How do archives function as repositories of Knowledge?

Photographic archives are collections of photographs, which can be held by libraries or museums. These have long been essential tools for researchers and photographers. Photographs in a photographic archive may be created or bought together for a specific purpose or reason, or an individual or broader audience. For example, someone like a scholar, or researcher, may take photographs and assemble and preserve them for future research. This would then be a private archive. An archive may also be a creative or documentary record of one individual or firm such as a professional photographer’s archive, a scientific archive, or a news agency. Many private or commercial photographic archives have found their way into research institutions, such as libraries and museums.

“As the internet has begun to show, ‘Archive fever’ is a prevalent aspect of human behaviour, with everyone collecting something or other, either as objects or via photographs”

Archives, Networks and Narratives, David Bate

Many people, in fact most people, keep personal photographic archives. Things such as photo albums of family members, or even photo collections on mobile phones, can function as archives. Organising these by important dates, events or people, categories our knowledge and our memories of our own personal experiences and people we know, as well as how we feel about them. These images and collections could also provide others and society things about you: obvious things like where you’re from and your family, but also things like how you feel, your life experiences, and things you’re interested in. As the digital age advances, more and more personal archives online are readily available, such as on social media, or online galleries, which shows more of a readiness to share more about one’s life than before technology was so advanced. It also highlights increased freedom among society, especially freedom of expression, which can be seen through more creative photography and how society (in general) is more of contrasting.

Looking back from a modern perspective, some archival photographs could be seen to be boring, or uniteresting. I think in the ages of early photography, it was less common to produce informal, unposed images in comparison with today, and the thousands of ways to capture a subject. That poses the question of whether some archival images are good resprosities of knowledge, as they often seem to be posed, and seem very formal. It could be argued that they are not, and they only represent the “best” parts of a subject, or the part the photographer wanted to bring across. – However, this can also be argued with almost any picture today, due to the ability to manipulate what we know about something through a lens. It is therefore clear that this problem is not new, and not the fault of the ever increasing use of digital media, but can be seen in archival images also.

The Société Jersiaise, Jersey’s main historical society, with aims of the “Publication of Local History” and among other things “to found a library, mainly historical and archaeological” was established in 1873. It continued to grow through the century and realised its’ aim of opening a museum in 1877. With the practice and collecting of photography identified from the mid 1800s, collecting and photographic research continued from there. From there, interests in scientific and documentary records increased, and these patterns of development have continued to get stronger over more than 140 years. In the present day, the remarkable archive that is The Photographic Archive of Société Jersiase contains over 100,000 images dating from the mid 18-40s to the present day, and it is the main collection of Jersey based photographs from the ninenth and early twentieth century.

One key photographer that is important when thinking about Jersey’s photographic archives is Edwin Dale. He was born on the 3rd January 1882, and was first entered the world of photography afer entering the photography Eisteddford competition in 1913, for which he won four first prizes and two second prizes. He was not a full time photographer, and made a living running his father’s leather, boot and shoe shop at 63 New Street in St Helier. He had a passion for photography, and his preferred subjects to shoot were scenes of the harbour, churches, houses and country lanes. He also took intruigiung portraits of islanders at work. He had a love of motorcycles, and used this to travel around the island to take his images. Even though he is not considered the first Jersey photojournalist, he can be seen as one, after covering events such as the 1911 royal visit, and the lead up to world war one. Around 1914, roughly 14 of his photos were published as a series of postcards. – His work is considered among the most iconic images of the island from the early 20th century, which has been made into a collection within the Société Jersiase Photographic Archive.

Edwin’s images are crucial to Jersey’s photographic history and archive for a few reasons. They show the life of islander’s during and just before the first world war – this makes these images, part of the Photographic Archive, a repository of knowledge that is essential to understand the struggles of those before us on our small island. Not only that, his portraits also give us more information of fashion during the early 20th century, the mood of the island and its’ society, and the landscape, which has drastically changed in the last 100 or so years. Most of his images, except some portraits, appear unstaged. – This factor means that Edwin’s images within the archive can be seen to be good basis’ of knowledge, as they show an unbiased, “truthful” point of view of what he was photographing. This repository of knowledge helps to add to our understanding of Jersey’s past, and makes in easier for us to compare what life seemed to be like in the early 20th century wth Jersey’s society nowadays.

This image above is one of Edwin Dale’s. This is image is somewhat imformal, but still staged, which raises questions of the setting and year which it was taken in. I chose to analyse this image for this reason, as it makes the viewer question not only the actual image, the subject’s odd pose and the reasons for such, but also the reasons behind it – It is clear in this image how different the actual attitudes surrounding photography and its’ uses during the time are to the modern, fluid ideas of photography in the present day. The woman’s expression is firm, along with her rigid body. These two elements would have made more sense if the subject was in more of a conventional position, because of its’ seriousness. This put together with the strange pose in which the woman is posed is an odd combination. I think the strange nature of this image could suggest a slight playfullness to the image, almost hidden, as if it isn’t allowed. The seriousness of all of Edwin’s other images juxtaposed with this image creates a huge contrast – this is why archives are important. The contrast, and slightly weird nature would not have been noticed if it wasn’t for our access to photographic archives. Therefore, this images proves that photographic archives are great sources of knowledge for research and discovery, as well as comparison, to reach conclusions.

Overall, after reviewing and studying photographers important to Jersey’s photographic history and archives, I believe that archives mostly function very accurately as repositories of knowledge. They enable those in the present day to research and examine previous times in history. They can be used to examine the way society functioned at the time, how people felt, the fashion, as well as the landscape. However, as I have mentioned, it can be said that archives do not function accurately as repositories of knowledge – images within the archive sometimes are not telling the “truth” of a subject or place, and it is difficult to decipher what we know is correct and incorrect from some archival images. This makes it difficult to gether historical information and knowledge from the images. This problem is also prevalent in modern photography, with the controversial problem especially within photojournalism, of whether we can trust the information pictures give us. Overall, I think that as our society advances and we begin to reflect more and more on our past and compare it to our future, photographic archives, like the Photographic Archive of Société Jrersiase, will become more and more important as a source of knowledge and understanding for all.