Hamptonne Country Life Museum is a unique insight into the rural life carried on in Jersey for centuries. Hamptonne was originally a completely working farm from 1663, it gained its name from the original owner,  Laurens Hamptonne. Through Hamptonnes buildings, you can find 2 different time periods, the farm area being based around the medieval times and the courtyard being based around 19th century.

Hamptonne is well known in jersey for its cider production and also annual cider festival ‘La Fais’se de Cidre’. They make their cider the ‘old-fashioned’ way with a horse pulling the machine.

Hamptonnes history is lived through the actors who work there. The actors get into the clothes of people from the time, in the outfits they would’ve worn to do their jobs. Two of the actors were dressed as traditional wool spinners, we were spoken through some of the history of jersey and wool products production which used to be a big market in jersey.

during our visit to Hamptonne, we looked around the farm and took pictures as we went a long. this taught me to adjust my ISO to be able to capture the correct lighting. we also met with a photographer called Tom Kennedy. Tom is a freelance photographer who is highly involved with Jersey Heritage he also runs a production company ‘Little River Pictures’. Tom talked us through information about lighting, placement and many other things about producing a successful photoshoot. We communicated with the lady we were photographing and also experimenting with different heights and angles. Tom also introduced us to a portable light reflector, which helps control the lighting when outside of a studio.

We were introduced to the art of cyanotypes, one of the earliest forms of photography. We began by gathering sticks, feathers and other random natural objects that we found across Hamptonne. Producing the cyanotypes was a very exciting experience as we had to work quickly and plan what we were going to do before hand.