STORY: What is your migrant community story, for the St. Helier shoot? Describe in:
– 3 words, A migrant community. – A sentence, St Helier Jersey’s migrant community featuring workers and cars. – A paragraph, This shoot represents the working people of St Helier, and their belongings, such as cars and houses. It also displays key features of the town itself.
NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?
These are some common examples that people use to tell a story:
– Images > new photographic responses, photo-shoots – Archives > images from SJ photo-archive, family album, mobile – Texts > letters, documents, poems, text messages
However, I will only use images I’ve taken. This is because I feel that they tell their own story, as I’ve arranged them into a sequence which allows there to be a flow which guides the viewer through the images and tells a story.
AUDIENCE: Who is it for?
My zine will be aimed at anyone who lives in Jersey, but most specifically, St Helier. Plus, It also helps if they are 14+ as they would understand the images in more depth and detail, making it more impactful for them.
However, most image makers tend to overlook the experience of the viewer. Considering who their audience is and how they may engage with your photo-zine is important factor when they are designing/ making it.
SEQUENCING THE CONTENT – 20 images
I decided not the include any images from the archive as I have taken images which juxtapose each other. Such as, the old blue Morris Minor and the red GTI Golf. This helps tell a story and emphasise differences or similarities between the cars. I will also include other methods such as “zooming out” to create similar effects.
THEME OR STORY
The front cover will be made from a zoomed in image from one of the car photos, as it is one of the main themes.
The start of the zine will contain images related to mechanics and cars. Some of images of the cars will juxtapose each other. New vs Old. The 2 images of the old car images will be full paged on the first 2 pages, as they are major establishing shots.
Near the start of the zine there will be a double page spread images of a new, modern car, which symbolise the new technology and the way forward.
There will be a 2 page spread of just street art, both the images will be full page, and both include vibrant colours, which adds a lot of colour into the project.
For the shots of the people, I will start off with 4 multiple shots one one page, of 2 street photos, then 2 full body shots, then transition into head shots and images of peoples faces.
At the end I plan for there to be images of the actual town, such as the pigeon shot, and the scaffolding and the staircase in the Jersey Museum.
I have arranged it so some images juxtapose each other and zoom into each other, creating a smooth transition between images. Most of my best images will be full page as you see a lot of detail when its bigger.
Francis Foot was born in 1885, he is from Jersey, he was the son of Francois Foot (1847-1918) and Louisa Hunt (1843-1934). His father Francois was a china and Glass dealer in Dumaresq Street, at a time when the area was one of the more affluent in St Helier.
Foot started his working life as a gas fitter. However, he soon became fascinated by photography and the early phonographs and gramophone records and realised that he could earn a living from them.
So the family took on a second shop in Pitt Street, where Francis worked as a photographer, while his father and mother sold gramophones, records and other wares in Dumaresq Street. After his father’s death, Francis concentrated his photography business in Pitt Street.
Mood Board
I found the images from Google and Jerripedia. As you can see Foot is focused on event photography and portrait and photographing people.
Analyse – Margaret with Dora and George
This photo was taken by Francis Foot at 13:25, its called Margaret with Dora and George and it was taken in 1920. Foot has taken an image of what looks to be a mum with her two children. Foot used the background of a forest to contrast the white clothing of the children. To make them stand out, perhaps this shows how important the children are to the mother. The simple pattern of the clothes, juxtaposes the texture of the leaves and the trees, which reflects on how simple life used to be in the 20th century. Other than that, it is a basic family portrait.
This images represent, people in jersey and objects/ places from jersey
NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?
I will use imagery to tell my story because so their can be different intreptation of the story in my image. I’ve purposely arranged them into a sequence so it feels like a little story.
AUDIENCE: Who is it for?
My zine is more for younger people around my age (16 to 20) but in reality everyone can enjoy. Is also for people from jersey so they can enjoy looking to their island. And how beautiful the island is. Here are the images I used for my story:
Who – For one of my photoshoots I plan on capturing street photography style images of people passing through town, running errands, working, chatting etc. I aim to photograph normality and comfort in many of these images by highlighting the warm atmosphere of location.
What – I plan on photographing people living their day to day lives without interfering with or changing anything within the frame, capturing realness and sincerity. I really enjoy taking images in this street photography style as I believe they really allow the observer to feel immersed in the photo as life carries on around them.
Where – I am going to carry out this photoshoot around the Merchant Quarter of St Helier, focusing on the busier streets of shoppers and workers. When researching these areas of St Helier it was interesting to find out which buildings and businesses have drastically changed over the years and which still hold similar shops to those decades ago.
When – I aim to take these images on July 10th as it is a Saturday meaning the St Helier streets will be quite busy, additionally the weather is meant to be bright and sunny which will aid my images in creating a warm atmosphere and mood, and again will increase the chance of more people being in town to photograph.
How – I plan on walking through the Merchant Quarter of St Helier normally, going into shops when I need to and capturing images as I go. I aim to have some images holding a different mood to the rest, capturing singular people on the streets or in shops alone. Additionally, I want to create 3 environmental portraits on my photoshoot with the subject interacting with the camera to contrast the street photography style.
Why – I want to carry out this photoshoot to show the character of this St Helier community by focusing on portraiture and street photography. I am aiming for some my images to show sequences depicting workers to their work and shoppers to their shopping, sort of showing a juxtaposition between them.
Editing – Contact Sheets
When I first imported all images from my photoshoots into Lightroom I did an initial delete of any photographs I knew were not up to standard, were blurry/out of focus or had issues concerning White Balance or Exposure which there was little point fixing due to another image of the same scene being of better quality. After this first sort through of images I was left with 75 to look at in depth, editing them down with star rating and flagging. I went into ‘Develop’ mode to start filtering my preferred images. I started by using the ‘Flagging’ filter, using controls ‘P’ for a white flag (preferred image) and ‘X’ for a grey flag (disliked image) and holding down ‘shift’ – this allowed my editing process to speed up massively and let me clearly see which photographs were my favourite. Next, I used the ‘Star Rating’ feature to filter each image from 1-5, one star as the worst and five stars as the best, which again helped me select the best images that worked well together in groups, sequences and pairs. .
Experimenting With Sequences
While on my photoshoot through St Helier, I found it important to stop in shops along the way to try and capture some shots of people browsing and buying items for themselves, after I captured this first silhouette style image on the top right of a lady carrying a shopping bag I thought of the idea to also photograph the area of the shop she had come from, showing the motivation for her movement. I really enjoyed how this sequence demonstrated context to the final image captured, almost like a backstory to the scene. When editing the first two images in Lightroom, I wanted to experiment with a black and white filter to add a more dramatic and mysterious atmosphere to the scene as I believe it reflects the ambiguity of the woman’s silhouette and her back turned to the observer. Contrastingly, I wanted to create a similar sequence to the first however using warmer tones and direct address to the camera to create a more welcoming atmosphere. The second two images were captured in the St Helier Market at a fruit and veg stall, I was really drawn to its vibrant colours and tones, juxtaposing greatly with the first sequence. After purchasing some produce from the stall I asked the server whether she would be happy having her photo taken for this project, explaining the interest in the merchant communities. I really wanted to capture a natural and comfortable image of the lady, her warm energy was infectious and I found it important to not stage the image too much in fear of losing this. To capture this vibrant photograph I continued having a conversation with the woman about her day, snapping moments where she would laugh or smile at the camera naturally – I found it so interesting to discover the history of the time she has spent working in the market and how she loves when customers would actually have a conversation with her when she serves them, it was very eye-opening. To reflect this positive energy when editing I made very minimal changes due to the camera already capturing such raw vibrancy, only heightening the brightness and contrast slightly to match the boldness of the fruits in the first image.
Final Edited Sequences
Environmental Portraiture
During my street photography and portraiture photoshoots I wanted to capture 3 environmental portraits with the subject engaging with the camera. The reason I kept this number of portraits low was because I wanted to spend time getting to know the subjects and the field of work they were in, taking the time to understand the to capture an image representing them naturally.
The first image is a photograph of Simon who owns the metaphysical shop Zen, in my image I wanted to reflect the welcoming atmosphere of his business through angles, body language, composition and light. I positioned my camera with Simon in the centre of the frame, his natural body position worked brilliantly with demonstrating the shop’s open friendly mood and the soft artificial lighting provides a range of dark and light tones across his face that hold no harshness or bold disruption to the rest of the image. Additionally, in the background of each environmental portrait I wanted objects depicting each person’s field of work, in this first image I wanted the most negative space however with hints towards the business and its goods, this was because I wanted to reflect the mystery of the shop while also using negative space to highlight and draw the observer’s attention to the main subject, Simon.
My second environmental portrait was taken in Seedee Jons of owner Jono. I wanted to capture Jono in a natural position, however still showing his fun and easy-going personality through angles, body language and lighting. I took my image just below eye-level, standing to the left of my subject and asking him to engage with the camera in whichever way felt most natural to him. I believe this angle contrasts well with my first and last image as the side-on view reflects the business’s cool unique atmosphere of the shop. Furthermore, I wanted this image to hold darker tones with more contrast to mirror the gradient of tones on the shop logo wall in the background of the image. I captured this range of dark and light with artificial lighting and when editing in Lightroom I slightly increased the ‘Blacks’ and ‘Highlights’ of the photo to create this more edgy atmosphere. I also wanted to capture the different shapes in the background of the image, showing the contrast between the geometric rectangle of the mirror behind the subject and the repetition curved circles to the right of the image.
My final environmental portrait was taken of a worker in the Cartridge Centre phone repair shop. I took this image at eye-level, with artificial lighting capturing minimal shadows or distracting highlights over his face. I wanted to capture the repetition of straight leading lines that fall across the background of this image creating a sense of movement due to their link with the business’s fast paced and quick working style to help customers and repair items with tight deadlines. Additionally, the geometric shapes in the background of the photograph also hint towards technology and modernised items showing this job requires more technical thinking and skills. The black and white filter allows the range of contrast and tones in the image to be emphasised, with the darkest tone falling over the subject’s hair and the lightest on the phone products behind him. This draws the observer’s focus towards the centre of the image, with the main focal point on the subjects face.
Street Photography – Colour
Street Photography – B&W
During my photoshoots capturing portraiture and the character of a community I photographed many street photography portraits of people walking the the Merchants Quarter of St Helier. I wanted to do minimal planning for the photos as they were to look natural and unstaged, I captured images of people shopping, walking, talking etc, trying to be as subtle as possible to photograph an organic moment. My first set of images I have kept in colour, doing little editing on Lightroom by only touching up exposure and brightness when needed – I chose which images worked best in colour by looking at my subject’s surroundings where I decided I wanted each colour image to have the repeated motif colour of red somewhere in frame. This red colour appeared frequently in my photoshoot and I loved how much of a vibrant and warm atmosphere it created. Additionally, my colour photographs all have a landscape orientation and all but one have more than one person in frame, capturing more of a community feel and a busier composition. My second set of images held more of a dreary mysterious atmosphere, so I have edited them with a black and white filter to emphasise the darker tones. The subject’s surroundings in the photos are more bare and empty, with only one or two people in frame, some with their back turned or from a side-on angle. In addition, my subject’s facial expressions are not smiley or content and sometimes hidden away from sunglasses or a hat – I wanted to include these images in my final edits as they show a great contrast to my environmental portraits and colour street photography, demonstrating how in a community there is a range of different people, having different emotions and days which can be translated through a photograph in a right or wrong way. The ambiguity of the images leaves it up to the observer’s imagination to decide what kind of person the subject of the image is, but they will never really know.
A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation.
Why Photographers Should Create Zines
Digital marketing isn’t always the most effective method of marketing your photography. That’s why photographers have been creating zines for years.
James Moreton is a photographer who is experienced in the art of zine making.
James Moreton
He is an artist who enjoys the tactile approach to photography. “I believe the photographic book is the best medium for photography. The ability to create impact by pairing, juxtaposing and sorting pictures into a flow in order to tell a story or instil an emotion in the viewer is unsurpassed by any other photographic medium” This is why zine making is an important element of a narrative project, therefore, I will incorporate it in mine.
Craig Atkinson is the founder of weekly publications, focussing on post-war documentary photography linked to Britain and Ireland called Café Royal Books.
This is an example of valuable photographic works being collected into the tactile and aesthetically sequential format of a zine. “The publications are bought as gifts, as nostalgic reminders. They’re used as reference for film makers, producers, screen writers and costumes designers. Universities collect the books to allow students access to the large collected history of this genre of photography, which hasn’t existed to this extent, in print, before Café Royal Books.” This shows the importance of having a tactile form of work to inspire and reference, which zines seem to capture very well.
Atkinsons zines have an aesthetic formality and consistency which I want to replicate in my zine in some form.
This video by an independent artist encapsulates the zine making process
I want my design to look like a romantisized interpretation of the buildings and communities in St Helier, I want the viewer to feel like they are walking through the town and meeting the people in my compositions when they flip through the zine.
My Format, size and orientation will be as follows:
The Title for my project is ‘Rank’. This plays on the difference in class the migrants withhold, it also plays on the common feature of most towns – a taxi rank, finally it plays on the slang word for something that is disgusting – this disgust refers to the vast difference in class. I also want to caption each image with a vague subtitle allowing the viewer to think about the images in different ways.
I began by setting up my page colour to be a grey shade. I made sure I added this colour all the way to the bleed line to make sure it printed in full grey without a border. I made my page colour grey to add additional dark colour to the urbanism in my images.
During experimenting, I decided that to enhance my narrative sequence I would rather have a different page colour for each page to enhance and compliment the aesthetic of each image individually. Following on from this I decided that every two parallel pages will have correlation and therefore share the same themes including page colour.
I then decided I want a more abstract look to my front cover as I wanted my zine to entice the viewer and have a more experimental theme. I did this by using the scissors tool to displace images and create different proportions and borders.
I then started adding a theme to each spread. As you can see below I introduced visual elements from my images into the rest of the spread to further develop the narrative and aesthetic of the zine.
I did this by using the eyedropper tool to select a colour from the image to use as the page colour of the spread.
I also decided to experiment with how the page splits my images over the spread by applying some images over two pages like the image below.
I then designed a back page that correlated with the front page by using the same colours and themes.
I then scrolled through my zine adding vague image captions to further the narrative and encourage more thought about the purpose of the project.
Final Evaluation
Throughout the project I was able to endeavour into a pit of knowledge with two territories. The first being the historical and cultural contexts of Jersey and learning more about the rich cultural history the island holds. This led to understanding more about migrant communities which was the predominant theme I was exploring. The second territory of knowledge I gained was that of myself awareness. I was able to learn more about my position in Jersey’s community and my similarities and differences to others in my communities. This identity discovery waws fuelled by experiencing new people and cultures while exploring this topic and learning about the history of the place I call home. I also gained insight into an entirely different scope of art, this being the history of architecture in St Helier. I gained knowledge from an experienced historian and architect from a walk examining the wealth of historic buildings and attractive townscapes that characterise Jersey’s capital. He walked through the history of specific areas through archival records. I was also able to explore the beautifully restored Victorian House and enter the drama of a Victorian family in crisis which developed my insight into the history of how Jersey’s economy and infrastructure came to be.
I was additionally able to apply and channel my knowledge of zine making into a tangible project. I learnt about new software – Adobe InDesign and its useful qualities in terms of creating professional print works. I learnt about other significant zine publishers in Jersey – ED.EM. and others like Café Royal Books and apply them to my project. I was able to turn an idea into a tangible and aesthetically planned narrative which matched my intentions of this project sufficiently.
STORY: What is your migrant community story? Describe in:
Scenario, connection, diversity
Depictions of the everyday lives of migrants and their communities in St Helier.
Capturing everyday lives of the vast range of people that have migrated to St Helier. The way these people have formed communities and how the different communities differ in various elements but mainly their aesthetic differences. The different social and historic contexts that have defined these people.
A migrant community
NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story
I will use a sequence of deliberately positioned images which capture the essence of the story in an aesthetic way and also act on the narrative. They are positioned in a way were the images trigger questions and ideas about the subjects photographed and the narrative is told through how the images are sequenced and how the reader is guided from one image to the next.
AUDIENCE: Who is it for?
Most image makers tend to overlook the experience of the viewer. Considering who your audience is and how they may engage with your photo-zine is important factor when you are designing/ making it.
I want to lure in a wide audience who live in Jersey. My project highlights the fact that everyone in Jersey is essentially an immigrant and it is important to learn about the social and historic context regarding how and why these communities have formed. Therefore, I want to specifically target an audience that is lives in Jersey but is not essentially from jersey. I also want to target a specific ‘young adult audience’; 15 -25. This is so that the younger generation of big thinkers can start to ask questions about their heritage and educate themselves about the Island and its cultures and bands of people.
Editing
Edits from all shoots:
I believe that during the editing process I was able to dramatize and romanticise the locations and people of St Helier proficiently. I used a series of dramatic contrasting and aesthetic composition to begin telling the story of migrant communities in St Helier. I believe in order to start composing an effective narrative I needed to start categorizing and grouping images. This leads on to the next step in the process, sequencing.
Sequencing
I began narrowing my image range down from about 100 images to only 18 images.
I then began a tactile process of printing my images out and, by hand organizing them into a sequence. This is so that I could move them around quickly to experiment different combinations with ease and visually connect and sequence the images. This allowed me to notice that my combination of architectural images of different styles of buildings in St Helier had correlation, visually and culturally, with the portraits of individuals in the communities. There were also a few images where I felt certain characters in them had interconnections with others, I therefore chose to position these images together in the sequence. I began to connect and contrast these together until I found a perfect sequence that told the story of St Helier’s migrant communities. This sequence is seen below in order. The
William Collie was probably the first photographer to use the calotype process in Jersey. This is a technique, were a sheet of paper coated with silver chloride was exposed to light in a camera obscura; those areas hit by light became dark in tone, yielding a negative image.
An oak tree in winter – William Henry Fox – 1842
The first pioneer of calotypes was a photographer called Willam Henry Fox.
Some of Colliers previously unpublished photographs featured alongside those of Fox in an exhibition at the Musée Dorsay in Paris in 2008. This exhibition boasted some of the first photographs taken on paper in Britain from 1840 to 1860. Below is one of those photographs. It was taken in 1847. It is of Jersey Market women.
This photograph leads onto the next interesting element to note about Williams work. Williams work capturing these portrait style images was one of the earliest signs of tableau photography recorded. Tableau photography is an intentional form of photographing characters whom are arranged for picturesque or dramatic effect and appear absorbed and completely unaware of the existence of the photographer/viewer.
Marin Toft – from Tableaux Vivants
William shot a series of photographs, some of the oldest in Jersey, of Jersey market women. They were tableau photographs were the women were dressed up to look like market women.
I believe this was a huge step into the progress of photography, specifically photography as an artform. Photography during Colliers era was mainly focused on documentative intentions, photos were mainly used to record events, document, log and report. William was part of the early photographers who brought an essence of art and creativity to photography and these early tableau’s support this notion.
The above photograph is part of Williams ‘Market Women’ collection. The image is of a professionally composed tableau portrait where a young lady is dressed as a Jersey market woman. She is wearing what would be working class clothing of the time. The mise en scene of the image tells the story of a market environment with the hanging basket and what seems to be produce on the ground. The subject has been directed to look away from the lens. This enforces a notion that the subject is absorbed and used to create a dramatic effect; this almost gives the character a sense of elegance but also sovereignty . This sense of emotion the lady is portraying could give us an understanding of the historical context of the image as in the 19th century Jersey saw massive changes in society. A large influx of immigrants from England made Jersey a more connected island than ever before, and brought with it cultural changes and the desire for political reform. During this period, the States reformed to become more representative of the population and the Jersey culture became more anglicised and less religious. The island also grew economically and the built-up areas of the island expanded, especially St Helier, with the development of public transport on the island. This lady could have been represented as a part of this powerful time in St Helier as she is portrayed as a market woman, aiding in the growth of the town. The image has an artistic contrast created by the calotype method of photography that Collier was renowned for. The negative light give a wide tonal range from dark tones in the subjects hair to a pure white tone just an inch down on her collar. This contrast also gives the background a grainy texture as the shadows on the bricks are accentuated.
Dana Lixenberg Dana Lixenberg is a Dutch photographer and filmmaker. She lives and works in New York and Amsterdam. Lixenberg pursues long-term projects on individuals and communities on the margins of society.
(self portrait)
Her work strips down her subjects to their fundamental characteristics. Her photographs allow the viewer to interoperate every element of the characters identity and essence.
Dana uses a large format field camera which are completely mechanical sheet film photography cameras. The process is highly meticulous, none the less Dana sacrifices convenience for high quality negatives. I believe that Danas use of these cameras is also a way of making the photography process a more meaningful tangible affair. This sentimental process is also probably a method of connecting with the subject she is shooting more, as her passion is contagious and will leak into the subject she shoots.
It makes the process what Dana calls a ‘slow dance’ with her subjects.
Dana pursues long-term projects with a primary focus on marginalized communities. One of these projects being Imperial Courts 1993 -2015. It is Lixenberg’s most extensive body of work to date. The project took inspiration directly after the 1992 Rodney King riots. Spanning 22 years, the project tracks the shifting configuration of an underserved community in Watts, Los Angeles. In contrast to the often one dimensional, sensationalized media coverage of this neighborhood, Lixenberg employs a more unobtrusive and community driven photographic approach. Like her other projects, Imperial Courts consists of a series of photographs and a publication. Exploring other media for the first time, Lixenberg also included audio recordings and created a three-channel video installation. The project was awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2017 and continues to be exhibited internationally.
She manages to give us such an in depth look into the residents of this neighbourhood with just street portraiture.
The above is a comparison between William Collie’s image on the left with Dana Lixenberg’s image on the right. Both these photographers are highly evolutionary with the art of photography and telling a story; they both strived to get the most out of their subject. William is pioneering new photographic technology and new styles of shooting portraiture in an artistic way. Dana is evolutionary in the opposite way. She did not try and implement the newest technologies but rather stepped away from the mainstream digital boom of photography she was born into and used older equipment to make her photography a connecting process with her subjects.
Both images are negatives and feature a black and white colour scheme. I believe this allows the viewer to focus on the structure of the image and creates a clear contrast which builds the foundation of the image and shines focus on the features of the character being shot. Both images are composed in a similar way with their subject sat down in a similar way with similar body language. The way their body’s are at a tilt and their hands are together allows both photographers to capture the subjects sense of innocence. The main difference with how the subjects have been composed is that Dana’s is engaging with the camera by looking directly into it; whilst Williams’ subject is pretending the camera isn’t there. Danas portrait makes the viewer feel as if they are engaging with the subject in a personal way whilst William’s is more tableau, making the viewer feel like they are ‘standing on the side-lines’ watching a natural scene take place.
Dana uses a very narrow aperture lens. This gives her image a shallow depth of field and a lot of bokeh. This isolates the subject and creates a neat visual aesthetic with not too many elements clashing. On the other hand William has everything in focus in his portrait. This intentionally allows the viewer to interoperate what environment the woman is in, thus giving her the identity of a market woman.
With this series of images I attempt to tell a story about an area of St Helier with historical or contemporary links with migrant communities.
My work will focus on three main elements to capture the historical context of the theme of identity and community in St Helier:
A sense of place – for example; location, site, environment, residential area, communal park, architecture and details, Interior of church, community centre, house or home.
Character of community – for example; street scene, decisive moment, staging or performing for the camera.
People and portraiture – For example, a resident outside his/her house/apartment block, shop/ business owner, street portrait/ passer-by.
I focused on three contrasting areas of St Helier:
Route 1: Merchant quarter – This area of town was once where the core community of merchants were located. It was once located right on the waters edge in the 1800s but now boarders the marina – this gives merchants easy access to their ships and therefore gives insight into why this area is dubbed the merchant quarter. I enjoyed photographing the character of community in this area as people fused with their environment and seemed to interact with it well.
Route 2: French/ Portuguese quarters – This area of town is where most of the European migrant such as the large number of French and Portuguese people that began settling. This area features a diverse range of neighbourly people who form a lively community. This is why I found this area was most interesting to shoot in terms of people and portraiture.
Route 3: British expats/ wealthy residents (Rouge Boullion) – The United Kingdom is Jersey’s closest international partner. Deep social, cultural, economic and constitutional links between us have been built up and maintained over hundreds of years. This area is where most of the wealthy residents and British expats began to settle. The rich architecture in this area is what I found most interesting to shoot. The wealthy British would bring their builders over from the UK to build the magnificent houses. Shooting a sense of place in this area was what I focused on.
Mood Boards
Sense of Place
Character of Community
People and Portraiture
Contact Sheets
Shoot 1 – a sense of place
During this shoot I focused on capturing St Helier’s buildings and homes in a manner that encapsulated the social and historical contexts of Jersey. I did this by shooting different styles of buildings – Portuguese, British, houses, shops, offices. I also shot structures which had different ages; I shot newer office blocks and also old houses that had been around since St Helier’s birth.
During my editing I focused on aesthetic composition; I therefore made sure to frame everything in a symmetrical or artistic manner.
I also focused on dramatizing the buildings using deep colour schemes and contrast.
Final Images:
The image above presents a pleasing visual aesthetic as the images share a consistency. They are consistent with framing and composition with the two doors and stairs framed identically. This image tells a story of community and their connection through identical housing, but also shining focus on unique identity shown by the different colour choices of the doors. These images are also effective at referencing a sense of place A few other images that achieve this message in one composition are shown below.
The below images share warm tones and a ‘lens flare’ in the top of the composition that give the images a sense of prosperity that suggests the buildings have been stood happily looking down on the community for a long time.
Shoot 2 – Sense of Character
For this shoot I shot people of St Helier interacting with their environment and each other. This produced a wide range of emphatic images expressing emotion and telling a story about the area they are in and about what type of people they are.
I also shot images where there was a lack of people in the shot in a physical sense. I instead shot urban landscapes where there was a setting created by people and shaped by the community but lacked the physical presence of people. For example this image of a food stall tells a story about the community and their everyday lives without anyone actually being present in the image.
The following images are of scenes composing of characters of the community. I like the way they are composed in a way were they blend in with their environment, and all look to be living the hustle and bustle of St Helier, just like their migrant fisherman, merchant ancestors.
Shoot 3 – People and Portraiture
For this shoot I focused on capturing the emotion of the people I shot. I also focused on shooting people who were busy going about their day in a variety of different ways, weather that be playing guitar on the pavement or taking a smoke break; the images tell a story of identity.
After our tour of the museum we were able to explore the beautifully restored Victorian House and enter the drama of a Victorian family in crisis. Thereafter, we were taken on a tour on the streets near the museum by a passionate historical architecture expert Stuart Fell.
I documented the tours keeping migration and communities in mind and shot it in a fashion that focused on
– a sense of place – character of community – people, portraiture
I began my editing process by using the software Adobe Lightroom Classic to start identifying my most powerful and useful images. I did this by working in the Library window and implementing LR’s features that help organise and rank photos. I gave a series of images a ‘flag’ which indicates if I picked them or not. I then gave each image a star rating which narrows down how much I like the image even more and therefore makes the displaying and selecting of my images an easier process. Finally I colour coded images that I believed would work well presented together
I then used the compare views feature to make comparisons between the same photo edited in deferent ways and to reflect on the before and after of my images to experiment how they could be tweaked differently and what works well to emphasise the emotion in my photographs.
The above is an example of this feature being used where I compare two different images edited in two different fashions. The feature makes it easy to see which image works better at one quick glance.
The above is an example of a before and after comparison where the image is split in half and an easy examination into what editing took place can be made.
When editing my images the first element of the image I pay attention to before I start tweaking anything else is composition. I adjust the image using the crop overlay tool to frame and compose the image artistically.
After this I experiment with the colour elements of the image
I do the same but, experiment with a completely desaturated monochrome version of an image.
Below are the final edits of the museum and architecture walk grouped into two collages.
Here I produced quick arrangements of my photographs to see which images worked well together in a sequence, for example I tried placing portraits together and architectural ones separately. This helped me gain an idea of the order I will put my images in, as well as how they work together to tell a story. Ultimately I decided to place my images in a sequence that alternated between portrait and landscape, as I believe it will create a sense of balance in my zine.
Next I stuck down my images down onto a booklet template, in the order I had decided on, allowing me to see what it would look like once printed. Here I decided to place a black and white landscape photograph as a double page spread in the centre, as I believed it could further develop my idea of balance within the zine, whilst also creating a kind of symmetry between the start and end of the piece.
For my front and back cover I have chosen my images of doorways that are next to each other to show the duality of the communities existing throughout St. Helier. This also could be used as a metaphor for looking inside the lives and lifestyles of the people in this town. In addition it represents the polarised contents of the zine, that shows both the architecture and the people of who inhabit the different quarters.
For the first page of my zine I have chosen to display two images, one containing multiple sets of flats and housing, and the other a portrait of a lady standing in front of her restaurant. For every image of architecture, I have chosen to add a black background to further contrast with the vibrance of the portrait opposite it, additionally it also contrasts with the white sky in the photograph.
On the second page I have included again both a portrait and an architectural image with the same backgrounds and layouts as the previous page. The image on the left showcases St. Thomas’ Church accompanied with a portrait of a man at work in a garage on the right, both taken within the French/Portuguese quarters within town.
For the third page I have chosen to follow a similar layout to the previous pages with the exception of the portrait having a full bleed to the edge of the page, not allowing room for a white border. The photograph on the left displays the view from a courtyard in the centre of town. The portrait on the right shows a man, who appears to be a carpenter or builder, at work leaning in a doorway.
For the centre page I have placed my black and white landscape image of a run down building in town. Here I have chosen to make the image full bleed, as I think that it will be more impactful without a white border around it. This building is located around the centre of town, which I think ties together the theme of divisions as it provides a place of intersectionality.
For this next page I have swap around the order of the portrait and architecture photographs to continue the theme of alternating between black and white landscape and colour portrait. These pages reflect the pages before the centre page, with the portrait being full bleed instead of having a white border.
This page displays a portrait of two men who appeared to be on a break and standing outside the door of their workplace, next to a black and white image of St. Thomas’ church which is a strong signifier for this community, due to the large scale of the building and its towering over the rest of town.
For the final double page I have showcases an image of a woman on her balcony looking down into the courtyard I was standing in, placed next to a block of flats that I thought looked similar to the exterior of the building this lady was in.
For the back cover, I have chosen another photograph of two houses and doors side by side in order to replicate the front cover. This creates a sense of symmetry within the zine. In addition, the two different colours of the house increase message of duality and separate communities within St. Helier.
