For the photos of Bob I knew that we would be in the studio this means that the environment is heavily controlled. The rule of thumb for studio flash light is to have your camera at 100 ISO, 1/125 and at f/16. The reason for this is that the flashes are used to simulate the daylight and this group of settings will always be roughly right for daylight. Using studio lights with a shutter speed of over 1/200 will not work as the shutter will block out part of the light and will be too fast for the flash of light that the lights will give off.
For this photo I had Bob facing side on to me and then gave him a point to look at which was down to my right, I then focused on his eyes and framed him in the center of the image, I was using a 50mm zoom so I could get a top torso shot with space over his head. For the editing I boosted the texture and and the clarity, also making the contrast larger to show the mall wrinkles and features on his face.
For the left image I thought that I would focus on Bob’s nose as it is a prominent feature of his face to do this best I thought that a profile would work. I made it black and white because it shows well the contrast in his hair and it shows the lines and contours of his face well. I also gave him a high point to look at to show his jawline more. The image on the right was similar to the first in composition but I changed it to black and white and had him look up.
This image was taken to show his walking stick which is something that he has with him all the time and it has scratches, chips and dents which give it its own character, I had Bob lay his hands on top of eachother so that there wasn’t a big empty space that there would be if his hands were side by side. The focal point was the ring finger of his left hand as it has a chip in the nail. I put this image in black and white so that there is a big contrast between the darker wrinkles and the highlights and his nails.
Hedley Hindult is age 93. He was living in Jersey during the German occupation. Hedley was accompanied to the talk with partner Joyce De La Haye (maiden name Blanchet) , who also witnessed the German occupation on the Channel Islands.
When Hedley was talking to us about his memories he stated that it was hard to remember everything because he was only 14 at the time of the occupation, but even now when he thinks or talks about it he gets upset, due to how hard and scary it was. He then proceeded in saying that he left school at the age of 14, which was very normal in those days and worked on his fathers farm as a herdsman for a cattle of 20-25, which was his main responsibility on the farm. Every farmer at that time was compelled to grow wheat on the acres of land they had, so they could make bread for the locals, along with the German soldiers. Hedley made it aware to use not only did his fathers farm grow wheat and herd cattle, they also made cider. After he told us this, he then continued to tell us a story that he remembers when working on the farm. That one day as young solider around 20 was at the farm to count the wheat after it had been stacked. He said that the solider was a nice man who was always smiling. But Hedley has seen the German looking at the cider barrels and offered the man a drink, and the solider was obviously not going to decline so he nodded and Hedley produced. The solider drank it down quickly that Hedley kept offering him drink after drink. Hedley then went back to his cattle to finish off his jobs, to when his father found the solider lying flat down, this is when they had all realised that he got so drunk that he passed out. So they used this too their advantage and kept a few barrels of wheat behind for themselves. Ever since that happened the Germans would always send 2 soldiers.
After Hedley had told us this story, he carried on talking about life during that time. He said that everyone use to speak Jèrriais , this is because the Germans wouldn’t be able to understand what they were saying. Along with talking about Jèrriais , he told us he has a daughter who use to speak fluent Jèrriais but now no longer speaks it.
Joyce said she couldn’t remember much alike Hedley but she was able to recall small events. She said she would walk to school everyday, which was about a mile and quarter, at the age of 6, but she would be barefoot as shoes where a privilege in those times of the occupation. She said that you weren’t allowed on the beach, to go fishing, that everything was under control by the Germans. They were given food parcels that came from Canada, every family got one Joyce mentioned but it was only the necessities they got, but everyone in the community helped each other out. At such a young age, she said she had to create her own fun with her friends, but it was hard with a German post every half a mile, but she mentioned that parishes would put on dances as a means of entertainment, however with this said the Islanders has curfews throughout the year, during winter is was 10pm and summer 9pm and you couldn’t get away with being late as it was definite you would be passing a German post at some point on your way home and if you were caught you would have you registration card take off you.
On the day of liberation Joyce was at home with her family as it was too far to travel into St Helier. But Hedley was a bell ringer in his local church, he rung the bells between 9am-1pm and after that he went with his girlfriend at the time to St Helier, but he said you couldn’t really see anything due to the mass crowds.
To create this image I started with the original image of the solider, I chose this as my main piece because it is a strong image and shows history. I firstly started off adjusting the brightness and exposure of the image, I turned up the brightness of the image so you could see the man more clearly as his features and clothing play a main role in the image. I then opened the image I was adding on top of my base image. To this image I removed its background using the quick selection tool, then dragged the final image over to the base. Here, I used the eraser tool to removed any little details that didn’t fit the man face, along with using the blur tool to make it look more realistic that the mask it on his face. I decided to put the mask on top of the German solider as they are both key image of the occupation. I am show casing the problem of gas mask, which was the German’s dropping bombs around the island making it unsafe for islanders, meaning they had to use gas masks to survive.
After finishing my image, I then tried out different backgrounds to give the image a different effect and texture. This gives the image a more ancient and older feel to it.
I started with the original black and white image of the guy who showed us around the war tunnels, he spoke about the knowledge he had during the war and how his father was a solider. Knowing this, as I went round the war tunnels I made sure I photographed an image of solider so I could use it for an edit. One I came back to school, I edited the photos into black and white and adjusted a few of the settings so everything was more clearer and in focus. I then set the image of the man as my back ground, then opened up to image of the solider seperatly. To this image I removed the background by using the quick selection tool, then I dragged it over to the background image and placed it over the man face. I then stretched the image to fit over the face and using the eraser tool go ride of the extra parts I didn’t need or didn’t fit his face. After placing the face down I then when in with the blur tool, I did this so there wasn’t such a distinct difference as it was off putting when looking at the image. After this I then flattened the image. Overall, I like this image as it is portraying the mans history by paying respect to his father for going to war.
After then editing this image, I decided to play around with adding frames to my images. I dragged the frame across to the image, sized it up, then down by the layers I changed it to normal and using my arrow keys I was apply yo go through different effects the frames had on the image. The frame above I decided on as it made the image look older and it fits the genre of the image.
After making the final image previously, I wanted to try some experimentation and do something different. So I removed the background of an image with an eye with a tear, I then dragged it across to the image and made it slightly bigger to give it an affect. I did this to make my image more effective and hard hitting as it is showing a painful emotion from a touching event that has happened to the people of the war.
Jersey citizen and farm hand during occupation 1939-1945
At the beginning of the session with Hedley he stated he found it increasingly difficult to recall events from the topic of discussion as he was only a young teenager at the time, and the events in question occurred almost 80 years ago. However he was more than willing to talk about what he did remember.
One story that stood out to me was one involving a young German soldier and Hedley. He told us that he left school on his 14th birthday, which was normal at the time, to work on his father’s farm. As the son of a farmer it was common to work the fields or cattle belonging to your family. Hedley’s father eventually made him a herdsman of 20-25 cows, 12 of which were milking cows. These were his sole responsibility.
During the occupation every farmer was compelled to grow a certain number of acres of wheat to make bread for the population and the German soldiers. These requirements were strictly enforced and many farmers were patrolled by German soldiers to ensure the farm workers did what was required of them. Hedley told us that after the German’s originally occupied the island they confiscated his father’s new lorry which they never saw again even once the island had been liberated in 1945.
The other workers on the farm looked after the wheat, and had to stack it into big piles or into a threshing machine. Once a day Hedley would collect a 2 gallon jug and fill it up with cider from the apple press they also had on their farm, and would give this to the workers. A German soldier would usually be posted by the apple press to ensure no one exceeded their amount or stole the cider. On one occasion the guard that had been posted by the cider was quite young, around 20.
On liberation day Hedley was a bell ringer in his local church, he rung the bells between 9am-1pm and after that he went with his girlfriend at the time to St Helier, but he said you couldn’t really see anything due to the mass crowds.
Joyce De La Haye:
Age: 80’s
Jersey citizen and school girl during the occupation 1939-1945.
Joyce had a much harder time remembering details about the time she spent living under occupation unlike Hedley, however she was only about 6 years old at the time. She recalled the walk to school everyday for about a mile. She told us she would do this walk in her bare feet as shoes where a expense during times occupation. She told us about all the things that Jersey citizens were restricted from doing such as going on the beach or going fishing, that almost everything was under strict control by the Germans. They occasionally received Red Cross food parcels that came from Canada. Joyce explained how every family got one, but the boxes contained only the necessities. She also explained how islanders had curfews throughout the year, with the curfew times during winter being 9pm and summer 10pm.
On the day of the liberation of Jersey, Joyce was at home with her family as it was too far for her and her family to travel into St Helier.
The war tunnels, located in the channels islands holds some of the islands oldest history from during the occupation. The tunnel was began by the Germans blasting out the side of the hill with gunpowder and then dug into the side of a hill which is 50 meters deep and 1000 meters along and in here over 5,000 slaves worked this tunnel during the occupation. It works as a timeline, it goes through different stages of the occupation and what life was like, making it very realistic for visitors. During the beginning of the occupation, the tunnel was used as a base for the German’s where they could take cover from air raids and from the bombs that were being dropped from the German planes. However later into the occupation, the tunnels were then converted into a hospital. The hospital started off with a few wards, then they slowly added operating theatres and assessment centres for the injured and ill. Even though the tunnel was transformed into a hospital, it was never completely finished, so dead ends ended up being blocked off, which you can now still see today and in a few of the images I took. Within the tunnel you go into different rooms, showing you what time was like during certain periods of the occupation, this gave me a better understand of what life was like and it enabled me to create a better connection to my images as I had a more factual concept behind my images. It was all very realistic as the tunnel would play audio from when bombs would be dropped, you could see the different type of machinery used by the Germans, along with belongings that different Islanders had.
When photographing in the tunnels the lighting often changed and was always coming from a different source, this meant I had to efficiently change my settings to fit the lighting to make sure my image wasn’t too dark or over exposed. At times this was a struggle, because I moved from room to room at a face pace, which meant I could only capture a few images here and there. However, the images I took signify the different rooms and different stages of the occupation, along with showing what inside the tunnels looked like.
The image above here ^ of the tunnel is quite a dark image. It holds a deep depth of field, this is because at the front of the image you can see the white walls, which make the image a lot brighter but as you move further back into the image the light is lost, but then at the far back you can see a dim light, lighting up a door way, however it is very subtle. Losing the light in this image an stand as a metaphor for the occupation, such as, as time went one during the occupation it became a darker, scarier time of the islanders but there was always a light at the end of the tunnel which is known as liberation day, where they were freed from the controlment of the Germans. Such a simple image, when given context can have a much bigger effect on a viewer.
In some of these images, especially the two above here, have a personal and emotional touch too them. This is because they are showcasing real materials that was used during the occupation, this helps a viewer understand an image more when they understand the purpose and meaning behind it.
Bob Le Sueur is a 99 year old man who is a survivor of the war, and is well known among the island for his involvement in assisting escaped Russian prisoners, in Jersey, during the second world war.
Bob Le Sueur was 19 when the island was occupied by the Germans, and 24 when they were finally liberated. Throughout the time Jersey was taken over, Bob got to work and helped to shelter 8 different Russian escapees from the Nazis who were hunting them down. One of these Russians was Feodor, also known as Bill, who had before been harbored by a woman named Louisa Gold. Bob knew Lousia through the company which he worked for, and found out that she had taken in the Russian after her son Edward was killed in action, telling Bob that, “she had to do something for another mother’s son.”
However a few years later she and her brother Harold were both arrested by the Germans and sent to separate camps to be murdered. From that point on, Bob made it his responsibility to hide Bill. At first he kept him in a filing room at his offices, told him not to go near any of the windows and took him food regularly. He later moved him between various addresses before settling in a flat occupied by two conscientious objectors sent over from the mainland.
Later Bob was able to shelter other Russians in the many remote houses he knew.
Bob’s stories
He told our class a story of when his friend Bill got so drunk off of strong apple brandy that he crossed his arms, started kicking his legs and sang very loudly a song from Russia, loud enough to hear out in the streets. Ofcourse, at that exact moment of time a German troop was making their way down the street right next to the house where Bill was singing loudly. But thankfully the German soldiers were singing themselves too, so before they could notice the Russian singing Bob and his friends manage to quiet Bill by shoving a washcloth in his mouth.
Bob also mentioned that they were able to get his Russian friend, Bill, an illegal registration card. When I asked him how one could get an illegal registration card back then, he explained that if you lost a registration card, you could easily go down to the registration office and come up with some excuse about loosing it, and they would give you a new one. Once you had the duplicate card, the extremely skilled would have been able to carefully remove the image and replace it with a picture of the person who would want to use it illegally. There was a purple stamp which was placed half on the card, half on the image, so it would have been hard to replicate. However, Bob said that there was this one girl in particular, who couldn’t have been too older than myself, was skilled when it came to copying the stamp, so she would sketch in the other half of the stamp on the picture so it looked like the real thing.
He recalled the time when two German Bomber planes flew over Jersey and released two cylinders attached to parachutes. At first he thought they were bombs, but later found out that they were messages to the commander chief of Jersey. However, the Commander had already left the island with his family, so the messages were delivered to the Bailiff so he could do something about it. The Germans threatened that if Jersey did not surrender within 24 hours they would carpet-bomb the island, which is when they bomb one area intensively. This would have been devastating for the tiny island, and no doubt would have left numerous casualties. This is one of the factors which lead to the island being surrendered.
Cutting to Liberation Day, Bob was telling the story of when he and his friends were on their way to get a good spot to watch what was happening. They were cycling on their bikes with their makeshift tires made of tightly pulled garden hose, when suddenly one of Bob’s tires snapped. It made a sound similar to a pistol shot, sending everyone in the surrounding areas to panic. There were two people who dropped to the ground, and two German solders, both who held rifles, turns towards him with guns pointed. He mentioned remembering thinking to himself ‘ It’s Liberation day and these are the last seconds of my life.’ At that moment it would have been terrifying, but Bob was laughing when he was telling us this story.
He did say that we had wished he had shook the hand of one of the German soldiers on that day, one which was obviously starving, young and about to be taken as a prisoner of war. He even asked our class if he should’ve done it, just out of courtesy, however it would’ve been too early to be seen with the enemy, so he didn’t. He said that he always felt a bit of regret for not showing that boy some compassion, even if he was fighting for the Nazis.
As part of out research into the Liberation and Occupation of Jersey, following the path of portraiture in order to document the lives, experiences and stories of those who experienced the liberation and occupation, we were lucky enough to be able to meet and listen to the stories of 2 individuals who experienced both the initial occupation of Jersey in 1940, and its liberation in 1945. Henley (14 at the time of the occupation) and Joan (6 at the time of the occupation) both gave detailed accounts of their experiences with life under German rule, with Henley recalling the time that, at the age of 14, he was able to render a German guard almost unconscious by continually giving him glasses of cider, and the soldier was drunk enough to not notice when the farmers had time to hide a lot of the wheat they had farmed in order to avoid having to hand it in to the Germans. In contrast, Joan was able to recall her experience with walking to school through a number of German outposts and identification points, as she passed by the fenced off and mine covered beaches. The lack of transport (confiscated by the Germans) and the censorship and limits imposed during the occupation brought the native community together, with adults crafting bicycle tyres out of hosepipe and rope, and children knitting water bottle cosys for the Red Cross. Both Joan and Henley recalled the liberation of Jersey as being a huge event, with Henley not being able to see the liberation ship for the huge crowds of people blocking his view, and Joan missing the crowds at the harbour altogether due to her inability to travel across the island from her home to town.
After listening to the stories of Henley and Joan, we had the chance to photograph them in the school studio. I was able to collect images of both Henley and Joan, and singular images of just Joan. In the studio I had my IOS set to 100 (as the lighting in the studio was already very bright) and my shutter speed was at F16. I also used the Daylight white balance in order to slightly correct the colour based on the studio lighting and colours. Below are the results of my photoshoot, shown in a contact sheet:
Key: GREEN “S” = Small issue with the subjects pose – GREEN TICK = candidate for final image – GREEN HASHED AREA = problem area/needs editing out of final image – RED HASHED AREA = problem area too big to edit out – RED “x” = rejected image
The first row of the contact sheet includes images that are so over-exposed that they appear as white boxes. This was my own error as I originally failed to adjust the IOS from 6400 down to 100, and so the amount of light that entered the lens was way too much to produce a clear image. I adjusted this afterwards and the rest of my images are shot at the right IOS.
After taking the images in the studio and using the contact sheet in Photoshop to nail down my selection to my final choices, I moved the final images onto the editing stage. The following are the results of the images I edited:
I was able to use Photoshop to adjust the contrast and colors of most of these images, in order to make the initial edits. I then moved the images to Light-room to further make use of the tools available on that software. In Light-room I especially focused on the last image, as I was able to edit the image to draw up the contrast in order to give it a more bold look. Below is the before and after Light-room edit:
The image on the right was the original from the Photoshop edit, which I found to be too over-exposed (especially around Henley’s right-hand shoulder). I used Light-room to adjust the contrast and more specific colour settings (highlights, shadows, blacks, whites and clarity). I feel like the final product (left) looks much more bold and eye drawing than the original on the right.
For some of the images, I adjusted the colour settings so that they were in black and white. I did this in order to make a link to the imagery of the occupation and liberation of Jersey, which was all taken in black and white as colour photography only became common for the average person in the 1960’s. I feel like black and white images also allow for the details in the textures and shapes of the images to be better emphasized, and it allows for certain aspects of the image (such as eyes and clothing) to present as more eye-catching, and can between hold the attention of the viewer. Below is an example of an image I edited into black and white for these reasons:
Furthermore, on some images I made the decision to simply lower the saturation of the images in order to dull down the colours of the image, giving the final image a more somber and dulled image. I made this decision as I feel that it accurately reflects the atmosphere and feelings surrounding the occupation of Jersey, as the overall atmosphere at the time (and the feeling that came with many of the stories given by Joan and Henley) was solemn and very close to being hopeless. I therefore tried to reflect this through the colour of some of my images, which are dulled and almost drained completely of colour. An example of one of these images can be seen below:
For the final image, I made the decision to raise the saturation and contrast, and made some colour adjustments in Photoshop that involved heightening the colour balance so that it fell more towards a lilac/subtly feminine colour (especially in the background). I did this in order to highlight that through the occupation, many individuals were still able to keep hope, and regardless of the solemn circumstances, many individuals were able to find pleasure in small things (such as dances and cycling). The editing of the colour in this image is a reflection of the subject being able to maintain her femininity and hope for a better future, even through the difficult times of the occupation:
After the initial editing of colour and saturation, I began to experiment with some of the images, using things such as boarders, adding in other images to the initial image in the form of collaging, and experimenting with different techniques in order to enhance the image further.
In the above image, I used the spot removal tool in Light-room to remove some of the light colored fluff that was on Henley’s jumper, which distracted from the image itself.
The above 2 images of Joan have been edited to produce a different framed effect on each of them. I experimented with this in order to see if the frames make the image seem more eye-catching.
I further experimented with the above image, using the same template for the frame as I used in the original, but this time cutting and stretching the damaged effect of the frame more over the subject, allowing the contrast between her darker shape/outline and the white damaged effect to become more clear. Below is the process I used to do this:
I selected the colour dodge option on the layer that the frame was on. In doing so I only kept the white damaged effect, removing the black background so the subject could be seen through it.
I then copied and pasted the frame onto multiple layers, and used the lasso tool to cut the frame so that I could fit it into the correct areas of the subject so that the damaged effect covered the darker areas.
The final effect was the damaged effect that can be found more clearly in the image above. I decided to do this because the effect that the frame gives the image reflects the same kind of damage that happens to old, archival images. Therefore here, I am referencing the past/youth of June, and contrasting it with the present, using the style of the image to reflect past trauma (through “damaging” the image) while the subject can still be seen smiling as her current self, a survivor.
During World War II, the Crown left Jersey defenseless and the Island became occupied by German forces.Jersey War Tunnels are a product of five long years of occupation; they bore witness to the particular cruelty of the Nazi regime.Dug deep into the hillside by forced and slave workers from nations across Europe, they now contain an underground collection of thought provoking exhibits that tell the fascinating story of Jersey’s occupation from resistance, through to starvation, then eventual liberation.
The imposing, cavernous entrance tunnel will take you deep into the hillside, into a network of extraordinary tunnels unlike anything you have seen before. This vast network of underground tunnels was designed to allow the German occupying infantry to withstand Allied air raids and bombardment in the event of an invasion. In 1943, it was converted into an emergency hospital.
As the UK announced that it would not defend the Channel Islands, residents were faced with an impossible choice – to stay and face the unknown enemy or to go, leaving behind families, friends and possessions.
Daily Life
As restrictions and shortages increased, daily life for islanders became more difficult. This recreation of a Jersey home during the occupation gives an insight into the make do and mend mentality that kept residents going throughout these dark years. In the final months of occupation, Islanders became desperate. Food shortages were acute and with no knowledge of when the war would end, the Island entered its darkest times.
And while we were in the war tunnels we saw a representation of the daily rations they used to get which were barley enough for the people.
Fortress Island
Far in excess of their military significance, the Channel Islands used one twelfth of the reinforced concrete of the entire Atlantic wall. Had the Nazis deployed these resources more reasonably, they could have doubled the strength of the Atlantic wall and had a profound effect on the Allied advance.
The Unfinished Tunnel
Men toiled with picks and shovels, loading rocks into trolleys and pushing them back up to the tunnel entrance. In the semi-dark and the damp, with the constant fear of rock falls, this back-breaking work went on in 12-hour shifts. I experienced it all through an interactive audio-visual experience in the unfinished tunnel itself.
Conclusion
In conclusion, going to the Jersey war tunnels has made me connect and feel what living and working in them at that time felt like. And i’m glad we got to see all those stories of what happened in these tunnels at the time during the occupation.
