Jonathan Andrew is originally from Manchester in the UK but now lives and works in the city of Amsterdam for over 20 years. He is an award winning location photographer with many years of experience. In his career he has worked for National Geographic and other Dutch magazines.
Next to his assignments he likes to pursue personal projects and travels to places like the Faroe Islands, Sweden and Scotland to work on his landscape photography. He is currently photographing ruined WW2 defences as part of an on going personal project.
Among the subjects of photographs by Jonathan Andrew there are the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall and the line of fortifications that Adolf Hitler had built along the shores of the Atlantic.
It was the haunting geometry of abandoned military bunkers that interested Jonathan Andrew.
“At first I found attractive the geometry and shape of these structures (…) It was as if they were still on guard, and no one had told him that the war was over” – Jonathan Andrew
Scattered throughout the Dutch landscape, he was fascinated by their shapes born out of functionality. After photographing a few of them he started searching for others during his free time.
These photographs were all taken at dusk, or just after sunset, because according to the photographer, the light of day would have flattened the photos.
“By lighting them with a flash I could really pick out the shape and 3D forms of the structures,”
“After shooting the first four bunkers with this technique, I realised that the lighting seemed to fit the subject matter very well, almost as if they are lit by a large searchlight. It seems to add to the already haunting atmosphere that the structures have.”
Noémie Goudal is a French artist who lives and works between Paris and London. In 2010 she graduated from the Royal College of Art and since then she has worked on many series.
In the Observatoires series, produced in 2013-2014, she shows many science fictional architectures in quiet landscapes. Her work is an encounter between realistic documentary images and dreamy illusions. Her work is inspired by images of German artists Bernd et Hilla Becher, whose interest is focused on industrial buildings and objective black and white photographs.
She has used methods that blend traditional photographic techniques with physical manipulation. What look like large, geometric structures set in barren landscapes are in fact two dimensional facades constructed from paper, which Goudal has photographed to appear ancient yet futuristic. The buildings are photographs of small scale architectural models that have been blown up, printed on paper, mounted on card and then set in the landscape. Though the images have a grainy, documentary feel to them, their content is an illusion. The paper constructions have fold lines and in some images, even the tape that holds the buildings together is visible.
Henry Mullins was a Jersey Photographer in the mid nineteenth century. He produced thousands of portraits of islanders between 1848 and 1873 at his studio, located in the Royal Square, St Helier. Mullins was part of a circle of photographic pioneers at the Royal Polytechnic institute, London where the first photographic studio in Europe was opened in 1841. The first record of his professional practice is in Edinburgh in 1843. He arrived in Guernsey in 1847 and decided to live in Jersey the following year. While a number of photographic studios opened across the town of St Helier in the 1850s and 1860s, Henry Mullins continued being a photographer for the members of Jersey Society.
Emile Guiton
Emile Guiton was born in Jersey in 1879. He was an active member of the Société Jersiaise. He was a keen amateur photographer and practiced throughout his life. He experimented with colour at the beginning of the twentieth century in “Autochromes”. His subjects include the recording of archaeological excavations and he was one of the few people in Jersey who was allowed to take photographs during the German Occupation. He also recognised the importance of collecting photographs, both as a valuable historic resource and as interesting artefacts. He donated several images to the Société Jersiaise.
Thomas Sutton
Thomas Sutton, who opened a photographic studio in Jersey in 1847, is one of the most important people in the history of world photography. He took the world’s first permanent colour photograph in 1861 and invented the single lens reflex camera in the same year. He also developed the first panoramic camera with a wide angle lens.
For my A2 photography coursework, I will be studying the occupation of Jersey. The island came under Nazi occupation on 30th of June 1940 as the Channel Islands had been declared as a demilitarized zone by the British parliament. The German forces invaded the Island and Jersey remained under Nazi Occupation until the 9th of May 1945, when the island was liberated following the declaration of allied victory in Europe.
During the Occupation, The Nazis set about fortifying the island with bunkers and tunnels as a part of Hitler’s Atlantic wall. The Channel Islands were the most heavily fortified parts of the Atlantic wall, with the overall total of extracted rock from the island standing at 244,000 cubic feet, compared to 225,000 cubic feet for the whole of the rest of the Atlantic wall excluding the Channel Islands.
After Liberation, Almost all bunkers and fortifications were left standing as a reminder of the Islands past. Today these fortification still stand, 70 years on and are a common feature of the islands landscape. Many fortifications have been kept in good condition and preserved by the Channel Islands Occupation Society, whereas some minor buildings and fortifications have been left to nature.
The occupation itself has created a legacy for the Island in terms of the Islanders stories of occupation and many family ties to the occupation. My grandparents lived in the Island during the occupation,My grandmother lived in The island at the time in Valle des Vaux and my Grandfather lived at Janvrin Road. I have grown up being told stories of the war,such as the time my grandfather and a friend of his ran to a German bomber crash site and took bullets and souvenirs from the wreckage. My family are in possession of an authentic German bayonet that my grandfather stole from an officer who had left it on a low wall. I would like to locate this artifact and many others my family are in possession of and photograph them as a part of my project.
We visited the Société Jersiaise as an introduction into our new project on the German Occupation of Jersey. In groups we looked through photo archives by several photographers whose images had been stored in folders, each in an individual plastic file. The images were fragile and could only be removed from the plastic file if they were to be handled with gloves to ensure they don’t get damaged.
The Société Jersiaise was founded in January 1873 by a small number of well known Islanders who were interested in the study of the history, the language and the antiquities of Jersey. The photographic archives of the Société Jersiaise contains over 100,000 images dating from the mid 1840s to the present day and is the main Jersey collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century photography.
Photography arrived in Jersey on the 9th of May 1840 just nine months after it had been first introduced in the urban centers of England and France. Able to practice in the Channel Islands without concern for the restriction of the medium in the 1840s, amateur and professional photographers arrived from both sides of the English Channel. The archive has examples of work by important nineteenth century photographers such as William Collie, Charles Hugo, Thomas Sutton and Henry Mullins. The collection also has late nineteenth century studio collections of negatives by Jersey based photographers such as Ernest Baudoux, Albert Smith and Clarence Ouless. Important twentieth century photos include of over one thousand negatives by Percival Dunham (Jersey’s first photo journalist) and an archive of one thousand three hundred German Occupation images.
There are several different subjects represented in the collection as well as a diverse multitude of processes and techniques with which they were made. The archive has over 15,000 portraits of identified people and views of every bay and landscape. The collection has detailed visual representations of technical and aesthetic developments through the photographic era.
The German occupation of the Channel Islands lasted for most of the Second World War, from the 30th of June 1940 until their liberation on the 9thof May 1945. The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by the German armed forces during the war.
The German Occupation of Jersey began one week after the British government had demilitarized the island fearing for the safety of civilians should there be any conflict. On the 28thof June, The German air force, not knowing of the demilitarization, bomb and machine gun multiple sites on the island. The Channel Islands served no purpose to the Germans other than the propaganda value of having occupied British territory.
During that time, the Channel Islanders had to live under and obey the laws of Nazi Germany and work with their occupiers in order to survive and reduce the impact of occupation. Since they were not given guidance on how to behave by the British government, there were individuals who got close to the enemy and a few who undertook resistance activities. Most had no choice but to accept the changes and the depredations to their lives.
On arrival in the islands, the Germans imposed new laws on the resident islanders. As time went on, more laws restricting rights were posted and had to be obeyed. Some restrictions include: fishing, exporting goods and freedom of speech.
Many lost their jobs when businesses closed down and it was difficult to find work with non German employers. As the war progressed, life became harsher, especially when radios were confiscated and then when deportations took place in September 1942. Food, fuel and medicines became scarce and crime increased. The hardest times for the civilians was the winter of 1944-45 since it was very cold and many were suffering from hunger. However, most of the population was saved from starvation by the arrival of Red Cross parcels.
The Channel Islands were liberated after the German surrender. On the 8thof May at 10:00 the islanders were informed by the German authorities that the war was over. Churchill made a radio broadcast and announced that “our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today”.
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.
An archive is a collection of historical documents and or records that are there providing information about a place, institution, or group or people, or a major historical event. For example; The Occupation of Jersey. Archives include documents and records but buildings and historical sites can also be protected and preserved through the archival societies. Archives are used to preserve history and information and allow more understanding and knowledge into history from institutional points of view via legal documents and governmental or military documents as well as a private or personal insight via diaries or personal financial documents or personal photographs. An Archives purpose is to act as a link to the past and it’s some of an archives main objectives will be to preserve the historical artifacts, sites, documents and photographs so that they aren’t lost or forgotten. They allow the new generations to be able to connect with the historic pasts of their area of living wherever that may be.
The archives act as repositories as they are a reliable and relevant source of evidence to events of the past. They act as repositories in the way that the information in the archives will be sectioned and split away into sub sections and relevance, for instance all archives surrounding the occupation will be filed together in each of it’s different forms eg Photographic archives. They act as repositories of cultural memories as they will have social and cultural connections to the place they belong to, they show how social and cultural constructs have changed and shaped our cultures, places and people around us.
Photography can act in a double role with the archives as they can be used for a scientific purpose or a documentary purpose, these types of photographs will be created with the intention of being informative with what they show, they will be clear and easy to read and understand as their purpose will be to inform and show something. Photography can also be produced for personal uses, such as family and personal photographs or in an artistic way where the meaning and context may be a little unclear and harder to interpret as it’s not produced to be clearly informing about something. This is how photography can act as a double role within the archives as it can prove scientific purposes showing clearing what was going on and being informative of what life was like and what was going on and then photography on the personal level can show private insights to the small lives of people or what culture was like if it’s being produced in and artistic way.
David Bate’s text talks about how museums will use archives and the collections they have of artifacts and documents to create displays of a particular historical moment or culture. Museums aim to create a story he states that items ‘are often chosen from a vast repository aiming to construct a particular story’. In the beginning of the text Bate’s beings discussing the British Museum and how it’s first official photographer was employed in 1854 to document it’s artifacts. Fenton was taking photographs of the museums interior, the aim being to create an impression of how it was to see these objects in the Victorian era. The photographs were said to ‘evoke a “pastness”’ which shows the effects of the photographs with how they are suggested to create an ‘atmospheric space’ and a ‘kind of silence’ this is suggesting that the photos are creating an aura around them, like an invisible barrier between the present looking back into the past.
A key artist also mention in David Bates work is Louise Lawler, her photographs feature artworks in private homes, public museums or auction houses and other key institutions. Her art is there to show how art is contextualized or de-contextualized by their environments. Lawler’s work casts a ‘keen anthropological eye’ with ‘visual framing’. Her work is showing something around the behind the scenes of the artifacts, it’s giving it a different view or say of how it gets presented for people of the public to look upon.
Another key artist is Susan Hiller, Bate’s talks about her collection ‘Dedicated to the unknown artists 1972-6’ it is a collection of three hundred post cards all around the coast of Britain. Each postcard presents an image, variously hand-tinted and black-and-white, several of them are paintings. The pictures become part of the archival display of how culture sees itself, ‘repeated over an iconographic trope’. Hiller’s work is very powerful and yet silent and is showing something surrounding the culture stored in archives.
Susan Hiller “Dedicated to the Unknown Artists”
For my own personal studies looking into archival material will help and push me along and can enrich my personal study as the topic of the Occupation of Jersey is something that really changed and developed the way in which the island itself worked and the landscape as well as the people who lived on the island and the attitudes they had. We can see clearly demonstrated on our island the physical impacts of the occupation from the bunkers and war tunnels and other fortresses that had been built, it is from the work of the archives that we still have these buildings and reminders of history of what has shaped our island to this day. I feel that looking into the other archival material will help as it can give an in-depth insight into what happened and what went on. It can give a personal aspect and I feel it helps to put into perspective exactly what went on , for example diary entries or newspaper clippings as well as photographs that were taken to document the occupation as well as personal ones kept by families.
Archives have developed and changed as the world has been changing, we now have access to the internet and have the ability to store things in such a wider manner via computers and phones. Many people will have similar to their own personal archives by having phones and social media where they are documenting their lives and keeping their own personal photographs and storing them. Archives have developed to be preserving historical facts and times of places and societies and mass institutions as well as personal archives of people and families.
In conclusion, archives can serve a key role in a photographers work and in preserving parts of cultures and places. They provide a link and connection to the past and help us to understand things in a clearer manner that have happened before. Archival material helps to create a narrative and a story to show and understand a time, for example this one being the Occupation of Jersey, the bunkers together with the photographs and diaries as well as letters can help us to create this narrative story of what was going on and what happened.
The Société Jersiaise is a learned society in Jersey that was founded in 1873 in the manner of similar county societies in the United Kingdom for the purpose of:
The Publications of Local History
The encouragement of the use of French, the official language
The study of the ancient local dialect
To archive, as far as possible, the conservation of all prehistoric and historical sites
To found a library, mainly historical and archaeological
To collaborate with other societies with similar aims
The Société continues to fulfill these objectives, with two important differences: because it can no longer be said that French is the official language the encouragement of its use has been dropped and, secondly an important addition to the aims is the study of all branches of the natural history of the island and publication of the results of fieldwork in these subjects. Publications of a Bulletin Annual (Journal) commenced in 1875 and an annex to the society’s second annual report for 1876 drew attention of members to the importance of a number of subjects including ‘Recording in permanent photography local prehistoric monuments, buildings and ruins’. The Société Jersiaise realised its aim of opening a museum in 1877. By 1878 a museum had been formed. In 1893 the Société moved to No.9 Pier Rd, which continues to house the museum. The Société is a registered charity funded through subscriptions, donations and legacies.
With the practice and collecting of photography already identified as priorities these activities were continued as significant part of the Société’s museum and library opperations. Multiple interests in the medium of photography, as a method for research, as documentary and scientific records and as an independent art form are actively maintained by society members to present day. These patterns of development, established over more than 140 years, have resulted in the accumulation of a photographic archive which is remarkable in it’s insular context.
Our Visit
On our visit to the Société Jersiaise we sat down and were talked to buy two people who work within the archives, one being specifically from the photographic archives. We had opportunities to look through some of the photographs that had been taken throughout the occupation, some included photographs of documents and signs produced throughout the occupation, others of military buildings e.g Bunkers and also air raid shelters, others included photographs of the people and the islanders as well as German soldiers. It was all very interesting and helpful to see the evidence and visuals of what had happened to the island during this time and gave some good insights into what archival and documentary photography is like and about.
we sat down and were talked to buy two people who work within the archives, one being specifically from the photographic archives. We had opportunities to look through some of the photographs that had been taken throughout the occupation, some included photographs of documents and signs produced throughout the occupation, others of military buildings e.g Bunkers and also air raid shelters, others included photographs of the people and the islanders as well as German soldiers. It was all very interesting and helpful to see the evidence and visuals of what had happened to the island during this time and gave some good insights into what archival and documentary photography is like and about.
As well as getting to see the photographic evidence we also had the ability to look through the printed versions of the Green Books, produced about significant points across the island, usually having some military value, these included maps and plans as well as photographs which all happened to be very detailed. This was useful and an interesting insight into the other ways the Société Jersiaise and the Archives are preserving the history with not only photographs but also pairing them with documents produced.
Below shows some of the photographs that I found in the archives at the Société Jersiaise:
For our project looking into the Occupation of Jersey we will be looking into and exploring the effects and the aftermath as well as the impact and history of what occurred on the island. We will be doing this by looking at Landscapes, People and Objects. Each being able to tell a different story and generate a different set of images and outcomes.
The German occupation of Jersey began one week after the British Government had demilitarised the Channel Islands fearing for the safety of civilians should there be any conflict. On the 28th of June the German airforce, not knowing of the demilitarisation, bomb and machine gun multiple sites on the island. A few days later on 1st July 1940 General Richthofen, The Commander of the German Air Forces in Normandy, dropped an ultimatum from the air demanding the immediate surrender of the island. White flags and crosses were placed in prominent positions and later that day Jersey was occupied by air-borne troops under the command of Hauptmann Gussek.
German Command: Under the occupying forces, one of the greatest hardships was the lack of news from the mainland after the Germans had outlawed the use of radio. A number of individuals would often risk imprisonment making their own sets and spreading frontline news. In the months following D-Day, as the allies regained control of France, the source of supplies fuelling the island was now no longer available.
FortressIsland: Hitler order the conversion of Jersey into an impregnable fortress island. Thousands of slave workers from countries like Russia, Spain, France and Poland built hundreds of bunkers, anti-tank walls, railway systems, as well as many complex tunnel systems. F
Victory On the Horizon: The German command were defiant and no reference to surrender was entertained. Despite the nonchalance of the German occupying forces, which were still officially recognised, Jersey’s preparations for liberation began to take noticeable shape. In June 1944, the Normandy landings marked the initiation of ‘Operation Overlord’, the invasion of northwest Europe by the Allied forces. By 7 May 1945, the German army had surrendered and the end of the war in Europe was announced. In June 1944, the Normandy landings marked the initiation of ‘Operation Overlord’, the invasion of northwest Europe by the Allied forces. By 7 May 1945, the Germany army had surrendered and the end of the war in Europe was announced.
German Surrender: The front page of the Jersey Evening Post carried Jersey’s first confirmation of the Allies’ victory in Europe, and islanders were informed that Winston Churchill would broadcast the Nation’s first official announcement that afternoon at 3.00pm. Crowds began to gather at various locations to hear the announcement that would declare their liberation. Islanders waited patiently amidst the heavy air of expectation.
Liberation: At 7.15am on 9 May, on the quarter deck of HMS Bulldog, Second-in-Command for Guernsey General Siegfried Heine signed the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the German Command of the Channel Islands, effecting their capitulation. On completion of this, General Heine was then ordered to “immediately cause all German flags and ensigns now flying in the Channel Islands to be lowered”.
