With the still life images, I arranged a group of rocks and other materials into a formation that I was happy with. Once this was achieved, I took a few photos of the items and decided to change the backdrops and boards they lay on.

A few of the photos taken consisted of a layout placed upon a table with coloured card and a white backdrop. This gave off quite a simple look to the photograph with a slight variation of colour change with the card underneath. The other range of photos were taken however on a much harder surface that was a lot more reflective than the card. It was fully white, but I was able to play around with the colour of the lighting by placing coloured plastic over the lights used. This provided a wide range of multicoloured photographs which were interesting to experiment with.

When taking my images, I ended up mainly taking flash head photographs of my still life displays and also continuous lighting photographs. I wanted to experiment with different lighting approaches so that I could get a variety of outcomes.

—- Continuous and flash head lighting —-

What is continuous lighting?

Continuous lighting in photography occurs when you turn the studio lights on, they stay on. You can power your studio lighting up or down, based on what you need, but they produce ‘what you see is what you get’ lighting.

Continuous lighting comes in different kinds, including incandescent, LED, fluorescent, tungsten and even plasma lights.

What is flash head lighting?

Flash heads, whether hooked up to a power pack or integrated into a monolight, generally feature an interchangeable reflector (bowl or dish) used to shape the light. More compact units may come with a built-in reflector. Interchangeable reflectors give photographers numerous options.

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—- Still life photo-edits —-

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Final outcomes + Image Analysis

I have chosen these three images as my first final outcomes as I believe they all compliment each-other well with each containing a variety of objects from the locations in Jersey we have visited. I wanted to display the history of Jersey through the items that can be found among the island and present its geology through the process of a still life photograph. Each image contains the same types of shells but they have all been laid out different and have been photographed at different angles. The first image displays a range of shells all across the photograph whilst the second image only showcases a select number of shells to really highlight a closeup view of what the object really looks like and what it presents for Jersey.

Although I like how these images turned out, I will say that I have a few critics to make about the three images taken. With the third image in particular, I am satisfied with how the image was taken and the angle it was taken at, but I think now that it would have looked a lot better with a similar coloured backdrop so that the shells are showcased a lot more obviously. Photographing them up against a light backdrop, takes away a little of the shells shape as it’s getting lost in a similar colour scheme to that of the backdrop.

For this image, once again I like how the final outcome turned out but I still believe that the image holds some weaknesses that could be improved in order to make the image much higher quality. I believe that the image is slightly blurry and the shadow isn’t as crisp and clear as I hoped it would be. I also think that the reflection of the image isn’t very reflective and shiny which is something else I would like to improve on.

Next time, I would aim to make the image just a bit sharper by possibly adjusting the lighting more and taking the images more slowly as for the camera to process the photographs taken.

Second photoshoot attempt

After doing my first photoshoot, I ended up revisiting the studio to take another selection of photographs to see if I could possibly improve a bit more with taking still life images.

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Final edits:

Combined rock photographs:

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Evaluation and Critique

Overall, I am very happy with how my second set of images turned out and really enjoy the look they give off with the scratchy background behind the rocks. I believe that this scratchy texture helps to elevate the images a lot more to make it seem like the whole image is rough and jagged. The rough and jagged sense displays what Jersey’s geology really is like and displays the real basis of the islands structure and aesthetic.

For the photographs that contain a collective of rocks, these ones I believe were to be my strongest photographs as I feel they hold a very bold sense of imagery. They capture the real sense of Jersey’s geological aspects and what the island has to hold within it’s beaches and other rocky landscapes. The way I edited the photo I particularly like as it highlights the layers of textures from each rock and gives them a much richer amount of importance.

For my singular images, I particularly like this image out of all the ones I took as I believe it is a very dramatic image and once again displays a nice rough and scratchy presence. Next time I would have possibly tried out photographing the rock on a black surface as I feel like that would have added quite a bit more depth, but it might have also faulted the overall aspect of the rock due to the rock containing quite harsh colours already. The focal point wouldn’t be very clear to see if it’s surrounded in a similar colour to the rock itself, whilst the white background displays the rock in its entirety.

What is a still life?

Still lifes were known to be paintings that displayed a variety of inanimate objects that were used as being the main subject of the piece. The paintings were known to communicate a moral or religious message and they particularly emphasised the shortness of life and the inevitability of decline and death. Still life paintings typically included fruit, flowers and objects contrasting with these in texture, such as bowls and glassware. Skeletons, burning candles and decaying fruit tend to be other popular choices within still life paintings

History behind still life

Still life ranges between many different time periods, aging all the way back to the 15th Century within the Egyptian culture. Still life began to become popular during ancient times and later on began to move throughout the middle ages, the renaissance period, modern period and is still popular to this day within contemporary art.

Ancient Still life

Coming from the ancient period, paintings were discovered from within burial grounds and tombs of what looked to be food – including crops, fish and meat. Later on within the ancient period, ancient greeks and romans became invested in the concept of still life and produced mosaics and frescoes.

Middle ages still life

Within the middle ages, still life was continued on but was based more around a religious concept and objects such as coins, seashells, and bushels of fruit were included in the pieces.

Renaissance still life

The renaissance period began solely using flowers as their focal point within paintings, but as the period progressed into the Dutch Golden Age, floral art took the turn of further stepping into becoming vanitas paintings. Vanitas paintings are inspired by memento mori, which was a genre of painting whose Latin name translates to “remember that you have to die.” Objects used would include human skulls, waning candles, and overturned hourglasses that were usually paired with a range of cut flowers.

Modern still life

Modern art then began to make the appearance of still life aspects and artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh and Cezanne, dabbled into the genre with the inclusion of usually flower filled vases, apples, wine bottles and water jugs. Cezanne in particular, dived into exploring a similar theme to that of vanitas genre by including skulls in his paintings. Pop art then began to follow the theme of still life, coming from artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

Still life nowadays still holds importance within the style of contemporary art. Paintings of still life would be produced of modern-day food and objects usually in a hyper-realistic style.

The genre of Still life began with Netherlandish painting of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the English term ‘still life‘ derives from the Dutch word ‘stilleven‘. Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. Later still-life works are produced with a variety of media and technology, such as found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound.

Still life in photography

There was then still life photography which was introduced alongside still life paintings. Still life photography became a genre of still life which included the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects. Tabletop photography, product photography, food photography and found object photography are all examples of still life photography.

This genre gives the photographer more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition compared to other photographic genres, such as landscape or portrait photography. Lighting and framing are important aspects of still life photography composition.

Man-made objects such as pots, vases, consumer products, handicrafts etc. or natural objects like plants, fruits, vegetables, food, rocks, shells etc. can be taken as subjects for still life photography. A range of these items were also quite common in historical still life paintings as well. Still life photos are not close up to the subject nor far away, but at a very head-on angle. The art in still life photography is often in the choice of objects that are being arranged and the lighting rather than the skill of the photographer.

Artist analysis

Pieter Claesz was a Dutch painter who achieved a striking simplicity and atmospheric quality in still-life representations. Claesz’s increasingly decorative work after 1640 includes lavish still-life displays.

Claesz was a Dutch artist who gave everyday objects great individuality. From the piece ‘Still life with a skull and a writing quill’, many suggested that a skull, a spilled glass with ephemeral reflections, an extinguished light, and a writer’s tools all imply that worldly endeavors are eventually futile. Claesz progressively refined the clarity and incisiveness acquired in this piece over a period of many years, during which he may be considered to have achieved an early maturity.

The painting displayed many of the typical vanitas aspects and was framed up in a dramatic sense with a messy layout of spilled items and other random objects.

Over the summer, I decided to revisit the location of L’Etacq as I was hoping to get a wider selection of images to edit for my final images. I had quite a good range already from the first photoshoot at L’Etacq, but I thought it might be a good idea to just revisit the area as it’s always good to have more options.

—- L’Etacq —-

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—- Devil’s Hole —-

I decided to visit Devil’s Hole for another photoshoot during the summer as I believed that the rock formations along the walkway, down towards the sea are especially impressive. I started at the car park, just before where the Devil sculpture is, and proceeded down that pathway towards the ‘Devil’s Hole Viewing Platform’. Around this area was a perfect example of Jersey’s magnificent rock formations and the overall amazing representation of the geological aspects of the island.

I ended up getting a good range of photos during the photoshoot and especially liked the images I took around the viewing platform as I was able to capture more full-scale and close-up images of the rocks.

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Final edited outcomes from both photoshoots

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As a response to David Hockney’s work, I ended up making a physical joiner as well as the digital ones made within photoshop. In order to make these joiners, I ended up printing off sections of my digital joiner into small pieces and began to assemble them together on a piece of card. I started off by assembling them on a white card so that I could see my images composed together easier and get an understanding of what formation I believe would work best.

—- Experiments —-

I wanted to play around with the formation of the sections within the joiner, so I positioned them in slightly different ways and continued to take photos throughout each stage. I checked to see which organisation of images I preferred, to see if it looked better with less or more images or even just the way the overall joiner is shaped.

—- Process of making the joiner —-

Whilst making my joiner, I thought about experimenting with the idea of making it slightly 3D and not just a flat 2D joiner. I decided to choose three images that lay on the surface of the joiner and stuck them on top of pieces of foam board. I then cut them out and stuck them in their original positions on top of the 2D joiner.

Final outcome of my joiner

When making my joiner, I did enjoy forming the overall structure of how I wanted the final outcome to look. With making digital joiners, the images are usually just automated instantly and set up in an already organised formation with many interesting shapes. This method allowed for me to have more control over what I was wanting to achieve rather than have a computer organise everything for me.

Overall, I am very happy with the results of my joiner but next time if I were to make another one, I would like to consider using less images as sometimes I printed off images that were way too similar and just unnecessary to put into the final joiner. The extra images made the process slightly more confusing and I did actually end up discarding a few extra prints as I thought they served no purpose in the final product.

After editing my images in lightroom, I wanted to try out the concept of making a joiner out of my collection of images. I wanted to follow a similar concept to that of what David Hockney does.

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After selecting all of the images I wanted to use to compose my joiners, I chose one image from a joiner group and edited it to my liking. Once that was done I synced up the edited settings so that every image was edited exactly the same.

I then colour coded certain images into separate groups as to keep the joiners all together and to not get any mixed up.

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Process of making the joiners:

In order to make the joiners, I needed to open up on one of the images included in the joiner and then select ‘Automate’ and ‘Photomerge’.

After selecting those I would need to click ‘browse’ and select all the images I would like to combine as a joiner. After selecting ‘Ok’, it would merge all of my images into a joiner.

—- Failed joiners —-

—- Successful joiners —-

3D Joiners experiments

After making my 2D joiners, I decided to take the oppurtunity to experiment with the finalised joiner a bit more and to make them into 3D joiners. There were many different types of 3D formats I could choose between so I took the time to go through a few of them to see if any were to my liking.

Results of the 3D joiner experiments —–

—- Before and after edits of images —-

Image 1:

For this image here I ended up converting the image to black and white. Although it doesn’t look like a huge amount has changed due to the original image containing a range of low tone greys and rather dark shades of colour in itself, I have converted the entire colour scheme to be a solid black and white colour based image and have adjusted the contrast, texture and exposure to my liking. I have also considered to change the whites, blacks and highlights of the image until I am satisfied with the final result.

Image 2:

Once again I have decided to follow a very similar scheme to that of ‘Image 1’ by converting the entire photograph to a solid black and white one. There is a slightly more obvious change within these two images as one is seen to be containing a range of feint colours such as yellows, reds and browns. I adjusted the contrast and texture of the image quite a bit as to really make the rock textures appear more obvious and sharp.

Image 3:

—- Best edits —-

Close- up Geometric Rock Formations:

Full-scale Rock Photographs:

For this photoshoot, we all went on a geo walk along the coastline of L’etacq. We ended up starting around the carpark area, mainly capturing the big rock that is central in this image. After that was captured, we ended up strolling along the coast down to stinky bay. After taking photos down in the bay, we walked back up and proceeded to where the hills were to where we all ended up walking up them and walking along the hills to capture more images of the large-scale rocks.

The aim of this walk was to be able to capture what Jersey is as a whole from its rock formations, to capture what it means to live on such a beautifully sculptured service. I wanted to capture this by taking quite a few close ups of the structure and texture of the overall rocks but also to take an image full-scale to capture how extravagant it can be due to its size.

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Melding photograph and sculpture, Darren Harvey-Regan (b.1974, England) works in the liminal space where flat representation ends, and three-dimensional object begins. And with the photographic medium straddling object and representation simultaneously, such a place seems an astute location for Harvey-Regan to examine where the two meet. Perplexing, and at times humorous, his photographs act as the subject of his scrutiny but importantly also as the tool that he uses to carry out his procedure, constantly attempting to free himself from the constraints of photographic representation.

Darren Harvey-Regan is a graduate of the Royal College of Art. His work has appeared in exhibitions and publications internationally and is part of the permanent photography collection at the V & A Museum, London.

The Erratics

Harvey-Regan’s put together a collection of his images, displaying them all in a photobook named ‘The Erratics’.

Photobook: The Erratics

In geology an erratic is a rock that differs in type from those around it, having been carried over large distances by long-vanished glaciers. Harvey-Regan’s eponymous series questions the medium of photography and its ability to extract from contexts and alter perception.

Originating in the artist’s desire to liberate himself from the weight of representational imagery – a yearning for abstraction – alongside a converse desire to engage with appearances as only photography can, The Erratics began as a series of large format photographs in the Egyptian desert, capturing chalk monoliths in the most objective manner possible. These images were followed by months of meticulously carving and photographing chalk rocks in the studio, forcing a geometry and line to shape the objects towards the photographic surfaces they eventually become. 

The Erratics combines these sets of images within a new text work by Harvey-Regan that explores how the processes and concerns within the work might be further expressed and shaped through the act of writing.

One of Hockney’s most famous joiners, ‘Pearblossom Highway’, which consisting of around 800 pictures. Every photo for this image was taken at completely different viewpoints, not just one central one. He took photos from all different positions such as up, down, sideways etc. Hockney ended up taking close ups of areas, as to make the viewer feel close and involved with the photograph. Hockney’s friends ended up thinking that this image was a painting rather than photography.

David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

Hockney has owned residences and studios in Bridlington, and London, as well as two residences in California, where he has lived intermittently since 1964: one in the Hollywood Hills, one in Malibu, and an office and archives on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, California.

On 15 November 2018, Hockney’s 1972 work ‘Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)‘ sold at Christie’s auction house in New York City for $90 million (£70 million), becoming the most expensive artwork by a living artist sold at auction. This broke the previous record, set by the 2013 sale of Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog (Orange) for $58.4 million. Hockney held this record until 15 May 2019 when Koons reclaimed the honour selling his ‘Rabbit‘ for more than $91 million at Christie’s in New York.

David Hockney was originally famous for his paintings rather than his photography. He always returned to painting portraits throughout his career. From 1968, and for the next few years, he painted portraits and double portraits of friends, lovers, and relatives just under life-size in a realistic style that adroitly captured the likenesses of his subjects.

Over time, however, he discovered what he could not capture with a lens, saying: “Photography seems to be rather good at portraiture, or can be. But, it can’t tell you about space, which is the essence of landscape. For me anyway. Even Ansel Adams can’t quite prepare you for what Yosemite looks like when you go through that tunnel and you come out the other side.” Frustrated with the limitations of photography and its ‘one-eyed’ approach, he returned to painting.

This was one of Hockney’s famous joiners named ‘The Crossword Puzzle’. It was a photograph of two of Hockney’s close friends and every photo taken of them was taken at a different time. He wanted to showcase the variety of emotions highlighted over a certain period of time. He quoted ‘The space is the illusion, but the time is not an illusion’. Also stating that ‘It’s real and accounted for in the number of pictures’, ‘You know it took time to take them, wait for them, put them down’. He explains how time is obviously highlighted throughout the process and the image itself as it displays the different amounts of emotions.

He explains more about the ‘Crossword Puzzle’ photograph in this video.

What are Geoparks?

UNESCO Global Geoparks are single, unified geographical areas where sites and landscapes of international geological significance are managed with a holistic concept of protection, education and sustainable development. A UNESCO Global Geopark uses its geological heritage, in connection with all other aspects of the area’s natural and cultural heritage, to enhance awareness and understanding of key issues facing society, such as using our earth’s resources sustainably, mitigating the effects of climate change and reducing natural hazard-related risks.

The Global Geoparks have until recently been concentrated in Europe and in China, but the last few years have seen the geoparks initiative spread worldwide so that there are existing UNESCO Global Geoparks, or active applications to become UNESCO Global Geoparks, on all continents. The UNESCO Global Geopark information sheets provide detailed information on the UNESCO Global Geoparks in the different countries around the world.

The Geoparks are about ‘more than rocks’ and the UNESCO Global Geoparks celebrate the links between people and the Earth.

In 2022, there were 177 UNESCO Global Geoparks in 46 countries around the world. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seeks to build peace through international cooperation in Education, the Sciences and Culture.

—— Jersey Geoparks ——

Jersey in particular is an incredibly strong contender for having exceptional Geoparks, with it’s important cultural heritage and amazing geology.

—— Jersey Geopark Map ——

Geological Sites of Interest

There was then a Jersey Geological Trail guide, produced by Dr. Ralph Nichols and Dr. Hill. It is a beginner’s guide to some lovely beach and cliff sections which reveal Jersey’s geological history. The beauty of Jersey lies in its cliffs, bays and inland valleys. This beauty is the result of the island’s geology, the colour and the different hardness and structure of the rocks, and their response to the changes of climate over the years.

Nichols geology lectures and practicals fascinated him and he felt that he was exceptionally lucky to be taught and inspired by the best Demonstrators, such as Ron Walters, ‘Sarge’ Jenkins and Tony Harris, who later all gained acclaimed doctorates and obtained top professional posts.

Dr. Hill helped Nichols mainly with the illustrations of the guide, highlighting a remarkable variety of rock types and structures exposed in such a small island.