Cropping is a way of manipulating images where you can get rid of certain parts of the image. It can create different impacts because you get rid of some parts of the picture that can give an audience context. This means that you can obscure different aspect of a photo in order to contextualise.
In my previous studies into the bunkers of Jersey, I researched the artists Jonathon Andrew and Paul Virilio, in order to get an understanding of different ways on how to capture and edit my images of bunkers. This work can be found here:
https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo19ase/2019/03/13/artist-research-paul-virilio-jonathan-andrew/
To further my research I will now be analyzing Lynda Laird’s photographs who captures bunker archaeology in color. Her work shows similarity with the two artists researched above but also is very different and unique which presents the bunker’s in new and interesting way.
Lynda Laird:
Lynda Laird is a British based photographer who usually works on longitudinal projects focusing on capturing landscapes, and enjoys working with the idea that the subject holds a memory at that specific moment in time, trying to bring history back to life. Laird studied documentary photography and photo journalism at university, which lead her to also using archival images within her work. In addition, her photographic work has won many awards such as Planche (s) contact Festival, Deauville, selected artist residency, 2017 and has also exhibited her work on many occasions.
The image above is apart of Laird’s photographic series ‘Dans Le Noir’, which in English is translated to ‘In The Dark’. The photographic series captures coastal surveillance bunkers which are apart of the Atlantic wall located along the coast of Normandy. Contextually, the photographs were inspired by an air-raid which took place in Normandy during the second world war. This story is outlined on Laird’s website https://lynda-qbha.format.com/dans-le-noir . In addition to this, another contextual factor she also showcased was the use of infrared film, created by the military during world war 2 in order to detect camouflage and expose visual spectrum which is invisible to the naked eye, using this to capture her subject allows a beauty to be presented to the bunkers. As mentioned before the subject of the image above is a bunker used during the second world war. The image presents the formal elements of texture, line, shape and pattern which is shown through the bunker and the nature around it. The image also clearly presents a clear tonal contrast due to the shadows and lighting on the bunker. The main focus point of the image is the bunker itself, which is reinforced by a narrow depth of field and the light coming from directly on top of the bunker. The background of this photograph is plain and simplistic, it showcases the sky and some of the nature surrounding the bunker, allowing our attention to begin on the bunker and then take in the background. Technically, the lighting used is natural due to the subject being a structure located outdoors. It seems to be a bright sunlight, taken at just past midday as the shadow of the bunker is being reflected on the left hand side of the frame. The aperture used is likely to be low as a lot of light is being presented in the photograph, which also allows the depth of field to be narrow. The shutter speed is quick and the ISO is low as there is no intended blur being presented within the imagery. Moreover, the white balance used creates warm atmosphere. As mentioned before these camera settings almost present the beauty of the bunkers even though the contextual factors behind the series is negative, creating a clear juxtaposition making it interesting to view. Conceptually, Laird is trying to showcase the horrible historical factors of the bunkers and their uses during the war, but also showcasing how they have been neglected and the beauty and nature is almost claiming back the land.
Action Plan:
As an action plan I want to conduct photo shoots where I will capture Jersey’s bunker’s which were used during the occupation of Jersey. I will look at capturing images in the style of Laird, looking at how the bunkers hold memories, and Virilio and Andrew’s. When it comes to editing the photographs I will look at the use of color and black and white edits in order to produce imagery which is clearly inspired by the two artists, as well as exploring with different elements on light room.
Design and Layout:
The design and layout of a zine is important. Its layout should show off the images as well as possible, some layouts having metaphorical or intentional meaning in relation to the images within. The design should reflect the photographers’ style and ideas while highlighting and strengthening concepts. The design and layout should pull the entire zine together.
Narrative and Visual Concept:
A narrative is a story or message being told by an artist. In photography the narrative is usually supported with string images, representing a visual concept that the photographer has tried to portray.
Title and Cover:
The title and cover of a zine are two very important factors. The title should relate to the content or subject without giving too much away and leaving room for curiosity. The cover similarly needs to be appealing and display the type of photography showcased in the zine but should not distract or differ too much from the content, unless done intentionally as a concept.
Images and Text:
Images and text are useful as the image can be explained by the photographer themselves. Giving context to the composition and explaining aspects of the image that possibly couldn’t be portrayed within the image itself.
After taking inspiration from the photo-montage style of photography/art, I was able to develop a series of photo-montage pieces. The following are examples of experimental, trial photo-montages that I created using Photoshop, using archival images that I found online:
The above process is the one I used in Photoshop to create the above image. From top left to bottom right:
Left: I researched a range of 1900’s wallpapers that I would use as the background for my image,
Above is a gallery showing the process I used to create the final image (seen above). From top left to bottom right:
Left: I lowered the opacity of the eraser tool to 50% in order to fade the background of a war scene that I would be replacing the face and hands with. I did this in order to make sure the definition between the foreground (Churchill) and the background (the war scene) was obvious, and also to emphasize that the sacrifice of millions of lives was merely an afterthought to the victory of political leaders during the war.
Middle and right: I outlines the hands and face of Churchill in order to show contrast between the background and foreground. I also feel that by creating an outline, my work mimics the style of many very well known photo-montage artists, who used physical cutting and sticking to create their work.
Bottom row: The bottom row shows the process of creating the text that I placed over the top of the image to act as a centre piece/ main focal point. I took a real quote from Churchill, and decided to emphasize certain words/letters using white text to show contrast between the quote and the reality of war. To create this text, I copied the image of highlighted text and pasted it back onto the image (to give the contrasting background effect) and then placed a second layer of white text over the original black text to show contrast between the words.
Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism in Russian design. Before turning to montages and photography we was more focused on painting and graphic design. His work is describes as being socially engaging since he recognised the importance of analytic documentary series.
” Don’t try to capture a man in one synthetic portrait, but rather in lots of snapshots taken at different times and in different circumstances ” – Rodchenko
He often shot his viewers from strange angles, such as high and above and down below in order for it to take longer for an audience to recognise someone.
“One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again.” -Rodchenko
He became an artist after having had no exposure to the art world, and instead being inspire by art magazines. He began studying at the Kazan art school in in 1901.
Under the Bolshevik communist government, Rodchenko became director of the museum bureau and purchasing fund, which made him responsible for the reorganisation of art schools and museums.
Rodchenko became interested in montages after become impressed by the montages of German artists experimenting with dadaism.
From the mood board on the right we can clearly see how Rodchenko was inspired by Cubism and futurism since his montages seem to almost look like they’re ahead of him time.
Most of the montages seem to depict images of conflict and war which could reflect the period he lived in since he lived under communist rule which may have made him feel threatened by other countries since capitalist places hated communist countries.
We can also see how he feels that these conflicts and wars will effect people, since he has incorporated them into many of his montages. This shows that many of his montages relate to society at the time which is interesting as the images have a rich historically social context.
I have looked at a lot of different zines. Different artists create them in new unique ways. This means that lots of them have different sizes such as being A5 or A4 pages, they come in different formats such as being in a newspaper or in a hard-back book, and they may be made portrait or landscape, depending on the artists preference. The zine I have spent a longer time looking at is “Lingering Ghosts” by Sam Ivin. This zine has A5 pages. It is formatted as a passport-looking booklet.
Each were designed and laid out differently. The design was quite often based upon what the photos inside were about. The layout of the images inside is also down to the preference of the artist. Some artists decide to have a coloured border around each image, some span a whole page and some span both pages inside. The zine “Lingering Ghosts” was laid out with the images on the right hand page with a small amount of text written on the bottom of the left hand page.
Sam Ivins zine shows rhythm and sequencing in his zine. He creates rhythm through the use of a pattern in how his zine is made, keeping the photos on one side of each double page spread and the quote on the bottom of the left page. His zine also tells the story of Asylum Seekers looking for work and an identity in the new place they are in to feel welcomed. Though, it tells this well, his images are not really in any particular order to tell this which means it isn’t really sequenced to show the story.
The cover of different books varies heavily. Lots of zines have covers that are landscape images that go across the back and front of the zine. Some take the theme of the photos inside further by relating the cover and the other space to something to do with the photos. This is done in Sam Ivins also. In this zine the outside covers and text are in the same font and colours as that of a passport. This is done to relate the asylum seekers who are unable to get passports, and therefore an identity, which is why the faces are removed on the images inside.
Lots of zines tend to have different visual and narrative concepts. The zine I looked at by Sam Ivins, showed people without a face. The face is the most recognizable part of a person, and through the removal of it he has shown the people which are asylum seekers to not really have an identity outside of their own country.
The title and colour scheme are very important as it is pretty much what decides whether people will decide to browse the work of the artist. In Sam Ivins zine he uses a dark-red colour scheme with a more light brown text colour for the title, this made the zine come out with a passport look. It has an interesting title that can catch peoples interests, and can make people think of different things as the title is quite vague.
The images and text in Sam Ivins zine are all related to the theme of Asylum Seekers. The images are all really similar and show peoples self-portraits, with parts of their faces removed to symbolise them having no identity. These images are used with quotes such as “I can’t work. They won’t allow me to work.” and “He will feel like a stranger until he gets the papers.” These quotes are supposed to make the reader feel bad for these people who have been almost forced to leave their previous homes to a new country, where everything is against them.
The first thing i wanted to do before i created my zine was to research an artist that caught my eye with their work, so i wondered about my photography class looking at the zine previews that are found there and the artist Sky Ayling Phillip caught my eye with one of her work which was a zine called “Paper”
Now unfortunately i tried to find Sky on the internet in order to research them but i didn’t find them
What i liked about Sky’s work is how they used a flower wall paper-like background in each of her photographs and cropped out some objects like window, doors, etc. in order to show the wall paper in the background only behind some parts in the zine
This is one of her work found in her zine called Paper, this piece of art as you can see contains a missing person that Sky cut out of the image to make the background wall paper visible, which adds a lot of color and meaning to the photograph and the mixture of the black and white background in addition to the colored flower wallpaper really exposes and makes the wall paper piece stand out and catch is the eye of the viewer.
i took some photographs of her zine “Paper” using a camera with manual focus and chose the best two photographs
In conclusion, Sky’s work inspired me with a lot of ideas for my zine and i just wanted to give her credit by writing this blog post about her work.
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.
On the 4th June 2019 we visited the ‘Societe Jersiase’ where we were introduced to theme of our A2 project ‘Occupation’. During this introduction we where told about key dates and events during the occupation of Jersey (such as the time frame of the occupation form 1939-1945, for more information about the key dates can be seen on this blog post)and Key photographers who captured images within the second world war. These artists included Henry Mullins (portrait photographer), William Collie (Fox Talbet and calotype photography) and Thomas Sutton (panoramic photography).
Societe Jersiase is well known for their private photo archive, which explores Jersey’s historical, cultural and social over a large period of time. Thankfully, the archive has numerous of albums containing images taken during the occupation of Jersey, allowing me to explore different aspects of Jersey’s war. All images where placed in plastic covers to ensure our hands do not ruin the photographs which have been preserved over a longitudinal period of time. To further explore these images workers within the archive made some of the images digital and printed them off, allowing us to begin to explore narratives. We had to select our favorite images and order them in order to storyteling and create a narrative, and meaning towards the collection of images. With in depth exploration into the archive and the activity of creating a narrative allowed me to gain a better understanding of what life was like for people living through this time, and how Jersey has changed and developed since the second world war.
As our final activity we were given the opportunity to explore town, now understanding the history of the war, and capture one landscape, one portrait and one picture of an object. Doing this allowed to think and explore creatively trying to capture Jersey’s war or what is left from the war in today’s society. Below are the top images produced:
Within our narrative we told the story of how the occupation effected different aspects of the island. The story starts on the left, like a book, which showcases the shore of Jersey and how highly protected it was, so that no one entered or left the country. It then followed through to a portrait of a man with different locations and items which were personal to him showcasing a personal effect the war had on someone. Moving over Jersey’s town is presented, which showcases the social and cultural aspects of Jersey during that time. In addition, we used a lot of photographs to make it a chaotic looking narrative which is symbolic for the chaos Jersey experienced during the occupation of Jersey.
After that task we were then allowed to take photographs using our cameras. Our brief was to try and capture the Occupation of Jersey, including a landscape, portrait and photograph of an object. My initial ideas was to walk to the Bunker located on Mount Bingham, for the other two types of images I was unsure what to capture but experimented with different things around town as I wondered around. My camera settings where kept normal, with a quick shutter speed, low ISO, automatic white balance and varied my aperture as well as experimenting with depth of field. My outcomes and editing process can be seen below:
To create these outcomes I used the develop section in Lightroom, where I adjusted the contrast, exposure, highlights, black and white, curves, cropping and other elements which slightly adjusted the images. I am very happy with these outcomes as they showcase how Jersey has been left since the war has ended and how Jersey is out growing these abandoned bunkers, due to the over grow and nature taking back that land. All four images clearly show my competence in taking images and my ability to accurately adjust and edit images to showcase a theme or story in a creative manor.
To conclude this outline was successful, I learnt the importance of photo archives, I learnt more about the history of Jersey and have a more in-depth understanding about the occupation of Jersey, as well as how photography has developed on the island. Moreover, I have been able to begin to look at narratives and was able to capture images in town relating to Jersey’s war which creates a narrative in itself. In addition, I have had a successful first attempt at editing and experimenting with the images on Lightroom in order to clearly present the historical and cultural elements towards the images.
Zines:
A zine (short for magazine or fanzine) is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated images and text. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation. Popularly defined within a circulation of 1,000 or fewer copies, in practice many zines are produced in editions of fewer than 100. Among the various intentions for creation and publication are developing one’s identity, sharing a niche skill or art, or developing a story, as opposed to seeking profit.
Moodboard:
Format, Size and Orientation:
The format and size of an image can determine the importance of an image in a sequence or can allow more or less detail to be apparent in the composition. Image formats and sizes change between types of zines. Some larger zines may include full or double page spreads of images simply due to the size of the zine, for example in a newspaper. While a large page can also be made up of lots of smaller images that are all able to fit.