camera obscura

Camera obscura, meaning darkened room in Latin, is a device in a shape of a box or a room that lets the light through a small opening on one side and projects it on the other. In this simple variant, image that is outside of the box is projected upside-down. More complex cameras can use mirrors to project image upwards and right-side up and they can also have lenses. Camera obscura is used as an aid for drawing and entertainment.

Nicephore Niepce

Nicephore niepce was the first person to make a photographic image.To make the heliograph, Niépce dissolved light-sensitive bitumen in oil of lavender and applied a thin coating over a polished pewter plate. He inserted the plate into a camera obscura and positioned it near a window in his second-story workroom.

Louis Daguerre

Louis Daguerre called his invention “daguerreotype.” His method, which he disclosed to the public late in the summer of 1839, consisted of treating silver-plated copper sheets with iodine to make them sensitive to light, then exposing them in a camera and “developing” the images with warm mercury vapor.

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. A daguerreotype is not flexible and is rather heavy. The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile. Since the metal plate is extremely vulnerable, most daguerreotypes are presented in a special housing.

Henry Fox Talbot

Fox Talbot went on to develop the three primary elements of photography: developing, fixing, and printing. Although simply exposing photographic paper to the light produced an image, it required extremely long exposure times. By accident, he discovered that there was an image after a very short exposure. Although he could not see it, he found he could chemically develop it into a useful negative. The image on this negative was then fixed with a chemical solution. This removed the light-sensitive silver and enabled the picture to be viewed in bright light. With the negative image, Fox Talbot realised he could repeat the process of printing from the negative. Consequently, his process could make any number of positive prints, unlike the Daguerreotypes. He called this the ‘calotype’ and patented the process in 1841.

Richard Maddox

In 1871 Richard Leach Maddox, an English physician, suggested suspending silver bromide in a gelatine emulsion, an idea that led, in 1878, to the introduction of factory-produced dry plates coated with gelatine containing silver salts. This event marked the beginning of the modern era of photography.

George Eastman

In 1880 he perfected a process of making dry plates for photography and organized the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company for their manufacture. The first kodak (a name he coined) camera was placed on the market in 1888. It was a simple handheld box camera containing a 100-exposure roll of film that used paper negatives. Consumers sent the entire camera back to the manufacturer for developing, printing, and reloading when the film was used up; the company’s slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest.” In 1889 Eastman introduced a roll film on a transparent base, which has remained the standard for film. In 1892 he reorganized the business as the Eastman kodak company . Eight years later he introduced the brownie camera , which was intended for use by children and sold for one dollar. By 1927 Eastman Kodak had a virtual monopoly of the photographic industry in the United States, and it has continued to be one of the largest American companies in its field.

print/film photography

print and film photography is where you print physical images that are taken on old fashioned cameras.

Digital photography

digital photography uses modern day cameras and sd cards to take state of the art photos with expensive and clever cameras.

This is a portrait photographed by arnold newman

The angle that Newman photographs Krupp is a close up shot.

Newman has photographed Krupp looking sturdy and strong by the way his hands are clasped.

There are warm and cool tones in this image creating a sense of a dark and gloomy atmosphere. This brings more attention towards his face and his facial expression.

The quality of the photo makes it clearer to see the detail in the photograph making the image more sharp and eye catching.

In 1767, people protested about the export of grain from the Island. Threats were made against shipowners and a law was passed the following year to keep corn in Jersey. In August 1769 the States of Jersey repealed this law, claiming that crops in the Island were plentiful. There was suspicion that this was a ploy to raise the price of wheat, which would be beneficial to the rich, many of whom had ‘rentes’ owed to them on properties that were payable in wheat. As major landowners, the Lemprière family stood to profit hugely.

On Thursday 28 September 1769, a Court called the Assize d’Héritage was sitting, hearing cases relating to property disputes. The Lieutenant Bailiff, Charles Lemprière, sat as the Head of the Court. Meanwhile, a group of disgruntled individuals from Trinity, St Martin, St John, St Lawrence and St Saviour marched towards Town where their numbers were swelled by residents of St Helier. The group was met at the door of the Royal Court and was urged to disperse and send its demands in a more respectful manner. However, the crowd forced its way into the Court Room armed with clubs and sticks. Inside, they ordered that their demands be written down in the Court book. Although the King later commanded that the lines be removed from the book (image 3), a transcription survives that shows the crowd’s demands.

The demands of the Corn Riots protestors included:

• That the price of wheat be lowered and set at 20 sols per cabot.

• That foreigners be ejected from the Island.

• That his Majesty’s tithes be reduced to 20 sols per vergée.

• That the value of the liard coin be set to 4 per sol.

• That there should be a limit on the sales tax.

• That seigneurs stop enjoying the practice of champart (the right to every twelfth sheaf of corn or bundle of flax).

• That seigneurs end the right of ‘Jouir des Successions’(the right to enjoy anyone’s estate for a year and a day if they die without heirs).

• That branchage fines could no longer be imposed.

• That Rectors could no longer charge tithes except on apples.

• That charges against Captain Nicholas Fiott be dropped and that he be allowed to return to the Island without an inquiry.

• That the Customs’ House officers be ejected.

Contact Sheets

Here I have placed some images of contact sheets from Adobe Lightroom Classic, this is to show that I have developed some understanding of how to use Lightroom and how images can be edited to make some of their features stand out such as contrast and vibrancy. I like using Lightroom as I can place my favourite images into collections, this helps when editing my images to make them more aesthetic, and as adjusting their image size so I can make blog posts with the correct image sizes.

Editing

Below I have showed how i have edited my images in Lightroom by inserting screenshots whilst using Lightroom. As you can see above in my contact sheets, a lot of my photos didn’t turn out will as the exposure was to low , therefore their is limited visibility. So I have selected some images to make them lighter and more vibrant. This example of one of the living history characters is a good example of how adjusting the contrast makes the image look more professional.

Below I have demonstrated me organising my images from Hamptonne into folders in Lightroom, this is so when I have thousands of images in the Media drive and in Lightroom, I can easily locate specific image as they will be categorised. Furthermore, I have attempted to sort them into folders which corelate with the blog posts I have been publishing.

What were the Corn Riots?

In 1769,  Islanders became frustrated with food shortages & rising prices. In 1767, people protested about the export of grain from the Island. Anonymous threats were made against shipowners and a law was passed in 1768 to keep corn in Jersey. In August 1769 the States of Jersey repealed this law, claiming that there were enough crops in the Island to provide Islanders with enough food. There was suspicion that this was a lie to raise the price of wheat, which would be beneficial to the rich, many of whom had ‘rentes’ owed to them on properties that were payable in wheat. This led to a storming of the Royal Court by around 500 Islanders in what became known as The Corn Riots. Recently there was a festival to mark the 250th anniversary of the Corn Riots from the 24th-27th of September. The demands of the Corn Riots protestors included:

• That the price of wheat be lowered and set at 20 sols per cabot

• That his Majesty’s tithes be reduced to 20 sols per vergée.

• That the value of the liard coin be set to 4 per sol.

• That there should be a limit on the sales tax.

• That seigneurs stop enjoying the practice of champart (the right to every twelfth sheaf of corn or bundle of flax).

• That seigneurs end the right of ‘Jouir des Successions’(the right to enjoy anyone’s estate for a year and a day if they die without heirs).

• That branchage fines could no longer be imposed.

• That Rectors could no longer charge tithes except on apples.

• That charges against Captain Nicholas Fiott be dropped and that he be allowed to return to the Island without an inquiry.

• That the Customs’ House officers be ejected.

In the summer of 1769, a ship loaded with corn for export was raided by a group of women who demanded that the sailors unload their cargo and sell it in the Island. ‘Let us die on the spot, rather than by languishing in famine. God hath given us corn, and we will keep it, in spite of the Lemprières, and the court, for if we trust to them they will starve us’

Other protests

Queen’s Valley is Jersey’s biggest reservoir holding up to 262 million gallons of water. In the late 1970’s there were plans to flood the valley, which caused outrage and led to a protest.

There were two campaign groups who organised protests against flooding the valley on environmental grounds. They were ‘Save our valley’ (pictured above) and ‘Concern’. It’s estimated around 8 thousand people marched through the valley at the height of the protests.

My favourite photos from the Jersey Museum trip

What were the corn riots about?

During the 18th century, power in Jersey was held in the hands of the Lemprière family. In 1750, Charles Lemprière was made Lieutenant Bailiff, and his brother Philippe was named Receiver-General.

In 1767, people protested about the export of grain from Jersey. Anonymous threats were made against ship owners, a law was passed the following year to keep corn within the island. In august of the same year the court appealed this law, arguing that the levels of corn were plentiful so export was not detrimental. There was suspicion that this appeal was a ploy to raise the price of wheat, which would be beneficial to the rich – many of them had ‘rentes’ owed to them on properties that were payable in wheat. As major landowners, the Lemprière family stood to profit hugely.

The riots

Later in this summer, a ship loaded with corn for exportation was raided by a group of women who demanded that the sailors unload their cargo and sell it in the island – “Let us die on the spot, rather than by languishing in famine, God hath given us corn, and we will keep it, in spite of the Lemprieres, and the court, for if we trust to them they will starve us.”

Then, on the 28th september of the same year,  a Court called the Assize d’Héritage was sitting, hearing cases relating to property disputes. The Lieutenant Bailiff, Charles Lemprière, sat as the Head of the Court. Meanwhile, a group of disgruntled individuals from Trinity, St Martin, St John, St Lawrence and St Saviour marched towards Town where their numbers were swelled by residents of St Helier. The group was met at the door of the Royal Court and was urged to disperse and send its demands in a more respectful manner. However, the crowd forced its way into the Court Room armed with clubs and sticks. Inside, they ordered that their demands be written down in the Court book.

The demands of the protestors

 That the price of wheat be lowered and set at 20 sols per cabot.

• That foreigners be ejected from the Island.

• That his Majesty’s tithes be reduced to 20 sols per vergée.

• That the value of the liard coin be set to 4 per sol.

• That there should be a limit on the sales tax.

• That seigneurs stop enjoying the practice of champart (the right to every twelfth sheaf of corn or bundle of flax).

• That seigneurs end the right of ‘Jouir des Successions’(the right to enjoy anyone’s estate for a year and a day if they die without heirs).

• That branchage fines could no longer be imposed.

• That Rectors could no longer charge tithes except on apples.

• That charges against Captain Nicholas Fiott be dropped and that he be allowed to return to the Island without an inquiry.

• That the Customs’ House officers be ejected.

After the riots

Following the riots, on 6 October, a meeting of the States of Jersey was held at the Castle when it was agreed that Charles Lemprière, together with two Jurats, and Philippe Lemprière, the Attorney General, would journey to London in order to present their difficulties to the Privy Council, representing the Crown.

At first, the Privy Council was outraged by their reports and commanded that the demands of the rioters be erased from the Court records. On 1 November, a Royal Pardon and a reward of £100 was offered to any rioters who named the ringleaders. After the full situation in the Island became clear, the protestors were eventually pardoned. The corn riots had helped Jersey to become a fairer society at the time, and have an influence on how reform was dealt with from then onwards.

The power of protest in Jersey

In the 1970s, a growing population and increasing numbers of holiday makers put large pressure on Jersey’s water resources. In 1976, during a summer of droughts and hose pipe bans, the Jersey New Waterworks Company announced plans to flood Queen’s Valley and create a new reservoir. Thousands of islanders supported 2 anti-flooding groups:Concern, Friends of Queen’s Valley, and Save our Valley, arguing flooding the Valley was not a solution. They suggested capping the island’s population at 80,000, installing water meters and using more desalinated water.

The Camera Obscura

A camera obscure is a darkened room with a small hole or lens at one side, through an image is projected onto a wall or table opposite. Camera Obscuras with a lens in the opening have been used since the second half of the 16th century and became popular as help for drawing or painting.

The camera obscura was also used to study eclipses without the risk of damaging the eyes by looking directly at the sun. When it was used as a drawing aid, it helped tracing the projected scene to create a highly accurate picture.

Nicephore Niepce

Nicephore Niepce was a French inventor. He was led to the art of photography by his interest in the new art of Lithography. However he lacked the artistic ability for these. Letters to his sister-in-law around 1816 indicate that he had managed to capture small camera images on paper using silver chloride, with him apparently the first to have any success at all in such an attempt, but the results were negatives, dark where they should be light and vice versa, and he could find no way to stop them from darkening all over when brought into the light for viewing.

Niepce used a coating of bitumen of Judea to make the first permanent camera photographs. The bitumen was hardened where it was exposed to light and the unhardened portion was then removed with a solvent. A camera exposure lasting for hours or days was required. Niépce and Daguerre later refined this process, but unacceptably long exposures were still needed.

Louis Daguerre

Daguerre experimented for years with increasing the sharpness of the lens in the camera obscura and working at discovering the reaction of various light-sensitive materials when applied to different surfaces. With Nicephore Niepce, who was engaged in similar efforts, he worked on this. They worked at permanently capturing the images they saw in the camera obscura, and critiqued each other’s work with each attempt. It was essential that they prepare a medium to be sensitive to light, using a lens and light to form an image upon it, but then making that same medium insensitive to further exposure so that the resulting image could be viewed in light without harming it. When Niepce passed away in 1833, and Daguerre continued some correspondence with his son, Isidore.

Daguerreotypes

By 1835, word got around Paris that the city’s favourite master of illusion and light had discovered a new way to enchant the eye. In January of 1839, the invention of a photographic system that would fix the image caught in the camera obscura was formally announced in the London periodical The Athenaeum.

Louis Daguerre called his invention “daguerreotype.” His method, which he disclosed to the public late in the summer of 1839, consisted of treating silver-plated copper sheets with iodine to make them sensitive to light, then exposing them in a camera and “developing” the images with warm mercury vapor. The fumes from the mercury vapor combined with the silver to produce an image. The plate was washed with a saline solution to prevent further exposure.

Daguerreotypes offered clarity and a sense of realism that no other painting had been able to capture before. By mid-1850’s, millions of daguerreotypes had been made to document almost every aspect of life and death.

Henry Fox Talbot

Shortly after the invention of the daguerrotype was announced in 1839, Talbot asserted priority of invention based on experiments he had began in 1834. At a meeting of the Royal Institution on 25 January 1839, Talbot exhibited several paper photographs he had made.  These showed his ways of chemically stabilising his results, making them insensitive to further exposure that direct sunlight could be used to imprint the negative image produced into the camera, onto another sheet of salted paper – creating a positive.

The calotype, was then introduced in 1841 – it used paper coated with silver oxide. The calotype process produced a translucent original negative image from which multiple positives could be made by simple contact printing. This gave it an important advantage over the daguerreotype process, which produced an opaque original positive that could be duplicated only by copying it with a camera.

Richard Maddox

Long before his discovery of the dry gelatin photographic emulsion, Maddox was prominent in what was called photomicrography – photographing minute organisms under the microscope. The eminent photomicrographer of the day, Lionel S. Beale, included as a frontispiece images made by Maddox in his manual ‘How to work with the Microscope’.

The Gelatin or Dry Plate photographic process was invented in 1871 by Maddox: This involved the coating of glass photographic plates with a light sensitive gelatin emulsion and allowing them to dry prior to use. This made for a much more practical process than the wet plate process as the plate could be transported, exposed and then processed at a later date rather than having to coat, expose and process the plate in one sitting. The gelatin dry plate process technique was developed and eventually led to the roll film process.

George Eastman

In 1884, Eastman patented the first film in roll form to prove practical and useful. He had been experimenting at home to develop it. In 1888, he developed the Kodak camera (“Kodak” being a word Eastman created), which was the first camera designed to use roll film. He coined the advertising slogan, “You press the button, we do the rest” which quickly became popular among customers. In 1889 he first offered film stock, and by 1896 became the leading supplier of film stock internationally. He incorporated his company under the name Eastman Kodak, in 1892. As film stock became standardized, Eastman continued to lead in innovations. Refinements in colored film stock continued after his death.

Kodak Brownie

The Kodak Brownie was a series of cameras made by Eastman. They were introduced in 1900 – it was a basic cardboard box camera with a simple meniscus lens that took 2 and 1/4 square pictures on a 117 roll film. It was made and marketed for Kodak roll films, and because of its simple controls and initial price of 1$ (31$ in today’s money.) it became very popular.

Film and Print photography

Print photography is the practice of utilising chemically sensitive paper that’s exposed to a negative, a transparency or a digital image from a printer or similar device. Alternatively, the negative or transparency may be placed on top of the paper and directly exposed which creates a contact print. Digital photos, however are printed commonly on pain paper, for example by a colour printer.

Film photography is a type of photography that uses chemical processes too capture an image, typically on paper, film or a hard plate. These analog processes were the only methods available to photographers for more than a century prior to the invention of digital photography.

Digital Photography

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

During the 18th century, power in Jersey was concentrated in the hands of the Lemprière family. In 1750, Charles Lemprière was appointed Lieutenant Bailiff, while his brother Philippe was named Receiver-General.

One of Charles Lemprière’s major opponents within the Island was Nicholas Fiott. He was a captain and merchant who had disagreements with Lemprière going back many years. Things came to a head in the mid-1760s when Fiott struggled to find a lawyer to represent him in the Royal Court as they were all appointed by Lemprière.

Finally, Fiott took his frustrations to the Court. This was the opportunity for which Lemprière had been waiting. Fiott made his objections in writing and was prosecuted by Lemprière for insulting members of the Court. Fiott was fined and sentenced to ‘amende honorable’, which meant that he had to get down on his knees and pray for the forgiveness of God, the King and the Court. He refused to comply with the sentence and was sent to prison for a month. On his release, Fiott left the Island.

In 1767, people protested about the export of grain from the Island. Anonymous threats were made against shipowners and a law was passed the following year to keep corn in Jersey. In August 1769 the States of Jersey repealed this law, claiming that crops in the Island were plentiful. There was suspicion that this was a ploy to raise the price of wheat, which would be beneficial to the rich, many of whom had rents owed to them on properties that were payable in wheat. As major landowners, the Lemprière family stood to profit hugely.

On Thursday 28 September 1769, a Court called the Assize d’Héritage was sitting, hearing cases relating to property disputes. The Lieutenant Bailiff, Charles Lemprière, sat as the Head of the Court. Meanwhile, a group of disgruntled individuals from Trinity, St Martin, St John, St Lawrence and St Saviour marched towards Town where their numbers were swelled by residents of St Helier. The group was met at the door of the Royal Court and was urged to disperse and send its demands in a more respectful manner. However, the crowd forced its way into the Court Room armed with clubs and sticks. Inside, they ordered that their demands be written down in the Court book. Although the King later commanded that the lines be removed from the book, a transcription survives that shows the crowd’s demands.

Local Farming Practises

At the time of the Jersey Corn Riots, around the 28th of September 1769, Jersey mainly grew crops such as wheat and corn, which has been revealed to be an ancient custom, with cereals being rarely grown. Wheat in particular was grown to make bread and was also used as a currency. Due to Jersey’s rich, fertile soil, good climate temperature and rainfall, people sometimes found that more than enough of these crops had been harvested when they had fully grown, which allowed the extra crops to be exported and sold, providing the workers with an income.

The Power of Protest

Starting around 1767, the harvest of wheat and corn had fluctuating, sometimes leading to exports of crops being banned in the years of poor harvest. However, in 1769, there had been a poor harvest of corn, which lead to the price of wheat increasing. This made it far easier for the rich, or people who had loaned money, to eat, while making it harder for the poorer to afford food. This lead to a large riot, with parishioners from Trinity marching to the Royal Court demanding change, in particular the price of wheat being lowered, it was only until 1771 did these changes take place.

Changes to Local Laws

After the events taken place at the Royal Court in 1769, changes were made to laws and powers in Jersey. The ‘code of 1771’ was put in place, this meant that all existing legislation in Jersey was joined together, this allowed for laws to be more fair for everyone. This code made the Royal Court unable to create any more laws, as well as making the Lempriere family, one of the largest powers in Jersey at the time, lose power due to their unfair monopoly on Jersey.

CONTEXT – Black Lives Matter Movement

The fight for racial equality has been fought for centuries, last year showed a large increase in the amount of protests that took place for the Black Lives Matter movement due to the death of George Floyd. Some protests were peaceful, however some people took to raiding businesses and defacing statues, showing their eagerness to change the way society is.

Eventually these protests inspired Jersey citizens to also take part in these protests and on the 6th of June 2020, a large protest of 1000 people of multiple colours took place at People’s Park, proving that equality should be shown in Jersey as well.