Victor Hugo was born February 26, 1802 in Besançon and died May 22, 1885 in Paris. He was a French poet and playwrighter , he marked the history of the nineteenth century, and is still recognized thanks to his literary works, and also by his political speeches. He wrote works very well known as Les Châtiments (1853), Les Contemplations (1856) and Les Misérables in 1862.
To Jersey from France
Because of his political opinion, Victor Hugo could not stay in France during the reign of Napoleon III, and had to refuge in a discreet place. He moved to Jersey in 1852 and he stayed until 1855. Thanks to his refuge he was able to publish his political pamphlet against Napoleon III Napoléon le Petit and Histoire d’un crime. During his period of leaving in jersey he also composed and published some of his best work like Les Misérables, Les Châtiments 1853; Les Contemplations 1856 and La Légende des siècles 1859. Very quickly Victor Hugo becomes very interested in photography. He wants to use it as a political tool to show his image in France. So it becomes a family affair. His sons Charles and, François-Victor, organize a photographic workshop . The Jersey workshop was a unique adventure. It was both a look at the landscape that sometimes inspired Victor Hugo’s drawings and a testimony to an outlaw in exile. The Jersey Workshop was a photographic studio in the greenhouse at Marine Terrace. Victor Hugo’s project was to create a book on the Channel Islands illustrated with images. But the book was never finished, he still produced an intense production of salted paper prints. The purpose of the workshop was to preserve the memory of the exiles, the portraits which were taken were placed in many albums which were sometimes adorned with paintings or collages by Charles Hugo.
My visit to the Jersey Museum began with a dive into an exhibition room with multitudes of well designed walls detailing Jerseys lengthily history which began almost 250,000 years ago when the first people arrived in Jersey and continues through the centuries to explore the factors that have shaped this unique Island and the people who live here. This intrigued my interest in immigration and specifically how people from all over the globe come together in an inspiring feat of unity. This interest can be sourced from the fact that I am an immigrant in many forms as I have lived in a few countries and all of them have been extensively culturally diverse such as the place I call my home; South Africa. Which is just like Jersey in terms of its diversity.
I moved to the island just 3 years ago. The exhibition states; ‘Every Jersey resident has an immigration story – whether their family came here 500 years or five years ago. This exhibition explores some of these stories and the ways in which immigration has shaped and influenced the Island we know today.’ This statement immediately creates an a sense of belonging and inclusivity for me being a recent immigrant to the island considering that everyone has a story they can share and relate to one another with, even the most local islanders.
The section of the museum we visited first focused on immigration to jersey and tells the story about why people have moved here over the centuries.
One of the areas of the exhibition I was most interested in was the section on tourism to jersey. Jersey saw a boom in tourism in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
It was nicknamed honeymoon island as it was a favourite location for newlyweds. Jersey attracted this boom of people as it had everything people wanted when they started looking to holiday in the post WWII years. Jersey was an escape from life on the mainland and it had better weather and better beaches.
Everything in jersey at the time was also much cheaper which attracted even more holiday goers.
This boom in travel to Jersey changed the island in many ways. Just one example being the fact that aeroplanes used to land on the beach at low tide in jersey but due to the boom they built an airport. This segment of the exhibition took my attention due to the fascinating and aesthetic vintage travel posters used by British and Irish airlines and French railway lines to advertise travel to the island
This part of the exhibition also rang bells in another personal way for me. It relates to another South Africa to Jersey migration story. The story begins with a pair of South African surfers in the 60s got fired from the Umhlanga Hotel for swinging on the chandeliers. I grew up surfing in this area and this is a hotel I have stayed in many times so this story has many personal connections with my life and to learn about these migration stories is incredibly compelling and fulfilling. The surfers then decided to hop on a boat to the UK after getting fired from their job to look for greater opportunities. While working in the UK they realised that the cold, rainy weather and being far from the ocean was not for them. One evening they spotted perfect curling waves and blue skies on a Jersey tourism ad during the time of the tourism boom and hopped on the next boat over. They built their own boards and began surfing down at St Ouen’s Bay. The owner of the Watersplash restaurant and night club at the time noticed the lads and due to the increased number of ocean related deaths happening outside the restaurant, he decided to hire them as head lifeguards. The South African lifeguards continued to surf outside the Watersplash and this grabbed the attention of the local islanders as surfing had not yet arrived on the island. The two men had created a surge in popularity for surfing in Jersey and are responsible for bringing one of Jerseys most popular sports to the island.
The Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive is a key part of Jersey’s history and an indispensable tool that allows us to gain knowledge and understanding of our past, not just as an island but as individuals. This institution was founded in 1873, 33 years after photography was first introduced to the island, with the intention of collecting documentary records of the times. After 148 years, this archive has now accumulated to over 36,000 images and 100,000 items that tell a story of Jersey’s past residents, architecture, landscapes and more. With this collection we are able to view what life was like during various historical periods that were significant in shaping the Jersey we live in today. This includes the German occupation during World War Two, in which photography aided us in remembering why we celebrate our gained freedom, and the hardships others went through in order to get it. An archival image is not required to be the most impressive and aesthetically pleasing photograph ever created, but only needs to tell a story that needs to or should be remembered. That is why, we may not realise it however, even the most casual photography we do in day-to-day life, whether it be the collection of photos on a platform such as Instagram or just a single image amongst thousands of others on your phone, it could be a crucial archive of the times we live in now. It can be argued that this has become even more true during the past year, as due to Covid 19 our photographs will provide people in the future with an insight into our lives during these difficult times.
Photographer Emile Guiton
There are many photographers that played an important part in the early days of photography in Jersey, but it can be said that Emile Guiton’s work was some of the most influential and important for the island. Born in 1879, Guiton was a Jersey native credited with being one of the founding members of the Société Jersiaise, helping build up this crucial collection of images with his photographic career that spanned from 1910 up to his death in 1972. The subjects that were of interest to Guiton varied from archaeological excavations to still life images, leaving this amateur photographer with a large amount of creative freedom. This side of Guiton that was fascinated with documentary photography resulted with him being one of the few to be issued a permit, allowing him to photograph the German Occupation during the Second World War. With this record of history, we are able to gain knowledge of not only Guiton’s artistic viewpoint of everyday life during war, but the what the German army wished to be recorded. This may have included Guiton’s many different photographs of German artillery around the island, which could have been used to aid the Germans in projecting their power. As well as this, Guiton’s career also entailed some of the first experimentation with colour photography, using the method of Autochrome. This allowed a whole new perspective of life in Jersey, with colour bringing the streets of St. Helier to life, in turn resulting in viewers being able to connect and relate to these images more.
Emile Guiton, Marett Road
This colour photograph taken by Emile Guiton displays a residential street located in St. Helier containing a car and two children, one in the foreground and one in the background. Here leading lines are created by the dark strip of cobblestone running through the centre of the street, resulting in the viewers eye being led deeper into the heavily housed area. Contrast in this image can be seen through the juxtaposition of the light brick houses and the dark clothing the children are wearing, as they lean against the wall. In addition, it can be said that the right half of the image contrasts with the left, due to the shadows of the houses that shed onto the street. From this it is clear that Guiton used only natural light to take this photograph, as he does with his other images. Also it can be said that it was most likely taken in the hours leading up to sunset, due to the length of the shadows and the slight golden glow. In order to produce this colour photograph, Guiton used a process named Autochrome, invented by the Lumière brothers in 1903. This method consisted of one glass plate, covered in a thin layer of potato starch grains dyed green, red and blue that acted as a filter. This would then be given a coat of varnish before and after passing through a high pressure roller, followed by a layer of emulsion. Finally this would then be flipped and placed into the camera where the light would pass through and create and image. This is said to be one of the first colour images of a street in that parish, giving us an insight into what domestic and community life was like. From this image it could be said that this part of St. Helier was once a seemingly quiet and peaceful area, contrasting to what we now consider the busiest and most lively parish on the island.
In conclusion, it is clear that the use of archives aids us in gaining knowledge of past events and past day-to-day life. Whether a photograph displays soldiers marching through the streets or a family outing, there is still information to be gained as a community. An archive such as the Societe Jersiaise allows us to view life from the perspective of hundreds of photographers from different backgrounds, all aiming to capture Jersey in a unique way. Furthermore, as this archive continues to grow so does the story of this island. With what I have learnt from this, as a photographer, I would aim to take a more documentary approach to my work, after discovering there is more value in the un-staged than I previously thought. Although the changing architecture of the island tells an interesting story of the past, I believe that the inhabitants of Jersey are clear signifiers of what makes this islands culture what it is today, which is what I would like to focus on in the future.
How do archives function as repositories of knowledge?
An archive is a collection of historical documents/records which provide information about a place, institution, or group of people. An example of an achieve is Jersey Archives, starting from 1993 Jersey Archive has collected over 300,000 archival records and, it is the island’s national repository for holding archival material from public institutions as well as private businesses and individuals. The Jersey Archive can offer guidance, information and documents that relate to all aspects of the Island’s History. Although, the most common reason for using an archive is to settle legal claims, clarify family history, they are also extremely helpful for historians, filmmakers and authors, as it gives them a sense of the way’s things were.
Archives collect primary source materials such as student newspapers, yearbooks, directories, documents related to groups and organizations, photos, and art pieces. Archives are mostly organised into fonds. A fonds is the entire body of records of an organisation, family, or individual that have been created and accumulated as the result of an organic process. Each fond is kept separately from other fonds to prevent the records from becoming disorganized and mixed up with other information, which would mean that they become inaccurate.
Société Jersiaise, is a photographic archive with a collection of 100,000 images dating from the mid-1840s to the present day. It was founded in 1873, for the study of Jersey archaeology, history, natural history, the ancient language and the conservation of the environment. There are approximately 35,000 historical images in the photographic archive are searchable online. Société Jersiaise also have an extensive library with access to may publications and records relating to the island’s history, identity and geography.
William Collie was born in Skene, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in October 1810. He stared his creative career as a professional portrait painter. Later he moved south, to St. Helier, Jersey in 1841, where he had a portrait business. He became one of the earliest photographers working in the Channel Islands, operating from Belmont House, St Helier. In the late 1840’s he made a series of genre calotype; which is an early photographic process in which negatives were made using paper coated with silver iodide, portraits depicting ‘French and Jersey Market Women’ which were well received by the photography critic of the Art Union (1 June 1847) who compared them to the work of David Octavius Hill, who was a Scottish painter, photographer and arts activist. These studies were later exhibited at the London Great Exhibition of 1851.
The Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive lists 157 photographs by William Collie. Although none of them are available to view online, due to copyright. However, you can still see them on some websites. The vast majority of the 157 images listed on the Société Jersiaise website are portraits, but there are four pictures of Jersey scenes which, if the information in their records is accurate, they are of, the church of Scotland (Not Jersey), Mont Orgueil Castle, houses on Queens Road, a granite, thatched cottage. One of his most famous portraits listed on the Societe Jersiaise website is of Elie Jean Filleul, who died aged 102 in 1851. From these images we can gather information about the history of St Helier, by using old images of streets and buildings. Also, we can identity the fashion and lifestyle in the 19th century.
William created his images using a photographic process called calotype, also called talbotype. Calotype comes from the ancient Greek word “beautiful” and “impression”. It is an early photographic process introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide, once its dried it is floated on a solution of silver nitrate in a dark room, which forms a photosensitive silver chloride compound on one side of the paper. This is then dried and ready to be exposed to light. When exposed to light the silver chloride darkens, creating a negative image. Which is made to make multiple positive prints simply by playing the negative onto a sensitised piece of paper and exposed to light.
Elie Jean Filleul
Collie’s image contains a good, high contrast as the highlights are bright and the shadows are dark. This is a good aspect to have in portrait photography as it defines facial features. Collie’s image is very clear and sharp even though it was taken in the 19th century. It contains highly detailed textures and patterns; this is due to the fact that it was processed in a dark room using multiple chemicals. This is why the edge is overexposed and has the fading look. Collie’s has positioned the subject in the centre of the frame to draw attention to them, which is an important aspect in portrait photography. By including props, like walking sticks, bowls in the background and a child, it creates a scene and a story which relates to the person being photography. We can tell by the image that the subject is of age due to a beard and the walking stick. This juxtaposes with the child on their lap.
In conclusion, archives are a good repository of knowledge and historic information, they are a good way to reflect on the past, as the contain historic photos and documents which can be compared to the present day. This shows a comparison of what life was like and how it has changed. The photos from the archives can help develop my project, as it displays different cultures and communities, which I can juxtapose to the current day and show how much they have changed. I can also use the archives to get photos to compare past and present buildings, this creates a comparison which shows a positive outcome.
Sebastiao Salgado, born in 1944, is a Brazilian social documentary photographer, known for taking powerful photographs that depict the lives of the suffering and oppressed. It can be said that this flare for activism originated when Salgado joined a political movement that opposed Brazil’s military government, in which he was exiled for. Salgado first started to take photographs after being sent to various African countries on business trips, whilst working as an economist. It is here that he became fascinated with the artform and as a result quit his job to pursue photography full time. This decision led to Salgado travelling to hundreds of countries for his different projects, often focusing on hardships of these places. This includes his project named ‘Workers’, published in 1993, which looked at the end of the large-scale industrial era.
Analysis
Sebastiao Salgado’s ‘Workers’ series
This black and white image taken by Sebastiao Salgado depicts a worn out firefighter drenched in oil walking towards the fiery landscape in the background. This high contrasting image displays a large juxtaposition between light and dark with the oil fuel inferno and the heavy dark smoke that is blackening the sky, leaving no trace of daylight. Here Salgado has confined the frame to only show one man and the impossible task he is faced with, leaving a section of empty space in the center that separates the two. This creates an ominous tone to the image that may both unnerve a viewer of this piece, and also cause them to be in awe of the worker’s bravery. In addition, it can be said that repetition is produced in this image with the round spattering of oil and the bubbled clouds of smoke rapidly emerging from the flames, that hold a similar form.
When looking at this piece technically, it is easy to see that this photograph was taken with solely natural lighting, due to the outside setting. Furthermore, Salgado’s main source of light for this image seems to be coming from the blazing flames in the background, as any sign of sun is block out by smoke. As a result of this lack of light the ISO setting used was presumably high, to create an image that would not be under exposed. The shutter speed used in order to take this photograph was most likely on a fast setting, as the clouds produced by the flames are in crisp focus but must have been forming and reforming at a rapid pace, the same can be said for the spurting oil. In addition, due to the fact that these flames are in focus, it can also be said that Salgado used a small aperture, allowing the entirety of the landscape to have the same amount of visibility.
This photograph was taken as part of Salgado’s ‘Worker’ series that was focused around oppressed manual labourers, that were considered to be over-worked and under-paid. This photograph tells the story of the environmental disaster that occurred in Kuwait in 1991. This expanse of fire and flames were a result of the Gulf War, that saw the United States pitted against Iraq in a fight over oil. With over 700 hundred oil wells alight, firefighters were given the impossible job of containing the raging flames. With this context, it is easy to understand the almost unfazed firefighter walking towards the fire, whilst being showered with oil, with his head hung low in disbelief and exhaustion. Salgado claimed that “In all my long life, I never again found this kind of light” when talking about the flames.
Percival Dunham
Percival Dunham is best known for being Jersey’s first photo journalist, taking many photographs for newspapers such as Jersey Illustrated Weekly and the Morning News from 1913 to 1914. Although little is known of his heritage, due to him having no records of family in Jersey, Dunham played a key role in the documentation of key events of Jersey’s history, contributing to the photographic archive immensely. The first records of Dunham are of his photography business, located on 57 Bath Street, in 1911. Before working as a photo journalist, Dunham was known for taking photographs of events such as the Battle of Flowers and the shipwreck of Roebuck. Dunham spent some time away from jersey when serving as a gunner during World War One, but returned soon after and married a Miss M Mourant.
Analysis
Percival Dunham – 1914
This black and white image taken by Percival Dunham displays troops packing up supplies and preparing to embark from Jersey harbour. Here a large contrast between light and dark is presented through the white uniforms of the soldiers and the darkness of the barrels, pier and the ships. Dunham has framed this image to show the military men in the foreground and the ships to the right in the background, showing the viewer what awaits them in their future. Leading lines in this photograph are created by what appears to be metallic pipes and tracks running across the ground, guiding the viewers eye down the slipway towards the ships and the sea.
From a technical viewpoint it is clear to see that this film photograph was taken with natural lighting, as a result of it being taken outside at a harbour. From the natural lighting, it could be said that this photo was taken at what seems to be midday from the brightness of the image, however this is hard to tell due to the overcast sky. With this it is probable that Dunham used a mid to low ISO setting to allow for a image that was not under exposed. In addition, it also appears that Dunham used a medium shutter speed setting, in order to capture the movement in this image clearly, but also letting enough light into the lens for the image to appear bright enough. Also, the aperture setting used was most likely low, allowing for the ships in the background to be clear and visible, as well as the soldiers at the front.
Here it is clear to see that this was a piece of Dunham’s photo-journalism, due to the candid and un-staged nature of the image. Dunham may have wanted to capture this photograph to display the serenity of the soldiers in that moment, in comparison to the harsh and violent conditions that await them. This can be related to Salgado’s ‘Workers’ image, in the sense that these men are both preparing to head into a place where their lives are being put in danger for their job.
On Monday 28th June, as a photography department, we had a day of learning and information at The Societe Jersiaise Photo Archives. During the day we went out into different areas of St Helier focussing on separate communities who came from different immigrant backgrounds, such as the Merchant Quarter, the French/Portuguese Quarters and the British Quarter. My aim for this photoshoot around town was to capture a sense of place, photographing different buildings, shops, businesses, architecture, streets as well as capturing some environmental shots of people working/living in or just travelling through these areas. The group I carried out this photoshoot with focused on walking through the French/Portuguese Quarters, I was able to plan while walking about the kind of people/places and types of buildings I wanted to take images of. My plan was to photograph the comparison between old and new St Helier buildings, showing how the sense of place changed over time, as new communities entered and old ones left. Additionally, I planned on capturing street photography inspired portraits of these communities to show a range of ethnicities residing on the island – I found it important while taking these images to be respectful around certain areas where people were not comfortable having their photo taken. Altogether, I really enjoyed this photoshoot around different migrant communities, showing a sense of place changing over time and people in a natural and not staged environment.
Editing – Contact Sheets
For the editing process of this photoshoot, I took a different approach, in class this week we learnt how to use different filters such as ‘flagging’ and ‘star rating’ using Adobe Lightroom to filter out specific images I liked or disliked to perform a quicker and easier edit. During the photoshoot I took around 100 images in St Helier, before importing them to Lightroom I did an initial sort through and delete of any images I knew that I did not like/did not tell a story or were just not right in lighting/angles – this left me with around 60 images which I imported to edit. Once my images were in Lightroom I went into ‘Develop’ mode to start filtering my preferred images. I started by trying 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 really helped speed up my selection 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 really assisted me in seeing which images worked better than the others.
Editing – Over Exposed
While I was editing my images, I discovered a few came out very over-exposed during the time where I was experimenting with my camera’s shutter speed. On Lightroom I went into develop mode to see whether I could edit these images to correct their exposure – under the ‘tone’ section I lowered the highlights, exposure and blacks. Furthermore, on the image where I have photographed the ‘Romanian Delight’ shop, under the ‘transform’ section I discovered how to straighten my image to create more symmetry and level lines throughout by changing it to ‘auto’. I wanted to edit these images in this way to represent and really show the bright colours of the communities we visited, heightening the vibrancy of the coloured houses and shops to demonstrate their character and beauty in the more secluded areas of town.
Editing – Black and White
During my editing process of this St Helier photoshoot, I decided to experiment with editing some of my images with a black and white filter. I wanted to edit in this way to see how darker and lighter tones would affect the mood and atmosphere of an image. I produced this edit in Adobe Lightroom, highlighting each of my five star flagged images and selecting the ‘soft black and white’ filter. After seeing what each image looked like black and white, I was able to select my favourite monochrome photos that worked best in terms of contrast and tone. Additionally, I chose these six images due to their link to my theme of this shoot, showing the change of a sense of place in St Helier through it’s architecture. Each image forms a pair with the one next to it, the left hand image represents an older sense of St Helier and the right image shows the more modern/re-built buildings around town. Each pair is a sort of mini sequence showing the progression of architecture, I love the way the ‘older building’ images have darker tones and harsher shadows which symbolizes the possible atmosphere of St Helier’s past around these secluded areas. Contrastingly, the ‘modern buildings’ hold lighter tones with more white and negative space, creating a clean and crisp atmosphere. The natural lighting produces a softer texture, which is interrupted by the repetition of details on each building such as the windows, brick work and doorways.
Final Edited Images
As well as producing black and white edits of certain images from this photoshoot, I have also decided to experiment with how different colours can tell a story within an image. I edited these final photos on Adobe Lightroom, after filtering out my favourites with flagging and star rating, exploring the different features of the app and correcting any mistakes made while photographing outdoors. For example, as shown before in this post, I made the mistake of over-exposing two interesting images, however was able to amend this by turning down highlights, blacks and exposure. Additionally, I wanted to portray the realness and natural atmosphere of these photographic locations, hence why I conducted minimal editing so not to tamper too much with the ‘sense of place’. I wanted vibrancy, however not so overly enhanced that the images looked artificial – I heightened the contrast and highlights of several images to achieve this bright and lively atmosphere. I wanted to edit my images in this way to juxtapose the otherwise empty streets I was capturing, while some images show life and movement, most are static without people to provide character. This was the main reason I wanted to show a sense of place with the area’s architecture, through repetition, space and shape, connoting the idea of a built up landscape of small business and homes which may not seem much to some, but to those living there is their world.
An archive is a database with records holding the history of humanity. These include, books, certificates, photographs, items and more.
These records actually gives the current and future generations knowledge of previous events, what the world used to look like in the past in comparison to today. They may also provide context which helps us understand why a certain picture was taken, it provides reference points between information sources which improves our knowledge of the world and past.
The reason to looking back into the past is so we learn about various events but most importantly past mistakes so we do not repeat history.
Société Jersiaise Photography archive
Only nine months after it was initially published in the major centres of England and France, photography arrived in Jersey on May 9 of 1840.
It features 19th-century photographs by notable photographers such as William Collie, Charles Hugo, Thomas Sutton, and Henry Mullins. The collection includes collections from late-nineteenth-century studios by Jersey photographers such as Ernest Baudoux, Albert Smith, and Clarence Ouless.
In the 21st century, we have had a major photo-journalist, the Emile Guiton-archive archive, who’s an honorary curator and the founder of the Photo Archive of Société Jersiaise, which contains more than a thousand negative images by Dunham Percival.
Along with this, we got the chance to see Mullins’s portraits of Victorian islanders as preserved on the pages of his photograph albums, which served as a catalogue of clients for his professional practice at the time.
Henry Mullins
Henry Mullins began his working at 230 regent Street, London in the 1840s. During this time he was part of the circle of photographic pioneers at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, Regent Street, London here the first photographic studio in Europe opened in 1941. Mullins then went to Guernsey in the summer of 1847 and ultimately moved to Jersey in 1848 and set up a studio called the Royal Saloon at the 7 Royal Square in St. Helier.
By 1849 he worked alone and began his work on Cartes de visite which translates to visiting cards. They were daguerreotype photographs which for Mullin, his subjects were people. He would take portraitures of family and their children. By the end of his life, he had created an album of at least 9,000 portraits of islanders between 1852 and 1873, Jersey population at the time was 55.00 therefore he managed to capture at least 16% of the population.
He was one of the most prolific photographers of the first generation of Jersey photographers in the mid-nineteenth century.
He ended up being the photographer of choice for leading members of Jersey society and successful local and immigrant families. It was common for his portraits to be printed on a visiting card which were commercial photographs created using egg whites to glue the photographic graphic chemicals to the paper. This is what a daguerreotype is. These cards were very small normally measuring 54×89 mm and commonly mounted on a piece of card measuring 64 by 100 mm. However, Mullin mounted his shots on an album.
Image analysis
Substance:
This image was taken in the 19th century by Henry Mullins.
Obviously, this is a daguerreotype; as mentioned above, “It was common for his portraits to be printed on a visiting card which were commercial photographs created using egg whites to glue the photographic graphic chemicals to the paper.”
It was taken to document the types of people in Jersey.
Composition:
Considering the image was taken in the 19th century, the composition of this image is quite amazing. For example, Mullins has successfully centred the subject. This suggests he used the rule of thirds to compose the image. This allows enough space for the subject to appear while revealing pieces of the background equally.
Evidently, the focal point of this image is the man. He appears to be important since he is wearing a uniform and uniforms were typical of someone of authority. Considering his dead stare, it may be argued he’s part of the military since they are normally serious. May be argued he’s a soldier since we see no medals.
Mise En Scène:
As mentioned in Composition:
We can successfully see Mullins has captured an image of someone of authority.
He’s dressed in uniform with buttons and a collar which usually suggest military.
His appearance is quite radiant but serious at the same time; having his eyes fixed on a specific point.
He appears to have a bag with him since there is a strap going over his chest.
Techniques:
This daguerreotype is a direct-positive procedure that creates a very detailed picture on a sheet of copper with a thin silver layer without the use of a negative. To fix the picture, the plate has been submerged in sodium thiosulfate or salt solution and subsequently toned with chloride gold.
Atmosphere:
This photograph makes me feel quite intimidated since he looks important.
This image also has me wondering who this man actually is, is he a soldier? Sergeant?
Lighting:
The lighting in this image is quite low due to the quality of the daguerreotype. However, it may be argued that artificial lighting was used since it was taken in a studio and only one part of his face us properly lit.
Obviously, there are dark tones in this image due to the process used.
Conclusion
In summary, I largely agree that we can really learn from prior photos. As noted earlier: “These records actually inform current and future generations of previous events about what the planet used to look like in the past. They can also provide a context which enables us to understand why a certain photograph has been shot, which provides points of reference between data sources that enhance our understanding of the world and the past.” In order to display the difference in classes we learned, for example.
Through his work we have also learned that everyone is human at the end of the day. His role, power and dressing are simply the only distinction between people.
In addition, it’s vital to look back at the past in order not to repeat past errors such as the holocaust but to learn about diverse events that have made humanity to where we are today.
On the other hand, I felt that photos and archives are vital for conveying a tale, for showing how people used to be and how we have thus far evolved.
Henry Mullins has led me to portray people from a range of professions for my own project. And to use film to generate an effect comparable to photographs of Mullins. I’ll take my time on vacations to Madeira (my place of birth), go to museums and possibly archives, and photograph Madeira and Jersey, since they have both shaped my identity.
Archives are an extremely important part of our history and help us understand our background through a visual representation. Archives represent three keywords – history, knowledge and power. This is because we learn through looking at images and doing research into our past that allows us to get knowledge about our history and what jersey or any place anyone has lived in looked like before. All this information and archives together gives us power as we can educate ourselves and what we do with this information is powerful as it gives us a more detailed insight into our past. Archival records take many forms, including correspondence, diaries, financial and legal documents, photographs, and moving image and sound recordings. All state governments as well as many local governments, schools, businesses, libraries, and historical societies, maintain archives. To understand the concept of archives in more detail we took a visit to the Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive. This is where over 36,000 images are stored from the mid-1840s to this present day. We got to learn about different photographers that influenced and shaped jersey photography for life as well as learning about all the unique techniques and processes these photographers used when it came to producing or even taking their photographs- such as daguerreotype, calotype, salt paper prints, wet plate collodion, albumen prints, autochrome and colour transparencies. Personally, the archives I keep are photos on my phone as I have so many, I like to store them for years to be able to look at them whenever I want as well as keeping and making photo albums of images of me and my friends to have a more visual copy of them instead of a digital copy only.
The photographer we chose to look at on our visit to the Societe jersiaise was Henry Mullins. Henry Mullins was the first professional photographer to come to Jersey and establish a portraiture business in the very early days of photography. Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. His focus was portrait photography – just under of his 10,000 photos are all digitally stored online and all of them are portraits. He took all his images in black and white and in an environment that fit the background of the individual he was photographing to allow us to gain knowledge and greater insight into what their life may have been like. His images of jersey people give us so much knowledge and him documenting all these different individuals lets us learn about people’s different classes, their wealth, how they dressed and basically how their everyday life may have been for them. Just by looking at all the different people in his images, we can learn about how people in the upper class dressed back in the day as they would usually be the individuals who wore suits or were photographed in offices and presented themselves well compared to the individuals who were dressed in old clothes and in a poor living environment such as just a chair or even standing outside or in a farm. Having Henry Mullins photograph the jersey community and society all the way from the mid-1840s allows us to gain knowledge about our early days and how different people’s lives or jobs were compared to how jersey functions in the present day.
This is one of the photographs that Henry Mullins took that I will choose to analyse. This photo is a portrait as that was his main focus. His image is in colour and the technique he used was Daguerreotype, in this image we can see a woman sitting on a chair ready to be photographed. A daguerreotype image is taken on a mirror-like silver surface and will appear either positive or negative, depending on the angle at which it is viewed, how it is lit and whether a light or dark background is being reflected in the metal. The darkest areas of the image are simply bare silver; lighter areas have a microscopically fine light-scattering texture. The surface is very delicate, and even the lightest wiping can permanently scuff it. Her hair is nicely put together and shes wearing a very formal dress which can tell us a lot about her wealth status, which I’m guessing shes upper class by the way shes dressed and the chair she is sat on looks very fancy. This creates knowledge for us as we get an idea of what women maybe in their later 20s to 30s looked like from different classes. It gives us an insight into how they dressed and what the fashion was like.
Overall, I think photo archives give us so much knowledge about our society in the early days and how our history has all been photographed in order for us to be able to reflect and keep learning about our past. It gives us such a rich insight into what we used to wear, the different job roles individuals had and allows us to see the difference in class and wealth throughout the years just through simple portrait photography – as Henry Mullins focused on. Photo archives are also important in educating us on how to improve as a society and seeing images from our past they help us in shaping our future. This has inspired me into thinking out my own photography project and our key theme which is identity and community. Just through photographing different individuals in town or around jersey will educate someone else in 50+ years’ time by looking at my images and they’ll be able to gain knowledge of what jersey used to be like in 2021 and onwards, they would be able to see what we wore in this present day and the difference still between our wealth status. Therefore, archives are so important to our society, and it helps us to learn, and we can gain a better understanding of our history as well as gaining knowledge of different individuals that used to live in Jersey as they all shaped our future and our day to day living standards.
Firstly, I converted the original colour image into black and white to add a uniformed monochromatic theme to the images.
I then adjusted exposure, brightness etc in order to achieve a higher contrast between the black and white tones, and to also give the images a similar tone overall, and making sure none were too dark or too bright.
I decided to make these images black and white as I believe this uniformed theme adds a sense of unity between the communities of Jersey, but also adds a sense of ambiguity to the identities of the people in the images.
On Monday June 7th, the school had arranged a trip to go to the Jersey Museum to discover an exhibition called ‘ People Make Jersey’. The exhibition showcased how immigration has influenced change in jersey from cultures, buildings and why people decided to immigrate to Jersey over the centuries. We learnt that in the 19th century that the jersey economy was boosted increasingly due to wealthy immigrants coming over. These individuals mainly came over from the UK or British colonies due to the attraction of the tax scheme, mild climate and for the way of life of living on the island. Due to these high value residents coming over to Jersey, this helped with creating local jobs and contributing to the growth of St.Helier in this time period.
After we went around the museum taking pictures of a rich merchants house, we went out on a walk through town with Stewart to take pictures of buildings and chimneys that had a lot more meaning behind them than anyone thought. For example there where buildings that have bricks which where darker than the others and the reasoning behind this was because those brick’s had been charred for a longer amount of time then the other brick’s in the process of making them. As for the yellow chimneys, we got told that they had some sort of military meaning behind them for the Jersey military in understanding which of those buildings that had the yellow chimneys where owned by the Jersey military.
