For my first photoshoot I walked the route above (from Royal Sq walk towards St Thomas Church via Broad St, Pitt St, Dumaresq St, Hue St, Le Geyt St, Devonshire Pl, Great Union Road + side streets with character, such as Journeaux St, Aquila Rd, Poonah Rd, Albert St, Columbus St, Dorset St, Clairvale Rd towards Rouge Boullion) and took photographs of anything which caught my eye or sparked my interest. I did my best to ensure that my images were as interesting and as eye catching as possible.
EDITING IN LIGHTROOM
To start with I imported all of my images into Lightroom into a collection called ‘Identity and Community‘ and then into a subfolder entitled ‘Photoshoot 1‘.
I then went through all of my images with the flag tool, and rejected the ones that I didn’t feel were my best work until I was left with a set I was happy with.
I then decided to give my remaining images a star rating out of 5 until I had my final images from my first photoshoot.
For my second photoshoot, I followed the same route (from Royal Sq walk towards St Thomas Church via Broad St, Pitt St, Dumaresq St, Hue St, Le Geyt St, Devonshire Pl, Great Union Road + side streets with character, such as Journeaux St, Aquila Rd, Poonah Rd, Albert St, Columbus St, Dorset St, Clairvale Rd towards Rouge Boullion). This time, however, I attempted to take photographs of different things that perhaps I hadn’t seen last time, or didn’t think were interesting enough. Again, I tried to keep my images as eye catching as possible. I also used the same methods of editing in Lightroom.
FINAL IMAGES
EVALUATION
Overall, I think that my images from both of my photoshoots around St Helier produced some good quality images. However, one thing which I could improve upon would be the positioning of the camera when I capture the images. This is because I had to reject some good photographs as they were wonky or blurry. For my next photoshoot my aim is to think more carefully about where I am positioning the camera as well as myself in order to produce an abundance of quality work.
‘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.’
Jersey’s first permanent settlers arrived around 7,000 years ago. They were driven by a changing climate to seek a new and sheltered place where they could plant their crops and raise their families. Since that time, waves of immigrants have arrived in Jersey. Some were fleeing religious or political persecution and they found refuge in this Island. Others were economic migrants seeking a better way of life for themselves and their families, from retired English army officers in the 19th century to Breton farm workers in the early 20th century.
The French Wars of Religion took place during the 16th century between Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants). Consequently, many Huguenots fled to Jersey in order to escape being persecuted for their beliefs. In fact, so many Huguenots came to the island that an additional market day had to be introduced to cope with the crowds. Large numbers of Protestants left France after 1685, when the Edict of Nantes was revoked, which took away their right to practice their religion. This therefore led to an influx of Protestant immigrants who established many small businesses on the island. The shipping industry was created on the back of the Atlantic cod trade. The first large scale commercial shipyard was built in Jersey in 1815. The industry benefited from the Island’s tax-free status, being able to import timber more cheaply than competing British shipyards. Much of the labour in the shipbuilding industry was migrant labour from other parts of the British Isles. The shipbuilding and shipping industries began to decline in the 1860s as a result of a depression in world trade and the switch from sail to steam.
From 1820 the Jersey economy was boosted by the first real inflow of wealthy immigrants, largely retired military offers, half pay officers and senior officials from the colonies. These individuals came mainly from the UK or British Colonies and were attracted by the tax regime, mild climate, improved travel and the Island way of life. It was estimated that there were 5,000 English residents in Jersey in the early 1840s three-quarters of these were half-pay officer s and their families. Their local spending power would have created local jobs and contributed to the growth of St Helier during this period. High Value Residents continue to come to Jersey for many of the same reasons.
The part of the exhibition which I found the most interesting was the ‘Alien Registration Cards’, which were introduced as a result of the Aliens Restriction Act passed in February 1920. Under this new law, all aliens over the age of 16 living in Jersey were forced to register with an Immigration Officer, no matter how old they were or how long they’d been living on the island. The Alien cards were issued up until the 1960s and, initially, any woman who married a foreign national was also required to register for a card, as well as anyone of foreign parentage.
We went on a walk around the Merchant Quarters, and took photos on our walk.
Route 1: Merchant quarter around St Helier Parish Church > Royal Sq, Library Pl, Bond St, Broad St, Mulcaster St, Hill St, Snow Hill, La Motte St, Colomberie > follow onto Ann St, Hillgrove St (French Lanes), Wesley St, Ingouville Pl, Belmont Pl/ St towards Minden Pl, Rue de Funchal walk towards Val Plaisant towards St Thomas Church.
Editing in Lightroom Classic
I imported all my photos from the walk into Lightroom Classic, then used the P and X method to filter out the good/bad images.
Example
This is an example of my editing process using the 2 images of the old cars.
BEFORE AND AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
For this edit, I wanted to show how simple life was in the old days without technology and other distractions. I started by removing the detail in the background where the door was. I then removed the modern lights on the wall with the spot healing brush, as they conflicted with the old car, as it is the main focus. I used the adjustment brush, to create a mask on the background then brought the shadows, and blacks down to make it completely black, to create a simply composition, made from the white wall, black background and the car.
BEFORE AND AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
I used the same process as the other car image, so they would match in a collection. Then I used Photoshop to edit the chain out of the photo, as it was distracting.
Editing a monochrome image
I made this photo into black and white to add more mood and make it more serious. The composition of the subjects is good as they are at different heights. It would of been better if they swapped places, so it wasn’t black on black, and white on white.
Final Image Selection
Meaning of the colours: – Green = Good – Yellow = Medium – Red = Bad
All the green colour coded images are the final images, and will be displayed below.
Final Images
Analyse
Overall, I like how my images turned out. Most of the images were colourful, and used different techniques.
The street art image was taken using my phone as a reflection, so that way I didn’t have to include all the people walking on the pavement. Instead, it created a unique reflection.
The restaurant and the portrait of the lady, were both using the framing technique. It helped removed unnecessary features and it leads the eye to the subject.
I really like the images of the cars. I was able to accomplish the simplified style I was going for by darkening the shadows, and removing modern light. the teal/light blue car really stands out against the white walls, and dark floor and background.
In this photoshoot, we walked around certain areas of town in order to capture elements of community and identity. I tried to focus my work on identity of communities reflected in the architecture of the area, such as English-style buildings and more colourful, unique building designs. I also managed to capture candid portraits that reflect a particular part of that person’s identity, such as their job or hobbies.
I think my photos highlighted in green are my most successful images as the distinctively capture the identity of a singular person or a group of people. The way the images capture both the person’s clothing as well as the surroundings around them, such as a building site or an area where a a particular community inhabit provides an easier outlook onto that person’s life through their career or hobbies.
I believe the images with a red cross through them are my least successful as the theme of identity and community can only be applied very vaguely, as majority of these images are close-ups of random buildings or have distractions in the image, such as other people on the trip taking images at the same time.
To edit these images, I will add a black and white filter and make the contrast slightly more exaggerated. This is to give them a similar appearance to the images in the archives, and provide a vintage atmosphere to the images.
for my first chosen photographer I have decided to look into Will Lakeman‘s work. He looks into social housing buildings and photographs many different buildings and flats which show the whole structure and community of Jersey.
some of his work-
I wanted to look at his work and take inspiration from him as I want to photograph town and look at the community within st. helier.
The second contemporary photographer I want to look at is Robert Adams he is an American photographer who has focused on the changing landscape of the American West. His work first came to prominence in the mid-1970s through his book The New West and his participation in the exhibition New Topographics. He looks at the community by focusing on taking photos of simple buildings and areas of a city that identify a place.
some of his work-
analysis of their images-
Will Lakeman image-
This image I have chosen to analyse uses lots of colour as well as having extremely dark almost completely black areas in order to create a very sharp and powerful contrast between the beaming coloured lights. This photo was taken at night or perhaps just right after the sun has set as there are still some light blue undertones in the sky however that could just be the powerful reflection of the coloured lights. The lights in each flat are very bright which capture the viewers attention directly at the building as the rest of the image is just a dark background consisting of cars and street lamps. The building being centered right in the middle of the image has a powerful effect as it makes it the main focus and grabs your attention right away being able to see all the different colours of the light that are shining through the flats. The trees on the ground level have also been positioned well in the image as the two trees at the front are well lined up with the two columns of windows going up the apartment building. I think this image really makes you think about how there are so many little lives in each window in the building and almost every colour reflecting tells a different story as everyone in the building thats living there has such a different background. I think this photographer captures the idea of Identity and Community’ very well as identifies Jersey as lots of buildings with so many stories inside and it can give you an idea of what town would look like if you were going to walk through it at night. I think Will waiting for the perfect time , night time, to capture this image as it let him capture all the different colours and night time is when the day is coming to an end which means that is when everyone is home together which creates this safe feeling of the community being shown.
Robert Adams image-
In contrast to Will, Robert Adams image I chose to analyse is very different and the complete opposite. I like how simple yet effective Roberts images are at capturing the community to show what the living environment of that city is. His image contains very strong contrasts between black and white, as well as using a variety of different tonal shades. This allows you to see all the houses more clearly as they stand out extremely from the dark shades that surround them. The composition of this image is done very well as the houses are photographed on the bottom half of the image and the sky is the upper half of the image. This separates the image well and creates an even divide between the two. The sky is a lot lighter than the houses which creates a very powerful contrast. I dont think there’s any meaning behind Robert Adams images as his focus was to just photograph the simplicity of buildings and different communities in certain cities or towns he visited.
To start my editing process i imported images into a new collection i made. I used ctrl and P and X to select my favourite images. By clicking P lightroom would flag my image making it one of my chosen images and clicking X made sure I dont use the images when editing further/into the second stage.
After selecting my favourite images, I use the star ratings to rate my images from 1-5 stars. Images that I rated 3+ stars i will keep and continue to edit them in the next stage.
Once i filtered out my images and kept the ones with 3+ star ratings I used the compare tool to decide which image I like more when I had 2 similar images
I then went onto develop mode and edited all my final chosen images.
some of my final and edited images;
I took photos in St.Helier around town of the where the rich quarters used to be back in the days as well as mixing it with some roads that are known to be the french and Portuguese roads , most of buildings used to be huge houses with many floors and rooms however now they all have turned into flats and usually get sold for quite a cheap price.
Dana Lixenberg (born 1964)s 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.
Her most recent project is called “Imperial Courts”, and was made between 1993-2015. It is a project about Imperial Courts, a social housing project in Watts, Los Angeles. The project contains work made over a period of 22 years and consists of a book, exhibition and web documentary.
“Austere and involved perspective” was her style as quoted by Muse Magazine, by one of her most great supporters.
Mood Board
This images were constructed from Dana Lixenberg’s website in the Portrait section.
Firstly, Lixenberg has positioned her subject in a way which creates a moody composition. The subject, isn’t making eye contact , which signifies anger and wanting to be alone, to not talk to anyone. The subject is also slightly leaning forwards to create an engaging pose, and he has his body and shoulders slightly away from the camera for a more natural feel.
This image was shot in natural daylight, so the subject is well lit. It is most likely a overcast day, as the whites in the image aren’t overexposed, and there are shadows on the subject face, which helps to create depth and define facial features.
Lixenberg used a low aperture e.g. f/1.8 and focused on his eyes, to completely blur the background which helps keep the focus on the subjects face. It also slightly blurred the subjects jacket as well, which created a distinction between his chin and the jacket has they are of similar colour. The background is a good choice, as is completely white, which draws attention to the subject.
Lixenberg, probably used a 50mm lens as the subject fills up most the frame. She was close to the subject to get a sharper image. The reason why I think she shot with a 50mm lens, is because anything over 50mm it can make the subjects facial features seem flattened, and anything under 50mm creates lens distortion.
Overall, I like the aesthetic which Lixenberg was going for. I think it is a great image, and an interesting subject. The detail in his hair and beard help create a unique composition to demonstrate mood. The black and white effect makes us pause and look closely. Removing colour from a picture helps the viewer to focus on a subject’s emotional state.
Links
Imperial Courts introduction video made by Dana Lixenberg:
A great supporter of Dana Lixenberg’s “austere and involved perspective”, he was the first in the United States to publish a portfolio of her Imperial Courts series
I will plan a shoot in her style in a separate blog post. Where I get up close headshots of people using a low aperture, and a 50mm lens. I will ask people in town with interesting facial features.
The ‘People Make Jersey’ exhibition showcased within Jersey Museum, allowed us as students to explore the rich history Jersey contains as well as its vast number of occupants that have helped shape that history. This exhibition displayed just how much variety Jersey has in terms of culture, describing the Island as a mixing pot of people who have come from countries all over the world, or even people who’s families have been here for centuries. From visiting this exhibition I have learnt of the many different stories of migration that played a crucial part in creating Jersey’s cultural identity, varying from religious and political refugees to economic migrants.
One section of the ‘People make Jersey’ exhibition focused on the many ‘Alien’ registration cards, which were introduced in 1920 and issued to migrants who had relocated to Jersey. These cards displayed various pieces of information such as the profession, previous residence and nationality of the person, alongside an image of them. This therefore gives us a visual representation of the many different backgrounds and stories Jersey holds in small fragments. In addition, this also allowed for the public of Jersey to be given an opportunity to view images and information of distant family members, that established their roots on the island, for the first time, providing them a link to their diverse family histories.
Another section of the exhibition on the other hand, looked at family names that are often associated with being typical ‘Jersey’ names which contain a long line of family history on the island. Originally, these typical ‘Jersey’ names were in fact used to identify where certain immigrants were from, with names such as Le Breton, De Gruchy, Norman and more originating from various areas in France, and names such as Hamptonne, Le Gallais and Langlois originating across Great Britain. Even hundreds of years later after first arriving in Jersey, these predominant names can still be seen and recognised as an important part of the island, with establishments like Normans and De Gruchy, located in town, still running to this day.
However, when reflecting on the statement ‘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.’ displayed within the exhibition, I found that the section that explained the English influence to Jersey life, to be personally the most interesting aspect. This is as although I was born on the island, the rest of my family originated mainly from Manchester and had no previous links with the island. I was even more so fascinated with the small piece of the exhibition that explained the introduction of the English education to the island, made first available to the boys at Victoria College, due to the fact that my mother first moved to the island to continue her career as a teacher, as a result of Jersey being in a shortage of the profession.
The exhibition is based on the fact that, “Every Jersey resident has a story of how they come to be living in the Island, whether their family came here 500 years ago or five years ago. ‘People Make Jersey’ explores some of these stories and the ways in which immigration has shaped and influenced the Island we know today.”
The oldest items in the exhibition belonged to Jersey’s first permanent settlers, who arrived around 7,000 years ago. The created basic stone tools and lived in a sheltered place where they could plant their crops and raise their families.
Picture of tools, Jadeite polished stone axe and ring. These would have been brought into Jersey from mainland France around 6,000 years ago.
It then follows the waves of immigrants who have arrived in Jersey over the centuries. Some of the people were religious, which introduced different cultures and beliefs into the island.
There was an glass display island in the exhibition which displayed lots of passport type cards. These were the Aliens registration cards, which show lots of French people living in Jersey in 1920.
There were also some residents from much further afield. Jersey in 1920 was a surprisingly international community. E.g. Belgium, Toulouse, and Czech Slovakia.
There was a wall which featured the current generation holding there ancestors registration cards, this was a good way to visualise the different cultures in Jersey and its history.
Near to the registration cards, there was a map on the wall, which mostly focused on France. It showed where some of the popular surnames originated from. In the old days the surname just meant where you were from, e.g. John Coutanche, who was from Coutances, France. These are all the names and places displayed on the map :
UK – LANGLOIS from England – LE GALLAIS from Wales – HAMPTONNE from Southampton
FRANCE – DE CARTERET from Carteret – DE LA HAYE from La Haye de Puits – DE GRUCHY from Gruchy – COUTANCHE from Coutances – LE BRETON from Brittany – NORMAN from Normandy – PERCHARD from the Perche region – LE POIDEVIN from Poitou – D’AUVERGNE from Auvergne region.
There was a wall that had items which people brought to Jersey when they first came. Each person had one item that had a significant value/memory to them. Some of the weird/interesting items was a, Potato grater, which was brought to Jersey from Poland by Karolina Klonowska, as it was very old and belonged to here grandmother, she brought it to Jersey so she could cook her favourite Polish dishes. There were other items such as dolls, passports and, musical instruments such as a flute.
Around the exhibition there were old images of Jersey maps, notes and news papers. I thought they were interesting as so much has changed over the years, for example the Waterfront wasn’t even there in the map, as it was build recently. These are the Old vs New comparisons using images from the exhibition and new versions from today.
OLD NEWSPAPER VS NEW NEWSPAPER
OLD MAP VS NEW MAP
OLD FRENCH MONEY
PHOTO SHOOTS
After the exhibition, we visited the Victorian part of the museum, and went on 2 walks round town. The first walk we were looking at the different types of bricks and stones in the buildings. There was this one building which have blue bricks that reflected in the sunlight (the building with the French flag). The second walk we went round town. This is a image of a map where we went. We took photos as we walked around town of the buildings and anything we saw, mainly focusing on:
MIGRANT COMMUNITIES IN ST HELIER – a sense of place – character of community – people, portraiture
EDITING IN LIGHTROOM CLASSIC
I imported all my images into Lightroom from the museum trip on the 7th June.
This is the selected flagged images, that use the p (pick) and x (reject). The white flag is placed on the good images, where as a black flag on the rejected images. I used this to filter all my images, which was around 300 to get it down to 10-30 good images.
I did basic adjustments to the images, increasing clarity, decreasing dehaze, increasing contrast etc. Including gradient and radial filters.
I took some of the images into Photoshop (using edit in –> Adobe Photoshop, option in Lightroom) and removed distracting elements such as ropes and security cameras.
I tried a black and white, (monochrome) look to see if it would add more drama and create a moody atmosphere.
Then I used Lightroom compare view to compare the edited black and white image with the edited colour image.
Portrait – I like how the black and white brings out the details, and adds more age to the image. This works well due to the subject being of age. Although, I prefer the colour version as it shows more personality, which is crucial in portrait photography. The detail in his eyes and mouth is more defined in the coloured image, the colours also create depth, which is hidden in the black and white version.
Detailed Image – There is lots of detail so, the black and white image separates the whites and the blacks making them more defined creating depth. It gives a cleaner look the the image, but this is not the aesthetic I wanted as it is a messy, dirty building site. Which is why I like the coloured image more, as I shows sections of dull colour between the metal poles.
Fast Shutter Speed Image – This image shows motion in the faster flying birds, whist still freezing time as the birds fly. I like this image better in black and white, as there is more contrast and detail, compared to the coloured version. It also helps bring out the shadows in the birds more.
CHOOSING MY FINAL IMAGES
Lightroom made it easier to see all my images, as they were all in one place. Lightroom has different view features, such as, full screen, compare view, and survey view.
I used the survey view to display my good images, them I ordered them best to work using the star system inside Lightroom.
The purple colour tagged image was the best/my favourite, so I marked it 5 stars. This becomes useful when I have to make a zine, so I can just filter by 4+ stars, so I get my best images.
I colour coded my images based on its topic. Ill will try to keep it consistent throughout to year, so it is easier to find images.
The colours are: – Yellow – Indoors – Green – Outdoors – Red – Portrait (environmental) / People – Purple – Black and white photography
These are the final images in Lightroom, I then exported them into my PHOTO-SHOOTS folder in a sub-folder called June 7th Edits.
FINAL IMAGES
The larger images are my favourite ones, as there have a really nice compositions and colour.
Overall, there was a good variety of images, consisting of portraits and street photography. My favourite type is street photography, just walking around and using temporary objects to create foreground elements, since I use angles, reflections, and shapes to create my images, E.g. the car reflection in the orange street art image.
‘People Make Jersey’ was an exhibition held at the Jersey Museum which we visited on Monday June 7th. Information and facts on resident’s of Jersey’s history were displayed around the site, from farmers to local last names, the exhibition told it all. We started the day with a talk from an expert at the exhibition who took us around the area explaining different sections, such as information on religious/political refugees, economic migrants that arrived to support new industries such as oyster fishing, ship building, construction, agricultural workers and tourism.
Statement from ‘People Make Jersey’ –
‘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.’
After attending the exhibition, I carried out some further research by speaking with my grandparents about their heritage, where their family lived, their jobs and any other interesting information on their lives being residents of Jersey. At the exhibition I was really interested in a display listing several local Jersey surnames, the display had information about where these surnames originated from and when conducting further research I wanted to discover more. When speaking with my grandmother she told me of how people of similar last names in Jersey would live in specific areas of the island. For example, my grandmother’s maiden name is Perchard; a very local Jersey name meaning ‘a man from Perche in the South of Normandy’ – many Perchard’s resided in the east of the island, in St Martin and Grouville. Additionally, when speaking with my grandfather he told me of how his father was born in Jersey and how people with his (and my) surname of Mariette were also from the East of the island in Gorey, and how many Mariette’s were fishermen. More on Jersey surnames can be found here. I found out that my grandmother’s parents were also both born in Jersey and as were their parents before that, when asking my grandmother about her parents careers she told me of how her father was the manager of a big general merchants store called ‘George D Laurens’ which was believed to be established as early as the 18th century, originally a hardware store but by the 1960s was one of Jersey’s major toy shops as well as selling general goods. I found it so interesting to compare some of my family’s heritage to the peoples I read about at the Jersey Museum, learning about their careers and lives was very eye-opening.
St Helier’s History – Stuart Fell
Later in the day, half of us joined Stuart Fell on a walk around the St Helier town centre discovering information about the architecture of this area in Jersey. We learnt about how wealthy residents who arrived in Jersey had an impact on these buildings, I found it so interesting to find out about how influential these people were in actually creating the foundations of our island. Stuart also gave us heaps of information on the different types of bricks used in St Helier’s architecture, for example we found out that brick making was once a thriving industry in the island during the 19th Century, which traded across the world, and that the most common colour of Jersey brick was red. On our walk we looked out for any red bricks in building’s chimneys, as Stuart informed us they could have been built over 150 years ago. More information on the Jersey brick making industry from islander Enid Gautier can be found here.
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