What you want to explore?

I would like to explore to theme of Anthropocene, looking at how the growing population has affected our natural environment and taken up our natural landscapes to build housing and support the islands economies, such as the finance centre and tourism. I would like to explore the work of artists such as Ansel Adams, as he creates some of the first Romanticism work, using dramatic and contrasting editing on images of landscapes. I would like to take inspiration from his work as I would like to take photographs that are similar to his, and then manipulate them a lot in photoshop, merging 2 or more images together, one being of a natural feature and one of an unnatural one. I will still be taking inspiration from his work, but I will be making it more specific to my project. I would also like to explore the works of Franke Gohlke and Edward Burtynsky.

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Why it matters to you?

It matters to my project as I want to explain how human life has affected the island, as I think that exploring how the island used to be more eco-friendly as it had a decreased population would be a good concept to explore. It matters to me as soon the planet is going to run out of raw/ unsustainable materials as creating photographic projects to reflect this may help people consider their impact on our future island, as the economy may suffer as sources of income such as finance and trade will be affected.

How you wish to develop your project?

I would like to create a theme of ‘Past vs Present’, these images will not be monochromatic sequences, I would like to edit images so that they will reflect this theme throughout, such as a greenhouse structure will the windowpanes cut out, with an image of an industrial structure in the background.

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When and where you intend to begin your study?

I would like to start taking images for my personal study before the Christmas holidays and also during the break, as it’s a good opportunity to create high quality images. The first photoshoot I would like to do will be located at La Collete, as this industrial area will provide with the images that will link in very well with my project. The contrast to these images will come from my second photoshoot, which will be located throughout the greenhouses ranging from St Saviours and St Martin, I will drive along the roads and attempt to get the best photographs of these structures and the farmland surrounding them.

Make sure you describe your how you interpret the theme of ‘islandness’, subject-matter, topic or issue you wish to explore, artists references/ inspirations and final outcome – photobook or film.

What makes Jersey special to you?

Jersey is a special island to me as it has been the only place I have known my whole life, despite many people travelling away from this Island for long periods of time and going on holidays, this Island will always have been the unique place me, my friends and family have always permanently been. This is special as we have been able to enjoy parts of the Island such as the unique beaches and the good weather in summer. This has helped us create many memories together, that will be forever trapped here.

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What are the distinct qualities of island life?

Island life is very special to some of the people that live in Jersey, having everything close together, everyone knowing everyone, having limited homelessness, many jobs available, booming economy, surrounded my seaside’s and everything being readily available. Living on this Island may be expensive but it’s a positively unique experience that you could not recreate anywhere else in the world.

Explore the notion of the ‘Jersey way’ or ‘Jersey-ness’.

I would like to explore the ‘Jersey way’ as me focusing on the environment means that I am looking at the way in which our island has adapted, for example our whole Island has always been about tourism and helping to make the new people that our settling in our Island satisfied. The ‘Jersey way’ could be explored through the concept of how much our place of living is reliant on other people visiting here and buying our local produce, as tourism levels have dramatically reduced over the last 50 years.

Mindmaps

Above is my mind map of general ideas about Islands, and all the different ways I could think about the topic. I tried to keep this mindmap broad and open to multiple aspects of things to do with the topic, as this would make it easier to make my own mindmap and decisions on my topic of choice for my study. I tried to include both positive and negative things on the topic of islandness, to give myself ideas on the kind of story I want to tell in my study. I wanted to ask myself the question of whether I wanted to show the good and bad aspects of living on an island, or one or another. These aspects of my above mindmap helped me to narrow my ideas down to a mindmap of my own ideas.

This mindmap is an overview of all the ideas I have for capturing the idea of Islandness in my personal study, as well as ideas about how I would produce each idea in further detail. These include options such as portraiture or landscapes, styles, journalistic elements and locations. This mindmap was also influenced by my review and reflect blog post, in which I discussed the strengths and weaknesses in my current and previous work. I evaluated the success of all my projects and my development as a photographer throughout the course.

Review and Reflect

Therefore, I have developed a mood board of my ideas for my personal study, of styles, photographers and topics for my work.

Moodboard

In this mood board, after looking further at my mindmap, I have collected images with ideas on Family, and generational identity, as well as stylistic ideas which I like: for example Jim Goldberg’s work, which isn’t really related to what I’m focusing on for the project. However, I included his work as I really like how he includes text in his work, which is something I really want to include in my photobook. Doing this moodboard and looking at varied artists related to my ideas has helped me realise what I want to photograph, who I want to photograph and the stories I want to tell through my images and overall project. Using my review and reflection post to help me was really useful as I have decided to build on one of my projects from year 12 on family, which I enjoyed the most and thought was my strongest work so far. I have included photographers that use grainy, warm editing, mostly all shot on film, as this is the style that I like to use for my pictures when editing, to create a sentimental and nostalgic feeling in my work.

In my project i will be documenting the change in youth and lifestyle today in Jersey compared to the 20th century which prioritised adults over youth.

Statement of intent

In my personal study, I want to capture the Jersey youth culture, I will be focussing on what teenagers do on such a small island where there isn’t much to do. I have taken inspiration from artists such as Justine Kirkland, Simon Wheatley as well as images from Pinterest.

This topic matters to me because I feel in Jersey, the youth are in some way looked down on and seen as badly behaves e.g. drinking, partying, having bonfires… However, as a teenager in jersey, we are very limited with things to do. Representation of Jersey teenagers is important to me as we often feel we are missing out compared to people from places such as England and have to create our own fun… In my project I will also be doing a comparison of youth in the early 1900’s as well as their representation.

I have began my project by researching different photographers such as Justine Kirkland, I have looked online and compiled a collected of her images which I feel correlate with my theme. As well as this, I have been doing research at the Société and looking into images of, younger people, families and general group photos , where I have discovered that children were often photographed in a very formal way, as well as a very set up way which don’t really show how children are. To develop my project, I will be juxtaposing images from the archive with images of my own to show the contrast between representation of youth back then compared to now

I have already began researching my project and plan to start photographing on the 26th of November. I have gathered who i am going to include in my images which are a mix of boys and girls. I have been looking around locations for possible shoots such as Alleys in St Helier, the sand dunes, a peoples houses…

Inspo/mood board

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HERITAGE – IDENTITY

This was the first major project on this photography course, as such, the outcome of the project was not the best, and the path the project took was not straight forward at all. The photographs themselves were of a good quality, some of which I still think are strong as of writing this (I particularly thought the image on the top row on the right of the images below was a good concept that could be re-visited). I have written about how/what this project taught me, such as to be better at planning and more focussed on my photoshoots, and I do think that this was a vital step for my growth as a photographer. For my current personal study project, the landscape images in this project, which I consider some of the strongest, could provide an inspiration and starting point.

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NEW TOPOGRAPHICS – ANTHROPOCENE

This was the second, and what I consider to be the strongest and most-enjoyable-to-produce, project of the course. The outcomes resembled the artist I was researching, the images were strong, interesting and adhered to my success criteria and the photoshoots themselves were very fun to take. This project allowed me to explore some of my favourite genres in photography, being abstract and landscape (and a mix of the two), in addition, due to referencing Andy Warhol, I experimented with colour, which I also find interesting. From the project, I learned that nature and landscape photography are what I find enjoyable and I would like to include them in my current personal study. Some of these themes can be included and improved upon in my personal study.

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ISLANDNESS – MY ROCK

My Rock was the last big project before starting the personal study. This project included trips to multiple SSIs in Jersey (such as L’etacq, Le Pinnacle and Green Island) which gave me further insight not only into the island and some of its history, but also SSIs around the world and their function. As a whole, I enjoyed this project as landscapes, the genre that makes up a large majority of this project, is one of my favourites to photoshoot. I think the outcomes for this project were successful, the photomontages I created made me realise how many different directions I could take when creating a final piece and the zine gave me a better understanding of how photobooks are created and stories are told from them, which will help me greatly in my personal study.

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What you want to explore?

I want to explore the skateboarding culture and community of the younger generations in jersey. I also want to explore how the skateboarding culture crosses over with sport, art, music, fashion and lifestyles.

Why it matters to you?

Ever since I was about 13 I have been very interested in skateboarding and the culture behind it, and have been skateboarding on and off myself, everything from the fashion, language, music and the overall energy the culture gives off. The community of skateboarding as well is very interesting to me and I wish to explore my interest in my personal study and further my own knowledge and understanding of the culture which has had such a huge impact and influence on the younger generations of jersey, as well as its impact on art, fashion and music.

How you wish to develop your project?

I will start by researching different photographers who have already documented the skateboarding culture and take inspiration from them, as well as researching grime itself to gain a deeper understanding of the culture. I will then take multiple photoshoots over the coming weeks to develop my ideas and come up with the best final images possible. I’ll then develop a photobook to present my work.

Moodboard:

I began my Moodboard by looking at a variety of Portuguese photographers as I wanted to reference work from the culture and see what perspectives I could take for my project. I struggled at first as I wasn’t sure what to search for but eventually I began finding some inspiration.

Whilst searching, I did come across some non-Portuguese photographers with images that I thought looked interesting and decided to add them to my Moodboard too.

I’ve also decided to look at some street photography around corner shops as I know there are quite a few Portuguese corner shops around Jersey and I’d like to explore photographing people there in order to explore the social aspect for my project.

Write a Statement of Intent that clearly contextualise –

• What you want to explore?
• Why it matters to you?
• How you wish to develop your project?
• When and where you intend to begin your study?

Make sure you describe your how you interpret the theme of ‘islandness’, subject-matter, topic or issue you wish to explore, artists references/ inspirations and final outcome – photobook or film.

You may wish to consider –

• What makes Jersey special to you?
• What are the distinct qualities of island life?
• A sense of place and identity
• Explore the notion of the ‘Jersey way’ or ‘Jersey-ness’.

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My ideas which answer the bullet points –

In my personal study, I wish to explore the weather and woodland areas when I take my dog on a walk. This is because it the way whether can effect the outcomes of photos is fascinating and the way nature can appear is always changing in beautiful and unique ways. This matters to me because it shows how Jersey can be seen in different ways for its woodland areas instead of the coasts which many people know more about. I will explore this theme further by looking into the variety of textures in leaves, trees, fungi, etc which I find while exploring different locations across Jersey. The ways in which I will develop this project are through studying different photographers such as Vanessa Winship, who is a photographer that focuses on landscapes and the weather, as well as Martin Parr, who is a photographer that focussed on weather and different landscapes within his work. Where I will begin my study is in woodland areas during wet and dry conditions, as many places such as in valleys or walks have distinct paths which you can follow around which lead to different locations of areas which many people may not have been to before.

What makes Jersey special to me is how there is a sense of community because we are a small island and everything is within close distance such as favourite places to go or with visiting family. The distinct qualities of Jersey Island life are the easiness of travelling, being able to access the beach as it is all around us, the different parishes etc. The sense of place and identity means having somewhere that feels like home to you and where you are from is where you may identify with originally, and is created in Jersey through the fayres which can take place to celebrate different events, various celebrations that happen throughout the seasons, the decorations in town and other peoples houses for different times of year, etc. The definition of ‘Jersey-ness’ in my opinion means being able to navigate yourself around the island without having to use a map as guidance as you have grown up here and loving how there is a real sense of community due to Jersey being a small island which is evident within town and the various parishes.