Kalafatis explores the idea of the Aegean Archipelago being a city unto itself. With Spyros documenting the human element, Kalafatis photographed the ships and routes, imbued with memories of his own personal acquaintance and family history. What really sticks out to me is how empty and lonely his images look, while they also show how beautiful islands/ the ocean can be.
How can I use this for influence?
Obviously Jersey is surrounded by the sea, and with so many scenic viewing points available 24/7 for shooting in various times of day there are infinite outcomes for coastal shoots. I also think that by focusing my project towards the coast/ sea I can attempt to portray the element of disconnection that comes with living in Jersey.
There are three island territories within the British Isles that are known as Crown Dependencies; these are the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey which make up Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. The Crown Dependencies are not part of the United Kingdom, but are self-governing possessions of the British Crown.
In each Bailiwick The Queen’s personal representative is the Lieutenant Governor, who since the mid-eighteenth century has acted as the channel of communication between the Sovereign and the Channel Islands’ government.
The two Crown Dependencies have their own legislative assemblies as well as their own administrative, fiscal and legal systems. They have wide powers of self-government, although primary legislation passed by the assemblies requires approval by The Queen in Council (Privy Council).
The Channel Islands were part of the Duchy of Normandy when Duke William, following his conquest of England in 1066, became William I.
In 1106, William’s youngest son Henry I seized the Duchy of Normandy from his brother Robert; since that time, the English and subsequently British Sovereign has held the title Duke of Normandy.
By 1205, England had lost most of its French lands, including Normandy. However, the Channel Islands, part of the lost Duchy, remained a self-governing possession of the English Crown.
While the islands today retain autonomy in government, they owe allegiance to The Queen in her role as Duke of Normandy.
Yes as Sian repeatedly mentions how Phillip Ebeling and Pieter Hugo creates their work mainly using subjects from their personal lives such as people they grew up around- linking to the question how to they express the notion of family history & relationships
Does it provide knowledge and understanding?
Yes Sian shows clear understanding of what Phillip Ebeling and Pieter Hugo
A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, and for my zine I wanted to show the island in 2 or 3 weather conditions such as overcast, sunset and/or stormy, and subtlety changing between conditions all while displaying various different angles of Jersey’s coastal features . I will be drawing images from a few different photoshoots at locations such as La Rocque, La Hocq and L’etacq + my studio photoshoots. I will be calling it Le Rocher Dans Le Canal as this means the rock in the channel- as jersey is essentially just a big rock in the English channel.
original selected imaged
Inspiration
Into the Light – By Sandy Kim
Experimentation
original layout
adjusted image order to convey weather changing (storm coming in)
playing with orientations to ensure smooth viewing transitions between images
between
after
Final
Evaluation
Overall I am happy with the composition of my images as I feel that they convey a good range of the islands geological features in different lights, as well as including a few design features to keep it interesting. I do feel that it provides a good look into the features found around Jersey in various forms, including natural, and man made ones (new and old).
How do archives function as repositories of knowledge?
Archives are a place in which public records or historical materials (such as documents) are preserved, or in the case of photography a place where “old” photographs are held to preserve them. They are often funded privately but sometimes receive help from the public. They are created in order to record the history of a place, topic, or time in history; for example, we visited the Societe Jersiaise Photographic archive to look into the history of the island, more specifically the archaeological features such as previous excavations and other findings with relation to the islands. These institutions serve to give context to the way things are today- which is important because with things like photography, without context photos are almost meaningless. These collections of documents and photos can be interpreted in certain ways in order to convey an idea of understanding and knowledge of the time in which they were taken. Societe Jersiaise was founded in 1873 for the purpose of “publication of local history”, “the study of the ancient local dialect”, and “to achieve the conservation of all prehistoric and historical sites”. By being able to understand through the use of the archive, it allows us to understand why things on the island are a certain way, as well as allowing us to predict/anticipate the future of it as we can learn from important mistakes. For Example, leaving potential archaeological sites of interest such as burial chambers to be eroded by the sea when they could have been studied, a sad reality that happened to Green Island. Looking more broadly into archives and things that I keep that could be considered personal archives are e-tickets of events that I have attended, as well as posters of line ups and images and videos that I have taken to look back on.
The Photographer I have chosen to study in relation to the essay question is William Collie, Collie was born in Scotland in October 1810. Collie’s work featured in Society Jersey’s Archives consists of 157 images. An Image in particular that stood out to me when researching Collie was his image of a Jersey Market Woman, one of the earliest photographs printed on paper taken in 1847, It is thought that Collie was most probably the first photographer to use Fox Talbot’s calotype process in Jersey. Although these images have been ‘copyrighted’ by the Royal Photographic Society and are unable to be viewed on the Society Jersey Archives website, they can be viewed in person. Collie had to use one of the early photographic processes of salt printing to produce these images on paper. The salted print process was a revolutionary, direct, negative to positive photographic process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, which allowed multiple prints to be created from a single negative. However, depending on the precise process used, it can result in extremely light-sensitive prints. Without photographers such as William Collie’s work being stored in archives, studying and understanding historical processes would be a lot more difficult. From studying his images, we can learn more about Jersey in the times he was photographing, as well as photographic processes throughout history.
In my process of researching William Collie his images of Woman in a Jersey Market really stood out to me. The images were taken around 174 years ago in 1847, which I find remarkable that they are of such good quality from that time period. Collie was a pioneer of the photographic processes which lead to printed photography, and his series of images of Jersey Market Women are calotype portraits. Calotypes are the original negative and positive process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot; the calotype is sometimes called a “Talbotype.” This process uses a paper negative to make a print with a softer, less sharp image than the daguerreotype, but because a negative is produced, it is possible to make multiple copies. The image below in particular looks as though it was taken outside with natural lighting, however the way the image is printed it has made it a lot darker than what the image most likely looked like on the camera. In spite of the image being printed very dark and monochromatic, there is still a lot of bright contrast in the image with the white brick wall featuring in the background and the white details that are more obvious on the bottom half of her dress she is wearing. One thing I like about this image is that although the woman in the image is the focal point, she is not entirely centred which makes the image more interesting to look at, as it also draws you into looking at the details and information that can be seen in the background. The basket on the wall in the top left of the image breaks up the brightness of the wall behind the woman and fills the image well.
In Conclusion, archives are a great source of knowledge and provide evidence of activities which occurred in the past, they tell stories, document people and identity and are valuable sources of information for research. Without archived images we would find it a lot harder to piece together historical moments in time. One could argue that photographic archives store some of the most important pieces of history and are massively important in proving historically important events happened. Whilst writing this essay I have reflected on how images from the past have and still can in the future help me develop my own photography style, I think that looking back on images from the past greatly helps me with deciding which kind of images I like and dislike and the style of images I want to take as a photographer. Something that I could do to develop my own photographic project around St Helier Migrant communities is photograph people in Jersey Market, in a similar style as William Collie has done and compare the images of people who work and/or frequent the market to Collies images that only featured woman in the market.
For my research and inspiration, I looked at work from Felicity Hammond– an emerging artist who works across photography and installation. Fascinated by political contradictions within the urban landscape her work explores construction sites and obsolete built environments. Her sculptures are abstract in the way that they are all small parts of a larger sculpture that constructs a landscape.
First Model Idea
My first idea is to use these 4 photos from the My Rock project, and stack them similar to an ascending spiral staircase.
Experimenting
After printing the photos and attempting to stack them I realized it would be difficult to get them to stand straight without drooping so I experimented with another layout similar to a directions post which came out better than my first idea.
Mounting base photo into the base by cutting a slit
Type of slit used to stack them
Final Version
For my final version, I will be more precisely measuring the slits on the photos, as well as on the base to make sure the model stands sturdy and straight. I will also be using toothpicks to create a sort of spine for support.
Wind Chime Idea
My second idea was to wrap two photos around a cylinder creating a mirrored effect, and then hand 3/4 of different sizes at different heights to create a sort of wind chime.
Is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects. Similar to still life painting, it is the application of photography to the still life artistic style.
History of Still Life
-Still life is usually about metaphors / symbolism (i.e death, love, fragility of life, etc)
Still, life has historically been used as a way to present symbolism for real life, for example earlyNetherlandish paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. This then developed to more recent history with photography- allowing more to be captured more easily. 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. Manmade objects like 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. Typically, 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. Still life derives from the Dutch word still even, coined in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The impetus for this term came as artists created compositions of greater complexity, bringing together a wider variety of objects to communicate allegorical meanings.
