Identity and Community

The Trip

On Monday the 7th June we met at the Jersey Museum so that we could see the last day of the exhibition to do with Identity and Community. The exhibition was to do with the history of immigration from different parts of the world and the stories behind those who came here. This included historical information from the 1800 – 1900’s and information from the first and Second World War. The idea of the exhibition was to hear the stories from people who came 500 years ago or 5 years ago and how ‘People make Jersey’. We went to the exhibit at 9 am on Monday the 7th to see the last day of the exhibit before it was taken down.

The exhibit had information about settlers in Jersey spanning from recent settlers and settlers up to 7,000 years ago.

Above I have grouped the images I took at the museum showing the idea of identity and backgrounds of people in Jersey. I took photos of some of the people of Jersey talking about their heritage but also examples of how the non-native people were treated. To the bottom right of the images above, there are small coloured cars given to people coming to Jersey to live called “Alien Cards”.

Above I have grouped images I took of maps new vs old and examples of old publications. It shows a newspaper and book as well as a map of France and England showing where the origins of “Jersey” names come from. I am interested by the maps as it shows how much we have changed the layout of St Helier. It is also interesting that we have reclaimed land and built more space for Jersey to spread and thrive.

Finally, above I grouped photos that were historical items you wouldn’t see now for example a pair of old clogs, old money, an old accordion, an old crown and finally a stone age flint tool. This shows the diversity in the past of Jersey and how it was influenced by people who came from many different places.

My Images

After taking photos inside the museum, we moved on to take photos in town to look at the different sections of town that were for the different migrant communities. On the first walk we went on, we went from the Jersey Museum to the St Helier Church.

Lightroom

From the 400 images I took on the first photo shoot, I only flagged 51 that I liked and may wanted to use. I then filtered them down into red green and yellow. I only edited the yellow and green rated images. This left me with a final 16 images to edit.

To edit the image above, I applied the vivid colour filter and increased vibrance/ hue slightly to make the colours more vivid.

Artist Inspirations – Niall McDiarmid

Who is Niall McDiarmid?

Niall McDiarmid is a Scottish photographer and he mainly documents the people and landscape of Britain. McDiarmid was born in 1967 in Scotland and over his photography career has had his work shown at the Museum of London, Bristol and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Mood Board

Faces of Our Times: The People of London - Interview with Niall McDiarmid |  LensCulture

McDiarmid positioned the subjects to be in the centre and slightly to the right of centre. The camera is also zoomed out slightly so we can still see the facial expression of the main subject but also the background of the natural street showing people doing their own things.

The subject is being naturally lit but some parts of the image are quite dark. The colour yellow is used as a form of repetition in the image and appears multiple times. Firstly the subject is wearing a yellow jumper. He also appears to have yellow tobacco and another box that is yellow. The van behind him is yellow and the flag behind him is also yellow. I believe this repetition is used to show how the subject is different from other people who aren’t wearing yellow in the background behind him.

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