://www.michellesank.com/portfolios/my-self) which allows us to compare the way in which other’s live their lives and understand social norms in different cultures. It also suggests that a person’s living space symbolises who they are, from posters to bed covers all help to define the type of person we are and the personality/stereotypes we may hold as an individual.
Mood Board Showcasing Sank’s Photographic Series ‘My.Self’
Above are a selection of Sank’s photographs from the ‘My.Self’ series. No two images are the same, which follows the ideology that no two people are the same, allowing the point of her photographic series, of youth identity and diversity, to clearly be presented. The methodology behind Sank’s work is simplistic, she wanted to cover different cultures and social groups, so she went up to people on the street and asked to photograph them in their bedroom (natural environment) as well as explaining the reasoning behind her photographic series. This series lead her to travelling around the UK in order to capture all cultures, as well as capturing youths from Jersey Channel Islands, allowing links with my classical artist to be made. Her series was then transformed into a photo-book where she then added direct quotes from the subjects of the image, as they explain their views on where they live.
The above image showcases one of personal favourites from Sank’s photographic series ‘My.Self’. I was initially drawn to this image due to the different items within the young girls room, allowing me to gain an understanding of her life. Visually, we are presented with a girl who seems to be posing on her bed. Her make up and hair style makes her seem glamorous and seem well made up. Her outfit also matches her face and hair and can be considered elaborate, which represents her socio-economic status as being high. The positioning of the subject seems to be well thought out as she is propped up with straight posture, almost as if she was a professional model. Her bedcovers are subtle, which contradicts the extravagant pillows which surround the girl. The background is simplistic, with grey walls (which is modern day can be considered fashionable and popular amongst teenage girls). The image itself is taken at a straight on angle, allowing the teenage girl to be the main focus point. Braking down the composition has allowed me to understand the girl’s environment, which Sank considered to be a metaphor for the girls individuality and personality. This leads onto the conceptual and contextual factors of Sank’s work, as mentioned before she wanted to capture cross-cultural differences in teenagers and their natural environment and how it represents them as an individual. As a whole it allows us to celebrate the ameliorative ideology that everyone is unique and different. Technically, the camera settings used to capture the image above, and other images within the series, seems to be kept simplistic and minimalistic. The shutter speed seems to be quick, due to no intended movement blur, as well as the ISO being low due to no noise produced by the natural/artificial lighting, sunlight alongside lamps located in the rooms, helping to light up the model. The whole frame seems to be in focus suggesting a wide depth of field as well as the aperture being high as the photograph is sharp. The white balance seems to be appropriate for the lighting used, a daylight setting, which allows a sense of warmth to be presented to the photograph. A lot of formal elements are being presented such as form, shape and space, which are mainly presented through the girl and the background of the frame.
