A photo archive is a collection of photographs created or brought together by an individual or institution. In the 21^st century, a photo archive could be analog or digital, or both. Photo archives are typically used by museums and institutions to record objects in their care. The photographs in an archive might have been assembled for a specific purpose or for multiple uses, for an individual or a wider audience. For instance, a scholar may take photographs and assemble and preserve them online for future research purposes. This would be a private photo archive.

Why are photo archives important?

Photo archives are important to keep a record of important events and artifacts in history to look back on over time, the bigger the archive, the wider the understanding – photo archives are usually kept in prints depending on how old the collection is, but with new technology the majority of archives can now be found online.

The Jersey photographic archive

Jersey has it’s own photographic archive which contains over 125,000 photographs of different aspects of Jersey culture including the changing landscape, important artifacts and major events that have happened in Jerseys history. The photographic archive is important because it helps educate people about Jersey’s heritage.

The Société Jersiaise was formed in 1873. Included in its founding objectives were the creation of a museum and library. Publication of a Bulletin Annual commenced in 1875, and an annex to the society’s second Annual Report for 1876 drew the attention of members to the importance of a number of important subjects including, ‘Recording in permanent photography local prehistoric monuments, buildings and ruins.’

With the practice and collecting of photography already identified as priorities, these activities were continued as significant parts of the society’s museum and library. Multiple interests in the medium of photography, as a method for recording research, as documentary and scientific records and as an independent art form are actively maintained by society members to the present day. These patterns of development, established over more than 140 years, have resulted in the accumulation of a photographic archive which is remarkable in its insular context.

Thomas Sutton

Thomas Sutton, who opened a photographic studio in Jersey in 1847, the year after graduating from Cambridge University, is one of the most important people in the history of world photography. He took the world’s first permanent colour photograph in 1861, and invented the single lens reflex camera in the same year. He also developed the first panoramic camera with a wide-angle lens.

In 1859 Sutton developed the earliest panoramic camera with a wide-angle lens. The lens consisted of a glass sphere filled with water, which projected an image onto a curved plate. The camera was capable of capturing an image in a 120 degree arc.Another photographic development was the first single lens reflex camera, in 1861. He was also the photographer for James Clerk Maxwell’s early experiments in color photography and in 1861 took the world’s first permanent color photograph of a Tartan ribbon. Maxwell directed Sutton to take three photographs of the ribbon, through red, green, and blue filters. The plates were developed and projected on a screen by three projectors, each with the same color filter used to take its photograph. When brought together in focus, a full-color image was formed. He also worked on the development of dry photographic plates.

Website links

theislandwiki.org

Photographic Archive

https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/what-is-the-future-of-the-photo-archive/

Introduction

‘Our mission is to produce and facilitate research on the Island’s history, culture, language and environment; and to share that knowledge with the widest possible audience for the benefit of our island community.’ Reflects how The Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive association is committed to illustrating the island history and the important events that have occurred in time. Furthermore, it demonstrates that they are encouraging the expansion of their knowledge to all groups of individuals as they clearing have a lot of knowledge and understanding that they would like to share with the public.

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From looking back at photographic archives from the past we can get a better understanding of the lives of people that have previously lived in the Island and how this is different to our modern lifestyles today. Further evidence that our lives have changed can be found in everyone’s personal archives, for example some carry journals/ diaries to literately document their lives. The easiest modern way we keep an archive of our experiences is our phone albums, as they are easily accessible and can hold ten of thousands of images.

Henry Mullins

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Being one of the first major establishers of La Société Jersiaise, Henry Mullins is one of the most influential members of the association, originally working in London during from 1840 and later moving to Jersey in 1848, Mullins set up his studio at the royal square with his partner Mr Millward. He created his personal Photographic Portrait Room at his archive site at the Royal Square and the purpose of the studio was to span three decades and produce at least 20,000 images, including two albums of Calotypes, containing about 10,000 portraits dating from 1850 to the early 1870s, now in the Société collection. This was only set up as his he originally got members of the public to want their portrait taken by him, this is how Mullins ended up with such a large collection of photographs. From looking and analysing Henry Mullins’ work we can gather an understanding of the different types of people living in Jersey from 1848 to 1883 after he had passed away. There is evidence of a wide variety of lifestyles as Mullins’ photographed individuals in many different professions such as soldiers, nurses and even people in the highest and power. Such as having the honour of photographing Queen Victoria I with the Duke and Duchess of York.

This photo, taken in the 19th century is one of Mullins’ most famous pieces of work, as it documents one of the most influential individuals of the century, and someone with very high power and authority. This demonstrates the lives of members of the royal families and this piece could be showing Queen Victoria in the publics eyes. As it illustrates the high standards that the public would have expected her to practise in her reign, such as always meeting royal expectations and procedures. This is implied as the viewer can see how perfect she is just from evaluating her clothing, hair and even the background of the photograph. The image is filled with evidence, such as the furniture, that helps us imply information about royal families at the time, the setting of this piece is important to note as the wealth is shown not just through the monarch herself, but through her assets.

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Archives are valued sources of physical information about the history of Jersey (in this case), they help to tell stories through photographs. These can be stories about individual people, explaining aspects of their lives such as their upbringing, or simple their current identities. Photographic archives provide easy access and materials in order to gather an understanding of the different social class during a specific period of time. For example, the divide between the proletariat and the bourgeoise during the 1910s, at time at which the distinction between employees and employers was exceedingly evident.

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Additionally, archives they could represent major events from which have occurred in the past, helping to teach younger people the value of history, including the challenging times their ancestors may have had to encounter. Another positive aspects of learning about archives is they have given me inspiration for my own final project as it helps emphasise the need to learn about the past visually and not just thought written works. This means that I now have a visual understanding of the types of images to put into my own work such as zines and maybe even my own final project if I were to create an archive of my current and past photography work.

Moodboard

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Artist Reference: Koh Myung Keun 

Koh Myung Keun is a Korean, Seoul-based modern and contemporary artist and photographer born in 1964, whos work begins with the inquiry of “defining truth”. He has held multiple solo and group exhibitions featuring his work, ranging from a focus on the ” ideal human figure” as to “create fiction”, to a focus on the Asian cities visited by him, creating unique looking landscapes of those areas.

He uses sculptures made from semi-transparent layers of digital prints, made from film laminated with plastic, to give his sculptures a memorable effect when viewing them. The name of his ‘Blending Space’ exhibition perfectly describes his works, especially the landscape-focused ones, as he seems to blend the images together with his technique of placing the images together

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A video of Koh Myung Keun describing his works.

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Similarities and Differences between his Works

Koh Myung Keun’s work usually involves his signature use of semi-transparent material, which gives his photographs a physical structure, but at the same time (especially when using more than one photograph), makes the images themselves lose regular structure and become something more abstract. Koh Myung Keun also tends to change up the shape of the sculptures between each one, giving the sculptures a sense of originality, however, if one of the works is within a series, then it may be likely that he will use a similar, or the same, shape.

One clear difference between his works is that in some sculptures he puts and emphasis on the human body/form (such as Body House 9) and tries to make an abstract image using little colour and soft lines, while others, he uses more industrial landscape scenes such as a building face or interior, which tend to use more colour and harsher shapes/lines (such as Building 62). Some of his works include more natural and cultural subject matter (such as Buddha 1). I think it is interesting that he named a series of his body-focussed works ‘Body House’, as ‘body’ and ‘house’ seem to contrast with each other thematically, however the ‘house’ part of the name comes from the structure itself, while the ‘body’ takes from the photograph itself.

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Image/Sculpture Analysis

This sculpture appears to be made up of four sides, each with the same photograph. Due to this and the semi-transparent nature of the images, a 3D effect is created, this is especially apparent with the washing line, as it seems to fully form a square with an appropriate depth. The shape of the sides gives the sculpture a sense of verticality, which allows the photograph to inherit this sense of verticality, as it allows for a taller frame. This shows much more of the building than what would have been seen if Koh Myung Keun had used a square, since the second floor and leaves that seem to adorn it would be cut out. The photographs themselves seem to be taken from the second floor, giving the lower half of the image a downwards viewpoint. Due to the images being printed onto semi-transparent material, the image’s colour has slightly faded, I think this fits with the image itself, as it gives it a softer look that pairs well with the homely subject matter of the image. The palette is fairly limited, with the image being made up mainly of greys, reds and greens, all of these colours have a fairly warm tone.

What is a zine?

Zines are miniature magazines filled with images and text, usually trying to spread some kind of message. They’re a small-circulation of 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.

The difference between magazines and zines is that magazines are often produced by publishing companies and zines are self published. Magazines also focus on selling advertising space and making a profit, whilst zines are mainly created for spreading bold, strong, revolutionary ideas.

History of zines:

Zines were first created in the science fiction fandoms in the 1930s and they were names “fanzines” which means fan magazines. Before the internet, zines allowed fans to create networks, share ideas and analyses, and collaborate on writing and artwork. The very first zine dates back to May of 1930 in the USA. A little publication called The Comet was first created by the Science Correspondence Club. The letter section of the zine was a prominent feature, where fans discussed science as well as science fiction.

For my project I will be creating a photo zine with little to no text because I want the main focus of the zine to be the images inside of it. I will be using mostly black and white images because I feel like he colour will take the meaning away and because it looks neater that way. I will juxta position my images with photographs from the Societe Jersiaise because I want to show contrast of how things were back then and now.

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How do archives function as repositories of knowledge? 

Archives preserve information from around the globe, like records of an individual’s personal life, and keep it safe for generations. They come in all sorts of forms from government documents to letters and paintings. Archives are very important because they usually hold a lot of important information about a certain culture which helps historians and helps us remember where we came from. In this essay I will be mostly talking about photo-archives, which are records of time in the form of photographs, as well as the Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive. I’ll also talk about to what extent archives function as repositories of knowledge, which refers to the way the data is kept and organised in order to be used by more people. 

Believe it or not, we all have our own private photo-archives because of our mobile phones and family albums, birth certificates etc. The camera roll in our phones can keep safe thousands of images taken all around the world and in different years. Everyday people take hundreds of images without realising they’re creating an archive of moments frozen in time. When we decide to post those images on social media platform, we also create another archive as those pictures are now displayed elsewhere and preserved. 

Societe Jersiaise, also known as the ‘Jersey Society’, was formed in 1873 by a small group of islanders that were interested in the island, the number then grew as more people became aware of this group. Their aim was to create a museum and a library, but at their second Annual Repost their attention was drawn to the importance of ‘Recording in permanent photography local prehistoric monuments, buildings and ruins’, this was because at the time photography had become quite a popular medium. The practice and collecting of photography became one of their priorities and that’s when they started putting photographs in the museum and library, which led to the photographic archive we have today. The photographic archive has now of over 125,000 images dating back to mid-1840s to the present day; 30,000 of these archives are available online on their website for people to see and purchase. The Island of Jersey has rich history of photographic practice as a territory geographically and culturally positioned between Britain and France, two nations that were prominent in the development the medium of photography. The society also has a library which gives access to the people living on the island to learn more about Jersey history, identity and geography. This library is a good tool for islander and visitors from across the world to learn more about Jersey culture and even their own heritage as these archives tend to have Jersey family trees as well. 

Henry Mullins (1818-1880) is a very important Jersey photographer from the mid-nineteenth century. He is most known for producing thousands of portrait photographs of the Jersey islanders between 1848 and 1873 at his highly successful studio that was located in the Royal Square, St. Helier. Before arriving to the Channel Islands, Mullins was part of the circle of pioneers at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in London where the first photographic studio in Europe was opened in 1841. In the summer of 1847 Mullins arrived in Guernsey and a year later he settled in Jersey where he stayed until the end of his life. Many photographic studios had opened in the 50s and 60s, but Mullins continued to be the photographer of choice for members of the Jersey Society and local and immigrant families. This shows that his work was really good at his job and that he is a very important individual when it comes to Jersey history and the archives of the island. Today there are 9,861 images Henry Mullins has taken in jersey that are available to view online on the Societe Jersiaise website.  

A technique he used to use is called the “multi-portrait” and it’s where he would use 4 different portraits and arrange them almost in the shape of a diamond. This image shows the same woman being photographed from 4 different angles. The top image is her looking straight at the camera, on the left you see her facing left just like how on the right she seen to be looking to the right, then the bottom image is her looking left again but her head is not as tilted as in the other images, and you can see both sides of her face. 

In conclusion, I think archives, especially photo archives, are really helpful to make us understand more about the island’s culture and history. Photographs are very helpful because they allow us to clearly see what was happening at the time and compare different time periods with each other. The way they are stored, e.g. public libraries, makes them very accessible to everyone who wants to gain more knowledge an understanding of a specific time period and culture. I think the archives will help me with my own work as I will be able to visibly see more about the islands heritage and learn about how people used to live at the time. The Jersey archives are also really good at showing us the islands geology and geography which works well with our current project called “My Rock”. 

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Sources:

Societe Jersiaise

Intro to photographic archives

Henry Mullins

Jerripedia

STORY: What is your story?

Describe in:

3 words: island rocks different

A sentence: Different types of rocks across the island of Jersey.

A paragraph: In my zine I will be looking at 5 different locations around Jersey and explore the different types of rocks you can find. I will also be comparing my images to the ones from Societe Jersiaise and look at how much or how little the geography or geology of the island has change through out the years.

NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?

Images > new photographic responses, photo-shoots of objects…

Archives > images from SJ photo-archive, found imagery…

Texts > experiment with typography, key words, poems…

History

the Societe Jeriaise’s mission is to produce and facilitate research on the Island’s history, culture, language and environment; and to share that knowledge with the broadest possible audience for the benefit of our island community. The Société holds extensive bibliographic, cartographic, photographic and research collections which act as their long-term memory. These collections provide a vital resource informing contemporary study and value for the community through a greater understanding of our shared heritage, identity and environment.

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The Société Jersiaise was founded in January 1873 by a small number of Islanders who were interested in the study of the history, the language and the antiquities of Jersey. Once the Société Jersiaise was up and running memberships grew quickly and the aims of the new society soon included a variety of publications of historical documents, the founding of a museum and the study of the Island’s natural history. The Société’s first Bulletin Annuel was issued in 1875 and remains the main record of their activities.

The Societe’s Museum found a permanent home in 1893 when they moved to 9 Pier Road, a large early nineteenth-century merchant’s house.  The Museum and its extensive Museum collections are now looked after by Jersey Heritage but they continue to add to its collections annually.  In 1977 they built a large extension to our Museum on the site of No 7 Pier Road to house the library and meeting rooms. Their Headquarters contains their offices and purpose-built archive storage.

The Museum and other collections have been largely built up through gifts and bequests which has ensured its preservation of many important items with relevance to Jersey including; books, manuscripts and maps, photographs, prints and paintings, archaeological finds and historical items.

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Emile F Guiton

Honorary Curator of the Museum and Editor of the Annual Bulletin, Emile F Guiton is considered to be the founder of the Photographic Archive at the Société Jersiaise. He was also an excellent photographer making use of a rapidly expanding medium in the early 20th century to record important historical sites, events and objects.

In honour of Emile and his legacy, the Societe Jersiaise decided to launch Éditions Emile, with each issue of ED.EM. They take a fresh look at a specific collection within the archive, pairing it with either another collection or contemporary work, in order to re-contextualise the images, keeping the collections active and relevant for new audiences.

The surname Guiton is said to be on the derivation of Jersey names to come from the old French word for ‘page-boy’. But, other sources suggest that while of ancient French origin, that this surname may be an occupational name for a professional guide which was a very important role when maps were either non-existent or not to be trusted.

The Guiton family had become involved in newspapers just a few weeks after the Jersey Evening Post had launched. The JEP had been founded by HP Butterworth who used Walter Guiton as his printer. Seeing this as a big opportunity, Guiton bought the title and it remained in his family until 2003.

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Edwin Dale

Edwin Dale was born in January of the 1880s and has left an extensive collection of photographs of the island views which were taken between 1910 and 1920 some may have been taken earlier. There is a selection in the Photographic Archive of La Societe Jersiaise and some images are also held by private collectors.

Dale made a living by running his father’s boot, shoe and leather shop which was found at 63 New Street but he still had a passion for photography, some of his favourite places to photograph were harbour scenes and steamships, churches, houses, country lanes and coastal views, sport and the railways. He also adventured into portraiture and photographs of islanders at work. Dale also had a motorcycle which he used to travel around the island to take his photographs. In the 1910s some of Dales’s images were published as a series of postcards and many were numbered among the most iconic images of the island.

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Contact Sheets

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Here are some of my contact sheets from my photoshoot at La Hoque. Contact sheets are an easy way to see all the photographs and make a prediction if there needs to be another photoshoot or not. I used lightroom and imported my images from the camera.

1st Selection (Flags)

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To help me narrow down my selection of images I first used the ‘p’ and ‘x’ tools to flag my images. The ‘p’ tool is used to put a white flag above the photo which means I have selected to use this image. By using the ‘x’ tool it put a black flag means I have deselected the image and it won’t come up in the editing selection.

Editing

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Above are three of my edited photos which I imported into lightroom to help me edit them. For my 1st and 3rd image, I kept them in colour, and I decreased the exposure and increase the contrast setting which have given the images a darker tone, but they still hold the saturated colours from the grass in the 1st image and in the rocks in the 3rd image. For the first image, I didn’t feel like I could include it in my final selection as it was a memorial bench which is personal to other people.
For my second image, I converted to black and white as I thought it would create a greater effect, especially with the sky rather than keeping it as a coloured image. To give the sky a more dramatic effect I increased the dehaze toll and decreased the exposure. I also slightly increased the contrast to make the darker tones stand out more against the white and grey tones.

2nd Selection (Colour Coding)

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To help me with my selection and finding the best for my final images I narrowed it down a second time by using different colours to differentiate photos into ‘best images’ (green), ‘average images’ (yellow) and lastly my final images which I have highlighted in blue.

Final Images

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Above I have two of my final images which I have converted into black and white. In my opinion, I think my first photo is the best out of the select that I have chosen to be part of my final images, this is because of the dramatic editing that compliments both the sky and the background with the darker rocks that contrast with the lighter grey shades of the sand and the boat in the forefront of the image. I enjoy the composition of my first image as the boat is not directly in the middle of the photograph it allows the different textures of the rocks, sand and seaweed to be seen which adds more life to the final image.

For my second image, I have edited it in a similar way to the first as I wanted the buoy to have a bright white that is very eye-catching and jumps out against the darker shade of sand. One of the things I like most about this photo is the different texture in the sand that sits in the background of the image, you can see the ripples and other seashells that add personality to the photograph. Lastly, another feature I think really stands out is the writing and sand/dirt that is on the buoy, the way I have edited the photo helped to create a darker text that compliments the white of the plastic buoy.

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Here I have the next three images in my collection of final images, I have picked my 3rd image as I feel that it gives a good representation of the different life and objects that are on Jersey beaches. In my opinion, I think that the 3rd is quite unique as it has a lot of different features to it including the colours, shapes and tones. As the photo has so many objects in it there are lots of different elements to look at which will attract people’s attention, there is a slight contrast between the warm and cooler tones as some of the rocks and shells are more of a blu/purple colour where the majority is a red/beige colour.

For my 4th image, I have converted it into black and white as I wanted to make the shadows in the groves of the rocks more drastic. Also, by making the image black and white it took away the distraction of colour making it easier for any viewer to focus on the different textures of the rocks in both the foreground and background. As I was quite close to the bigger rocks it made the ripples in them more prominent. Finally in my 5th photo, I have taken a photo of one of the rock pools down at La Hoque, in his image I really like the reflection of the sky and the other rocks surrounding it, I think it makes the photo more interesting and better to view. Another feature of the image that i think adds characters is the different shapes and tones, there are many different reds and yellows which appear in this photograph which I think compliments the black that lies on the rocks.

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Above I have included my 6th and 7th final images, these are both in black and white as I thought that type of editing suited the images better. In my 6th image I photographed a bunch of flowers that was attached to one of the benches down at La Hoque, I like how the bright white flowers standout against the darker background and the different shades of from the other flowers around them. Another thing I enjoy about this image is the different textures that complement each other throughout the photo. For example, the benches rougher wooden texture contrasts with the flower petals but they also somehow bring the image together.

Moving on to my 7th image, I have photographed the top of La Hoque tower white the flag. I decided to convert this into black and white as I wanted to have a dramatic grey sky sitting above the tower which I think I have successfully gotten. I enjoy how the outer areas of the clouds are darker grey which slowly go into a lighter grey in the middle. Another feature which I like about this image is the block of white that has be painted on the tower, it adds more personality to the image as it’s another key feature which attracts people’s attention.

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Above are the last two final images of my La Hoque collection. The 8th image is similar to the 7th but is takes portrait instead of landscape allowing for mor of the tower to be seen. One thing I like about this image is the composition, I think it creates a better image as the full tower has not been photographed but rather just half of it. I enjoy how the main focus is the blocked out white but there is also the natural-coloured brick that frames it in the final image. The contrast between the harsher, bolder colours of the tower and the more faded and blurred shades which comes out in background also help bring the whole photo together as it helps the tower become more eye-catching.

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