PICTORIALISM

Time period : 1880s-1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Making photography an accepted art form, would use artistic theory for composition, lighting, etc, influenced by Allegorical paintings., as well as Peter Henry Emerson’s Naturalistic Photography, and Julia Margaret Cameron.

Artists associated: Alfred Stieglitz, Heinrich Kuhn, Joseph Gale, Frank Eugene

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Scratching the negatives/plates, Vaseline on the lenses, used chemicals to paint over images.

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1915-present

Key characteristics/ conventions : Photographing things as they were, avoiding manipulation in the dark room, going back to the roots of photography, abstraction inspired by Cubism, reaction to the Pictorialists.

Artists associated: Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Producing sharply focused images with high detail, without using dark room manipulation.

MODERNISM

Time period: 1870s-1960s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Experimentalism and expression, inspiration from technology and progress, rejection of history and conservative values, idealism, reason and utopianism.

Artists associated: Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Otto Umbehr, Iwao Yamawaki, Olive Cotton, László Moholy-Nagy, Geraldo de Barros

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Abstraction, Experimentation, focus on skills and techniques used, artistic interpretation of form

POST-MODERNISM

Time period: 1960s-present

Key characteristics/ conventions : Reaction to modernism, pushes ideas of scepticism and suspicion of reason, focus on individual experience and interpretation, often ties to mass media and pop culture as well as art history

Artists associated: Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Robyn Stacey, Jeff Koons

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: A large array of different styles and techniques, sometimes absurdist and controversial, use of both digital and film cameras, ability to use modern day editing software.

Frazier’s image “Momme Portrait Series (Floral Comforter)” depicts her and her mother standing against a comforter with a floral print, they are both dressed casually, likely in pyjamas, and they stare emotionlessly directly at the camera. They image is split in half by each figure, like a mirror, showing them as if they are reflections of one another, allowing the viewer to compare and contrast them. The image is in black and white, contrasting the mostly block colours worn by the figures and the repeating pattern of the comforter behind.

In an interview, Frazier said “The Notion of Family responds to that call to suspend the passive aestheticism that turns abject poverty into an object of enjoyment.“, which can be seen through Frazier’s creative choices for the image. Frazier’s work often explores her family’s experience as a group of black steelworkers, focusing on the female perspective living in the industrial city of Braddock. This idea of realistically depicting poverty is shown with Frazier’s decision to show her and her mother looking a lot more casual and a little messy compared to the average portrait, focusing on showing them in natural way instead of glamorising their lives and appearances.

The comforter in the background is covered in a floral pattern, flowers often being associated with femininity and further pushing Frazier’s focus on the female experience in Braddock, “I needed to produce a photo-history book on three generations of women (1925-2014) that dealt with segregation, deindustrialisation, environmental racism, health care inequality and gentrification.” As Black women, Frazier and her mother would have likely experienced these injustices themselves and them standing against the floral comforter staring blankly at the camera could represent their dehumanisation experienced due to racism and sexism and only being seen as an object of white male desire, or could represent them reclaiming their femininity as black women are often stereotyped as masculine and undesirable, and either of these meanings fit into Frazier’s desire to depict her and her family’s history with oppression.

“When it comes to fighting racism the media are part of the problem, they perpetuate myths and stereotypes about Black people; they lie by omission, distortion and selection, they give racists inflated importance and respectability“, Frazier’s quest to combat racism through her photography is seen through all of her work, alongside this image. As said earlier, Frazier and her mother can be seen as reclaiming their femininity but it could also be said that they are standing proudly in front of the camera reclaiming their identity’s as black women, combatting harmful stereotypes against black women that spawned as a result of white supremacy and the patriarchy. Unlike how she said the media does, Frazier does not omit a single detail from her depiction of herself and her mother, reflecting them in a more natural and realistic light, using the power of photography to tell her own story instead of letting it be told by someone else.

What do you want to explore?

I want to use this project to explore ideas of heritage and identity through the lens of islandness, using as a chance to compare and contrast culture here in Jersey to my own South Asian heritage.

Why it matters to you?

My heritage is something very important to me, especially as non-white person growing up on a predominantly white island in the UK. I enjoy exploring it because South Asian culture is something that is rarely seen here and it allows me to share my culture with others while also getting to learn more about it myself.

How do you wish to develop this project?

I am planning on making a photobook from this project so will need to carry out a large number of planned shoots so I have enough material to work with.

When and Where you intend to begin your study?

I am planning on uses a variety of artist references whose work revolves around the concept of heritage, family and identity and conducting shoots inspire by them, making sure to implement parts of my traditional culture to further push these themes and add more visual interest.

I am planning on starting off by looking at French photographer, Vasantha Yogananthan, specifically his work “The Myth of Two Souls” which is a retelling of The Ramayana using images from modern day India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. I like how he ties his images back to text as well as his editing style and am planning on doing a shoot inspired by his work at some point in the future.

I decided to make a mind map of my ideas regarding the topic of Islandness to help inspire me for my Personal Study.

I have decided to explore ideas about heritage and identity, and how these have affected me while growing up in Jersey. I have chosen to look at these photographers because they explore similar themes and I enjoy each of their unique photographic styles. I feel like each style has a lot of photographic potential and I am planning on conducting a shoot inspired by each over my project.

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A crown dependency is defined as “A self-governing possession of the British crown”, this includes the Isle of Man, the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey. This means that Jersey decides its own laws and is also protected and represented by Britain.

Jersey’s connection to the crown is due to an event in 1204 where the island had to choose whether to align themselves with the French crown or the English, despite being a part of French territory for the past hundred years, Jersey decided to side with King John of England.

Because of this, King John awarded islanders with the right to govern themselves which led to the creation of the Royal Court and the States of Jersey, and political positions have now become democratic as people have to elect representatives in.

Identity-

My first independent photography project ever as I had not taken GCSE Photography. I decided to explore my personal heritage and looked at photographers Dryden Goodwin and Carolle Benitah as artist references for the project. My final images were pretty limited as I had not taken as many pictures as I would have liked, however I do still like the end result.

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Anthropocene-

I took a lot more pictures for this project so had a lot more to work from, I experimented a lot more with my editing style and tried to make images that are unique. I especially liked my work from the Havre Des Pas shoot, as I feel like these had some of my best edits. I chose Yao Lu and David Thomas Smith as my artist references and I especially liked my work inspired by Smith, using the same editing style in work past the Anthropocene project.

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My Rock-

I enjoyed this project a lot and continued with shoots both in and out of school with even more experimental edits. I looked at David Hockney’s joiners as inspiration during a shoot and do like how the end result looks so might look at doing again in a future project.

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Overall I have really enjoyed being able to use Lightroom and Photoshop to edit my images and develop my own photographic style. I enjoy alternating between portrait, landscape and object images as I enjoy shooting each in different ways.

My first draft:

I decided not to use this layout because I chose the images pretty randomly so there was not much connection between them and anything else in the zine. I decided to make another zine, focusing on using images to do with nature along Jersey’s coast.

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I prefer this layout a lot more, with a specific focus on nature and rocks, and with a connection through the bright colours overlaid on top of some of the images, creating a much more unified zine. I decided to alternate between images with a white border and ones with a full bleed. There is also a bit of variation between images with low saturation and ones with incredibly high saturation, hopefully creating more visual interest. In both drafts I decided to use edited versions of Emile Guiton’s images from the Société Jersiaise photo-archives, to add some historic value to my zine and to contrast my work with that which belongs to a photographer in history.

I chose the title “Gardín”, which means “Garden” in Jèrriais, because Jersey’s coastline is like a garden to a variety of native plants and animals of all kinds.

Archives are defined as “a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.“, are incredibly important as a way of preserving parts of the past for the sake of education and research, serving as a way for people from the present to learn from aspects of the past in order to move forward and progress society in a multitude of ways. The Société Jersiaise is a local charity and archive, founded in 1873, preserving a multitude of different parts of the islands traditional culture, language and history, as well as information regarding the island’s natural history, such as the documentation of flora and fauna native to the island of Jersey. The Société Jersiaise‘s goals included the construction of the museum and library and soon also established the goal of permanently recording specific sections of the island’s history, specifically prehistoric monuments, buildings and ruins, through the use of photography. Images were also taken at archaeological dig sites, both in order to capture any artefacts found, as well as to document the processes and techniques to find, obtain and store anything discovered. As time has progressed and some of these important sites and objects have withered and eroded, it is important to look back at the images stored in the archive to see how much the progression of time and society has impacted them. The Société Jersiaise have placed a large amount of their archive online and easily accessible to the public free of charge, showing how dedicated they are to their goal of encouraging citizens to learn about how important the past is in moving forward.

SJ Photographic Archive

Emile Guiton, born 1879 was an important figure in the history of photography in Jersey, taking many images of key sites and events, and donating them to the Société Jersiaise photo archive, 781 of which can be viewed online, before his death in 1972. His images explored a variety of subjects, shifting from the documentation of agriculture, to recording excavations and historical sites, to even taking pictures during the island’s occupation by the Nazis, which lasted from June 1940 until May 1945, a time of great change for islanders as German forces built concrete bunkers into the island’s, once peaceful, natural landscape. During the occupation, Guiton was one of the few islanders even allowed to take pictures, further showing his significance in Jersey’s history. He experimented with colour images towards the beginning of the 20th century, however seemed to shift back to black and white images for the majority of his work. This great array of material in time, place and subject, makes him a crucial part of the Société Jersiaise‘s photo archive alongside the island’s history itself. Looking at his work shows a modern viewer appreciate the progression of camera technology, as well as the beauty and importance of the Jersey’s natural and manmade past.

This is one of the images Guiton took during an excavation of La Motte, also known as Green Island, between 1911 and 1914, on this excavation eighteen cists were a found, a type of small prehistoric coffin made of stone that would hold the dead and an array of worldly possessions implying their wealth and power during their life. The image was taken using a film camera, and despite his colour experiments earlier in the century, is in black and white. The photo was likely taken in order to document the dig alongside anything found at the site, which includes flint flakes, bowls, hammers and vases, alongside several skeletons. The image is sharp and focused and has good exposure levels allowing the viewer to analyse each part of the image in detail. Despite its attempt to quietly immortalise the excavation, it feels somewhat eerie as many of the people in the image have turned to face the camera, it is likely that the majority of the people in the picture have now died due to how long ago it was taken, Guiton capturing the ghosts of the past on film, as they all surround the ancient skeleton of someone who had been in that very place thousands of years ago.

In conclusion, looking back at images from the past, particularly from places like photo archives where they would have been preserved for up to centuries, is crucial in growing as a photographer as well as progressing the island as a whole. By referencing these, people from the modern day can learn more about the past, potentially relearning lost knowledge as well as using it as a reference to predict aspects of the future. Guiton’s work is not only documentative, but also has artistic merit, able to express concepts that could then be explored by future generations looking back, even if it was not his intention at the time. Described as a collective memory, archives can hold many different voices and viewpoints for future historians, researchers and even just normal people to analyse and understand context regarding how the world truly works and how things can move towards a better one for everyone.

On Tuesday 4th October, we went on a class field trip to Le Hocq and Green Island, before going to the Société Jersiaise, a local charity dedicated to studying and archiving the island’s archaeology, history (both human and natural), culture, environment and language. This work is incredibly important as they aim to protect and share this knowledge with islanders.

About

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I tried to experiment with a mixture of monochrome and colour images, taking inspiration from some of the work of Emile F Guiton, a photographer who’s work we looked over in the archives, specifically his images of Green Island. I also tried to vary my compositions, using a range of close-ups and more far away shots, however I do wish I got to take more pictures after actually arriving at Green Island so I will look at planning another shoot there.

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I was inspired by the monochrome work of Guiton but did not want to stick to exclusively black and white, which is why I added in some cyan to the image, making it stand out more. Both images feature multiple people looking around a significant site, however are separated by years and subject.

I decided to try a few different concepts for my Photo-sculptures, mostly trying to experiment with the ideas of shapes and layers.

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I decided to use these images for my first sculpture because they are unique and memorable due to the colours overlaid onto them.

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I made it so that an image was glued onto each side of a piece of foam board and cut out slits so that they could lock together. Unfortunately there was a problem with a printer so they came out streaky so I decided to just use this piece as an experiment. The pieces I cut out where also too big so it was not held together very securely.

For my next piece I decided to experiment with layering pieces of the image over itself to create a sense of depth. I chose this image because I though it would be easy to split into these layers.

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These images show how I cut out layers for my sculpture, the edges are messier than I would have liked and the colours are still slightly off because of the printer. I liked this style more than my last one so decided to do some more pieces with the same technique.

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Using the image above I decided to make another layered photosculpture, this time only focusing on cutting out a single element and using the card used for window mounts instead of foam board. The edges are still a bit messy and I continued to have issues with the printer but I still wanted to explore this idea further.

I then chose to use this image because it had pretty simple layers that could be cut, the figure in the foreground, the rocks, and the sky.

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This one turned out a lot better than some of the earlier ones, with simple layers and cleaner cuts, using the 3D element to stand out from its 2D counterpart. These cleaner style is possibly due to my decision to use card which I have found is easier to cut through.

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This was my last photo sculpture so I decided to be a bit more experimental, starting off by cutting out the usual layers but since the original image was quite detailed I was struggling to cut it out through the foam board. Instead of continuing with the style used earlier I decided to cut out a triangle in one of the layers to make it more visually interesting, as it creates a strange sense of depth.

If I were to do this project again I would try to plan out my ideas a bit more and work on making my pieces neater.