The Société Jersiaise is one of the two Jersey archives that contains a vast amount of photographs detailing Jersey’s history and culture.
The Archive was founded in 1873 by a small group of islanders, it found a permanent location on 1893 in 9 Pier Road, where it continued to gain more members and collections. The first Bulletin Annuel was published in 1875 which acts as the Société’s main record of activities. The Société’s goals involve multiple sections that specialise in multiple fields involving bibliographic, cartographic, photographic and research collections to help preserve Jersey’s culture or heritage.
For this part of the project, our focus was specifically placed on the Société Jersiaise and Emile Guiton’s excavation of a particular site: La Motte (Green Island) and La Rocque, both of which we went to photograph.
Green Island
During the excavation, the Société found the remains of what is believed to be a Neanderthal necropolis containing multiple skeletons. Due to the necropolis being covered with sand, the remains were preserved in good conditions, considering they would have been thousands of years old. Some of the remains, in particular skulls and fragments of skulls, were collected and brought back to the archive where they were photographed in a studio by Guiton for documentation purposes.
Emile F Guiton
Guiton was born in Jersey in 1879 and became one of the most prolific photographers not only in Jersey, but for the Société Jersiaise, as well as the wider world, as he was one of the first photographers to take a coloured photograph. Due to his interest for history, he became a member of the Société Jersiaise where he worked on the executive committee as honorary secretary, as well as being the editor the the Annual Bulletin, the Société’s main publication for their findings. As shown above, Guiton took part in photographing the findings of the Société, wishing to document the history of the island through his photographs. During the second world war, Guiton was one of the few photographers on the island granted a permit to take photographs during the occupation, which he used to document Jersey as historic artefacts.
Image Analysis
What I find interesting about this image is the way that the field and the people, crops and the background in the distance only make up about 1/3rd of the whole image, giving it an almost painterly, calming and grand look. Due to the image’s early origins, the colours are probably not 100% accurate, however I think this adds to the aesthetic of the image, as it seems to give the colour palette more variety (for example the shadows appear to have a dark purple-ish tone). This also gives the image a more painting-like look. In terms of the abundance of shadows, there is not that much shadow, as the image appears to be taken at noon in an open field. I also like the way the background trails off into the rocks found frequently on the outskirts of Jersey’s coast. Because of this, there is a clear difference between foreground, midground and background, with the haystacks and farmers anchoring the foreground. I think the farmers being place in the lower-centre of the image is effective as it makes them seem much smaller than the rest of the scene, giving the image an almost sublime aesthetic, while the soft colours and shapes seem to contradict that, making the image seem calmer.