Portrait photographer:

Richard Avedon –

Richard Avedon was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theatre and dance.

Throughout his career Avedon has maintained a unique style all his own. Famous for their minimalism, Avedon portraits are often well lit and in front of white backdrops. When printed, the images regularly contain the dark outline of the film in which the image was framed.

“He literally revolutionized the vocabulary of fashion photography.” – Malcom roger

How did Richard Avedon begin his career in photography?

Avedon began to explore photography on his own at age 10 and was immediately drawn to portraiture. His first sitter was the Russian pianist-composer Sergey Rachmaninoff, who then lived in the same New York City apartment building as Avedon’s grandparents.

Some examples of his work:

What is a Cyanotype?

Cyanotype is a 170 year old photographic printing process that produces prints in a distinctive dark greenish-blue. The word cyan comes from the Greek, meaning  “dark blue substance.”

What were cyanotypes used for?

The cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces blue prints using coated paper and light. The process was discovered by the scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1842. Herschel used the cyanotype process so that he could reproduce mathematical tables along with other notes and diagrams

How to make a Cyanotype print?:

*Cyanotype paper (pre-prepared)

*Glass/acrylic sheet

*objects (Dry leafs,flowers or hands)

The science behind Cyanotypes:

The cyanotype process uses a mixture of iron compounds, which when exposed to UV light and washed in water oxidise to create Prussian Blue images. The technique was invented in 1841 by Sir John Herschel and was popularised by photographer and botanist Anna Atkins.

Anna Atkins:

Born: March 16, 1799, Tonbridge, United Kingdom and died June 9, 1871

English botanical artist, collector and photographer Anna Atkins was the first person to illustrate a book with photographic images. Her nineteenth-century cyanotypes used light exposure and a simple chemical process to create impressively detailed blueprints of botanical specimens. 

Anna’s innovative use of new photographic technologies merged art and science, and exemplified the exceptional potential of photography in books.

Anna’s self-published her detailed and meticulous botanical images using the cyanotype photographic process in her 1843 book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. With a limited number of copies, it was the first book ever to be printed and illustrated by photography.

Hamptonne Country Life Museum gives the visitor a unique insight into the rural life carried on in Jersey for centuries. Dating back to the 15th Century the house and farm are perfect for discovering the rural history of Jersey.  Explore the different houses which make up Hamptonne, find out more about Jersey’s history of cider making in the cider barn and wander through the cider apple orchard and meet the Hamptonne calves, lambs, chickens and piglets in the traditional farmstead. 

Discover Syvret House, a decorated and furnished farmhouse gives a unique window into 1940s rural life, including; agricultural traditions, day-to-day family life, language, religion and the experience of the German Occupation.

The Hamptonne farm complex takes its name from Laurens Hamptonne, who purchased it in 1633. The property is also known as ‘La Patente’, as is the name of one of the roads that passes it, after the Grants by Letters Patent received by its owner Richard Langlois in 1445, and by King Charles II to Laurens Hamptonne in 1649.

Royal Patents were awarded to those who had provided a particular service to the monarch or close relative. In Hamptonne’s case, this resulted from his loyalty to the Royalist cause during the English Civil War, when he was Vicomte or executive officer of Jersey’s Royal Court. It was in that role that Hamptonne issued the famous Proclamation in St Helier’s Royal Square on 17 February 1649, declaring Charles II as King after news reached the Island of the execution of Charles I.

Hamptonne’s support of the penniless exiled King Charles II resulted in several grants. One preserved the integrity of the property in perpetuity – it could not be broken up into parts (partages) and split among family members, but would be inherited by the eldest child. Another permitted Hamptonne to rebuild the ruined Colombier (dovecote) originally granted to Richard Langlois. In normal circumstances, such buildings could only be built by Jersey Seigneurs (Lords or holders of a fief.). The Colombier is located to the south-east, slightly beyond the current boundaries of the Museum. This may not have been a source of local popularity for Hamptonne.

Cider apple orchard :

One of Hamptonnes main attraction is the apple cider making and demonstrates how people back then would use the ‘machines’ to turn apples from the orchid into apple cider.

Every year hamptonne has a cider making festival from collecting apples from the trees in the orchids at the beginning of October and then turning it into cider.

To the east of the farm complex is the Cider Apple Orchard, which consists of apple trees chosen for their sweet, bitter and sharp flavours to provide a good balance for cider making when mixed together. The footpath through the orchard takes you into a small area of woodland. Wooded areas at the back of farms provided an important source of wood for fuel and building materials, while also supporting a rich variety of plants and wildlife. Follow the footpath down to the grazing Meadow and, if you wish, continue on the public footpath that joins the National Trust for Jersey’s Toad Trail.

Tom Kennedy:

Tom is a local photographer who mainly takes photographs of the characters at hamptonne, using natural light like they did back then in the 17th century when painting pictures. . He studied photography, film, television and sound at the Plymouth College of Art and Design. He then went on to work in the London film industry for several years before returning to Jersey. Tom is in charge of all camera and sound production.

Some of his work:

Overall the site is square in shape. It includes ranges of buildings built in different periods, arranged around two courtyards. While the farm has medieval origins, consecutive owners have made marked improvements to the living accommodation. The main buildings are therefore named after the Langlois, Hamptonne and Syvret families, who lived here between 15th and 19th centuries.

When you exit the shop, you enter the North Courtyard along the side of which runs the Northern Range – a row of 19th century farm buildings constructed to meet the requirements of the agriculture workforce, its vehicles and horses. It include a Labourers Cottage, Coach House, Bake House & Laundry, and Stables. Facing the Stables is a glazed barn in which important farming devices and implements are displayed. There is a walled vegetable and herb garden to the east, beyond which is the Hamptonne Playground and Cider Apple Orchard.

To the south is Langlois House, which comprises stabling and an undercroft on the ground floor, and a parlour and bedroom on the first floor. At the south-west corner is a twin-arched stone gateway providing access to the roadway. To the south of Langlois House are the pigsties and a spring-fed pond.

To the west is the Cider House or pressoir with its granite apple crusher and press; to the southern end of this row is Syvret House which consists of a kitchen, parlour, two bedrooms and a small cabinet. The House is presented as the home of a tenant farmer around 1948.

Camera obscura: Dark chamber

The Latin name means ‘dark chamber’ consisted of small darken room with light coming through from a single tiny hole. The light passing through the small hole will project an image of a scene outside the box on the surface opposite to the hole.

Nicephore Niepce:

Born march 7th 1765 in Chalon-sur-Saone France and died in 1833 Chalon-sur-Saone France. He was an French inventor and commonly credited for his photography and a pioneer in that field. He was the first to make a permanent photographic image.

Louis Daguerre:

Born  18 November 1787 and died on 10 July 1851, he was a French artist and photographer recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography.
Daguerre explained that the magic of his dioramas resulted from his use of light in the scenes. He claimed to have discovered a system of painting that could transform the appearance of an object by switching between reflected and refracted light, as well as by changing the colour of the light that fell upon it.

Daguerreotype:

The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. Named after the inventor, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate. The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp.

Henry fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot is the father of the negative-positive photographic process, as it is practiced today. Talbot was born in Melway; Dorsey, England in 1800 to a wealthy well established family. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge University; he was deeply interested and knowledgeable in a variety of subjects: botany, art, biblical, astronomy, and ancient language. Talbot was an accomplished mathematician involved in the research of light and optics; he invented the polarizing microscope. He was also politically active and a Member of Parliament. He lived his adult life at this family estate, Lacock Abby, originally built in 1232.

Talbot’s interest in drawing but lack of craftsmanship led him to experiment with capturing and securing an image. In 1835 Talbot had successfully made a photograph of his home, Lacock Abby, which he referred to as “the first instance on record of a house painting it’s own portrait”. He was unaware of Daguerre’s photographic progress in France, and did not publish a description of the process until after the announcement by the French Government of the daguerreotype, January 6, 1839.

Richard Maddox

Maddox is best known for his invention light weight gelatine negative plates for photography in 1871, which enabled photographers to use commercial dry plates off the shelf instead of having to prepare their own emulsions in a mobile darkroom

In 1871, Dr. Richard Maddox developed a way to use gelatine instead of glass for the negatives. A turning point in photography, the process allowed photographers to develop a dry-plate technique rather than the wet plates of the collodion process.

George Eastman

What did George Eastman invent and when?

Eastman introduced the Kodak camera in 1888. Thanks to his inventive genius, anyone could now take pictures with a handheld camera simply by pressing a button. He coined the slogan, “you press the button, we do the rest,” and within a year it became a well-known phrase.

He was a major philanthropist, establishing the Eastman School of Music, and schools of dentistry and medicine at the University of Rochester and in London Eastman Dental Hospital; contributing to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the construction of several buildings at the second campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the Charles River. In addition, he made major donations to Tuskegee University and Hampton University, historically black universities in the South. With interests in improving health, he provided funds for clinics in London and other European cities to serve low-income residents.

Kodak (brownie)

What was unique about the Kodak Brownie?

One of the very first cameras to make photography simpler and more accessible to everyone was the Kodak Brownie. It was a fixed shutter speed camera with no aperture control or focusing abilities–and was essentially little more than a box with a fake leather exterior for gripping purposes.

How much did the Brownie camera cost in 1900?

The Brownie camera was offered for $1 in 1900. It sold 10 million units in just five years, a success beyond the company’s wildest expectations.

film/print photography

How are film photos printed?

The paper is exposed to a photographic negative, a positive transparency (or slide), or a digital image file projected using an enlarger or digital exposure unit such as a Light Jet or Minilab printer. Following exposure, the paper is processed to reveal and make permanent the latent image.

You can still get most of your film developed and turned into prints through stores that specialize in photography. The actual services vary across different companies. But there are a number of specialty photography retailers all over the country that will develop colour and B&W film in a variety of different sizes.

print photography

First introduced in the 1880s, film negatives became increasingly popular by the early 20th century and essentially replaced glass negatives by the 1920s. gelatin silver print (silver print) • Introduced in the 1870s, the gelatin silver print quickly became the most common photographic printing process.

How were pictures first printed? The earliest photographs were mostly made on metal plates using Daguerre’s process, commonly known as a daguerreotype. While this process resulted in a stable image, the only way to duplicate an image was to take another picture of the original daguerreotype.

Digital photography

Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The captured images are digitized and stored as a computer file ready for further digital processing, viewing, electronic publishing, or digital printing.

What do you need for digital photography?

Memory/Film If you choose an analog camera, you’ll need film. If you choose a digital camera, even if it has internal memory, you’ll want to get a memory card. There are many different types of memory cards, but the two most common are SD (Secure Digital) and CF (Compact Flash).

What is digital photography example?

Electronic/digital cameras: These capture images/photographs and store them in built-in/integrated storage media cards. Computing devices: Examples include a webcam integrated with a computer/laptop or a scanner that enables the capturing of existing physical (paper/card) image.