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.
During the occupation and world war 2 many montages where made as posters, and where put up around villages and towns which had been invaded. The montages gave off messages to people and also governmental issues. There were many photographers and artists who have made montages based on the war. Two artists who I came across where Aleksander Zhitomirsky and John Heartfiled who have both made montages on the German occupation along with different wars. I like their work as it is simple yet effective as it is putting accorss a strong message to society.
Aleksander Zhiyomirsky was a Russian photographer who was boring in January 1907. After studying in Moscow he went on working as an illustrator and began making posters for magazines. Shortly after people began to realise what photo montage actually was and started to value and respect his work. Most of his montages would come from different types of culture he would experience but mainly the Soviet mass culture. After WW2 he began to find many photos based on the war and started putting them together, to show history in a different way which may have a everlasting effect on people. After this his work was published throughout Europe, Russia and the USA and it is still being viewed up to this day.
John Heartfiled was a German visual artist who was born June 1891. He was one a small amount who used art as a political weapon, such as his well known montages includes of anti-Nazi statements. His work appeared on many magazines during the time of the war. During his time making his montages, he had to flee from the Nazi’s on many occasions and had to leave his family.
After being inspired after looking at these artists, I then began to picture and have ideas on what I wanted to produce. To create my montage, I found photos of images that had been taken back during the German occupation in the channel islands and used them to create my montage, so that it what have a bigger meaning and relate better to me. After picking the images I wanted to use, I began to cut out the sections of images that I wanted to stick onto my background, which was a copy of an old newspaper. I then places the images on top and arranged them how I saw fit. This is my final product of my montage I created.
After creating a paper base montage, I then moved on on to creating montages in Photoshop, which I preferred, this is because I could use more images, and select parts of the images with more precision. For the first montage I created, I wanted it to be simple yet effective. This is what I created and these are the steps I took;
I firstly started off with my original image that I had edited in lightroom, in the previous lesson.
I then went on and opened up a new canvas in Photoshop, where I added this image of a soldier. I then used the ‘quick selection’ took and the ‘eraser’ tool to then remove the original background of the image.
After editing the background of the previous image, I went on too add the image I was going to make the silhouette of the soldier out off, by adding a new canvas again.
After dragging on the solider to the poppy background, I then selected everything by using the ‘magic wand’ took, I then made sure that the settings were set to ‘invert’ this is so that the background would change and come onto the outline of the soldier after this I then flatten all the layers together to make it one image.
I then selected around the solider after flattening the layers and dragged it over to where I was making my montage. I then used the ‘quick selection’ tool again to removed the white background around the solider, so that I would just have them on their own. After doing that, I saved the soldier as it was, so then I could use it for any other montages I would make, so I would’ve have to remove the background again.
I then placed the soldier where I wanted it, by ‘Ctrl+T’ and then holding down shift whilst making the image bigger, this is so that everything stays within proportion of itself.
After moving around the soldier, I then went in and added some text to the image. After typing it in, I changed the text to black, made the font size bigger so viewers where able to read it at a glance, but then I changed the opacity of it, as I felt with the text being at 100% opacity, it was drawing attention away from the main aspect of the image. This is what my final first montage came out to look like;
My seconded montage I created, was completely different to my first one, I wanted there to be a relation and link to the Jersey Occupation in this one. This is what I produced and the steps I took;
As before I have started off with my original image, this image is my background for my montage.
I then created a new page, and added on a black silhouette of a soldier lying down with their gun, I then deleted the background with the ‘quick selection’ took and then saved the image as a PNG so I could then use again if I needed too.
I then dragged the image onto my background twice and enlarged them by selecting the layer they were each on, going ‘Ctrl+T’, then holding down shift whilst dragging the image outwards to make it bigger whilst keeping the proportions the same.
I then went in on downloading an image of the Jersey flag, as this allows people to connect to the image more as you have something relating to you which also defines you. I also then added this to my background image.
I then decided to ass another silhouette to my montage. But after downloading the image I realised it was the wrong way round for where I wanted to put it. So by selecting the image then going Image>Image Rotation>Flip Canvas Horizontal,I got the image to flip to the side I needed it to be. I then again removed the back ground, saved it as a PNG and then dragged it onto my background image.
After adding all my images to my background, I then went ahead and changed the opacity of each image, to give it a shadow effect. I changed the opacity of the soldiers as they aren’t alive anymore, so they are representing ghosts.
This is my third montage I created on Photoshop
In this montage I have used a war graveyard as the main background, this graveyard were for soldiers who fought in world war 2, as the German occupation happened during world war 2, so their is a link between the two. I then added a black silhouette of two soldiers walking, and lowered the opacity, so they are acting as ghosts walking around their fellow soldiers who lost their lives. And to then finally finish it off, I added an overlay of people who lost their lives in world war 2 and the occupation, I placed this over the full image, and lowered the opacity again, so you could see the image through it, this gives the image a touching emotion.
With the photos taken at Noirmount I then used light room to edit them and adjust the settings. I then finally decided to change them into black and white as I feel the images look better. These are the steps I took to edit my photos
After editing my first image, I then when back to the ‘library’ view so I could see all my images, I then selected them all and clicked on the ‘sync settings’ button in the bottom right hand corner. This allows me to change all my photos into black and white, along with the same exposure, contrast, highlights, etc as the first photo I edited.
After confirming to synchronize my settings to all the same, my images are now all in black and white. But when going through them some of them look over exposed, but I can still go in and change the settings of that one image, without it then changing the rest of them.
Here using the gradient tool, and dragging down from the top of my image and stopping about half way, this allows me to select that part of my image and then only edit that specific part. I changed the exposure of the sky and made it a bit darker to give it more of a unlit look and the darker sky fits the bunker and environment I have photographed
After editing my images in lightroom, I then had to export them as a JPEG in order for me to upload them to the blog. Overall I think editing my images made a massive change in the way I now look at them. They come across as more deep and strong as they were before I edited them. These are my final images;
Located on the north-west coast of the island, Les Landes is a coastal headland which was heavily fortified during the occupation of the island. It is home to probably the most impressive of all naval towers in the Channels Islands, Marine Peilstand 3. High above the 60 meter granite cliffs, it looks out over the sea to the north-west. The whole new battery was built except for its fire control post, but the guns were never placed. It is one of three of such naval towers in the channel islands, the others being Bt Steinbruch on Guernsey and Bt Annes on Alderney which have about the same layouts and structures. A gun is restored in one of the old emplacements and several bunkers and tunnels are a museum now.
Noirmoint is a headland that is based in St Brelard, Jersey. It is part of the Islands war memorial as it commemorates part of the German occupation. Within this part of land lies bunkers where some of the German’s were based and where they held fire arm, the bunkers have an exceptional strong frame of concrete which have been left undisturbed for many of years
To fill the time during slow winter months, photographer Jonathan Andrew decided to follow through on an idea that he had a few years back: he started photographing old WWII bunkers. Based out of Amsterdam, he already had several to work with close-by, but as the project has received more and more media attention, he’s taken the time to travel all over Europe, adding more beautiful, haunting bunker images to his portfolio.
Perhaps even more interesting than the subject of his photographs, however, is how he captures them. Using a converted medium format camera, he takes 6-14 minute exposures, firing off a broncolor flash as many as 60 times to properly light the scene. In a sense, he uses a very pure form of light painting, using the technique not to actually “paint” anything, but to recreate studio quality lighting conditions on-the-go. They don’t always turn out properly on the first try, but as he’s done more of them, he’s managed to perfected his technique down to a fine art, and the results speak for themselves. In a sense, he uses a very pure form of light painting, using the technique not to actually “paint” anything, but to recreate studio quality lighting conditions on-the-go. They don’t always turn out properly on the first try, but as he’s done more of them, he’s managed to perfected his technique down to a fine art, and the results speak for themselves.
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
Battery Moltke in an uncompleted coastal artillery defense system located in the North West of Jersey in St Ouen. The sight contains bunkers and gun emplacements that were originally designed in order to protect St Ouen’s bay in case of an attack which the Island was under the occupation of Nazis.
Original gun still standing today My own image.
one of the original guns can still be seen there today, and could originally be rotated to fie in any direction
The Channel Islands occupation society preserves and operates a few of the bunkers as museums, however the exterior sites remain available to see at all times.
The channel islands occupation society is an organisation made up of volunteers that study the occupation of Jersey and Guernsey and seek to raise awareness of this in order to educate the public on World War 2, and the effect of it on the Channel Islands. The CIOS manage many German fortifications and archives on both Channel Islands. The Jersey branch has operated since 1971.
Our Day
We began our morning by meeting a member of the CIOS, who began by telling us the history of the sight. We then went on to see the gun emplacements, where we were told that the original gun placed there was actually French. After learning about the artillery and how it’s purpose was to defend the coast, we went on to view the main bunker that had been turned into a museum type attracting filled with many artifacts and information. The underground bunker had many different rooms. We were able to see things like original objects from the occupation such as radios, typewriters and even newspapers. The most interesting thing I saw was were the Red Cross food parcel packaging that the islanders received by the end of the war.
After seeing where the soldiers operating in the bunkers would sleep, I then went on to see a memorial dedicated to all the forced workers brought to the channel islands. Here I learnt that may polish, Russian, French, Jewish and Spanish republicans were forced to work in Jersey for the Nazi officers in order to build the bunkers. In this section of the bunker we could see a figure who was meant to represent a forced laborers, surrounded by a lot of rubble. This was especially interesting because it allowed you to really be able to empathise with what there people had to go through, an how difficult it must of been for them to have their freedom stripped away from them.
After we had finished looking around the main bunker, we then went on to see other fortifications that were still standing around the same sight.
Photo-montage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. This can be done by halving or quartering similar images,arranging the segmented images in certain ways can results in one subject composed of several photographs, eg. a face composed of several faces stuck together to still resemble a face. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that a final image may appear as a seamless photographic print or be further manipulated on computer software. This latter technique is often referred as “compositing”, and in casual usage is often called “photoshopping”. Montages are often assembled by cutting out people, features, colours, patterns, objects or pieces of text to create a new image.
Archives are used to store peoples memories and preserve them so that the past is not forgotten. Archival organisations preserve archives and pieces of history for the public to use and look at the past.Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization’s lifetime, and are kept to show the function of that person or organization. And also its a place where people can go to gather firsthand facts, data, and evidence from letters, reports, notes, memos, photographs, and other primary sources. they also keep records of many forms including correspondence, diaries , financial and legal documents, photographs and film. Most state governments, schools, businesses, libraries, and historical societies maintain archives. people also use archives in their everyday lives to create and store information about their personal and business activities and archivists identify and preserve these documents if they are of lasting value. In reality photographs are not objective and they are highly influenced by the perspective of the photographer so it makes people sometimes question whether the photograph is true or not? while the real question should be what does a specific photograph do? Because it can effectively represent an interaction with human memory and culture even if it contains biases or misrepresentation.
Due to Jersey being located between England and France it has a broad and rich photographic history. The local Societe Jersiaise photographic archive alone includes over 80,000 historical images dating back to mid 1900s.
Data archiving is the process of moving data that is no longer actively used to a separate storage device for long-term retention. Archive data consists of older data that remains important to the organization or must be retained for future reference or regulatory compliance reasons.
Archives are made also for normal people with access to phones or media to store day to day memories like photos or videos so these will never be forgotten, also theyre used for advertising, news, documentary, fine art, identity and anthropology. And one of their biggest abilities is providing visual history, knowledge and power.
To help me explore archives i asked my own parents to look up old photographs, documentaries or anything that can make up an archive of my past. My grandmother told me that she keeps an archive of my life in Jersey and it was a folder containing everything from my first ever vehicle to photographs of my travels around the island. I liked the archive because in years to come i can look back at the archive and remember how i used to live. And this is why archives interest me. The only problem with these kinds of archives is that they can be damaged or lost because it is just a folder with paper after all. So that’s where virtual archives come in handy as an online archive cannot be lost s easily except if of course you forget the password for some reason…or the data itself is held by an unco-operative body.
So there is no specific answer to whose archive is it as for example i am the creator of this blog post so to me i think this archive with the images in them belong to me but in the same time all my blog posts are under the control of a “gatekeeper” which is the company or source that runs the website so they might consider my blog posts as theirs so their is no real answer to the question in the end.
