The People! Power! Protest! is an exhibition at the Jersey museum that explores how the right to protest has shaped and influenced the island that we know today. It includes events from the Corn Riots in 1769 up to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

People during this time mainly grew corn and wheat, usually making bread and using it as currency. In 1969 there was a lack of corn and its export was banned due to the poor harvest. This meant that the food prices went up and the only people that could afford it were the rich, which left the poorer people to starve.

People were frustrated with the food shortages, rising prices, the unfair taxation system and Jersey’s power structure, so around 500 hundred islanders stormed the Royal Court with 13 demands to alleviate their struggles on September 28th 1769. Demands:

• That grain and wheat were too expensive and that the price of wheat is lowered and set at 20 sols per cabot.

• That foreigners to 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 stop the right of ‘Jouir des Successions’, (the right to enjoy anyone’s estate for a year and a day after they died without heirs).

• That branchage fines could no longer be imposed.

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

• The lowering of a money rente due by tenants on a fief.

• That Philippe Larbalestier, who had been sent to prison on 23 September, be released without having to pay a fine.

• That the 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.

No one lost their life although many came armed with sticks and clubs, and an usher was thrown over the court railing during the disturbance.

Overall, the riot was successful and led to the Code of 1771 which meant that the Royal Court was stripped of its legislative powers, meaning that from 1771, only the States Assembly could create laws.

Context-Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter is a decentralized political and social movement protesting against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against black people.

On the 25th of May 2020, George Floyd (46-year-old African-American male) was killed by Derek Chauvin (white police officer) after being pinned down by the officer’s knee. Bystanders filmed the event and you could hear Floyd repeatedly say “I can’t breathe” and the police officer starting to put more pressure until Floyd passed away.

This inspired a lot of people to protest and speak up about human rights and police brutality. There were over 150 protests across 21 states of America. Some were meant to be peaceful however, the military and police got involved by being violent and harming people using tear gas and firing rubber bullets into crowds.

This inspired the citizens of jersey to speak up and protest. A large number of people gathered together and kneeled down at People’s Park in memory of George Floyd.

You have a deadline for the end of this week to ensure that all your work is completed. Please use some of the lessons, your study periods and own time to review and reflect on your work and focus on refining and improving it.

Below is an outline of what each of your blog posts should contain. Use it as a checklist.

Hamptonne Portraits

• Research Tom Kennedy photographer. https://littleriverpictures.com/photography
  Examples of his work and image analysis.
• Contact Sheets – Your portrait photos using natural light at Hamptonne workshop
• Image Selection – select your strongest images (explanation)
• Image editing – screen grab / explain any editing you have done (lightroom or photoshop)
• Final Outcome – present your final image or images.
• Compare – to your photographic reference (Tom Kennedy)
  

Hamptonne Visit

Hamptonne Objects

• Contact Sheets – Your photos of objects at Hamptonne eg: shoes, pots, pitch forks, cloths, bath tub etc.
• Image Selection – select your strongest images (explanation)
• Image editing – screen grab / explain any editing you have done (lightroom or photoshop)
• Final Outcome – present your final image or images.

Hamptonne Interiors/Exteriors

• Contact Sheets – Your photos of building at Hamptonne eg: internal and external
• Image Selection – select your strongest images (explanation)
• Image editing – screen grab / explain any editing you have done (lightroom or photoshop)
• Final Outcome – present your final image or images.

Jersey Museum – Corn Riots

• Information on People, Power, Protest exhibition.
  Explanation/ explore how the right to protest has shaped and influenced the Island that we know today. History of The Corn Riots.
• Contact Sheets – Your photos of exhibits.
• Image Selection – select your strongest images (explanation)
• Image editing – screen grab / explain any editing you have done (lightroom or photoshop)
• Final Outcome – present your final image or images.

The jersey Corn Riots

Environmental Portraits

• Definition – What is Environmental Portrait Photography.
• Mood board – examples of Environmental Portrait Photography
• Research an environmental photographer/photographers.
  Examples of their work and image analysis.
• Photoshoot Plan – who, what, where, when, how, why
• Contact Sheets – Your environmental portrait photos.
  Single Person / Two or more people.
• Image Selection – select your strongest images (explanation)
• Image editing – screen grab / explain any editing you have done (lightroom or photoshop)
• Final Outcome – present your final image or images.
• Compare – to your photographic reference (environmental portrait photographer)

Environmental PORTRAIts

Heritage Objects / Studio

• Mood board – examples of Object Photography
• Research – Object photographer.eg: Walker Evans
  Examples of his work and image analysis.
• Contact Sheets – Your studio photos of the heritage objects.
• Image Selection – select your strongest images (explanation)
• Image editing – screen grab / explain any editing you have done (lightroom or photoshop)
• Final Outcome – present your final image or images.
• Compare – to your photographic reference.

Object Based / Still Life Photography Tasks

Experimentation – Photomontage & Digital Manipulation

• Mood board – examples of Photomontage Photography
• Research a photomontage photographer.
  Examples of their work.
• Process – photos that explain any manual editing you have done. (cut n paste)
• Process – screen shots that explain any digital editing you have done. (photoshop)
• Create – produce a GIF to extend your task.
• Final Outcome – present your final image or images.

EXPERIMENTATION – cut’n’paste / photomontage

GET INTO GOOD HABITS
Every blog post you create will cover some or all of the 10 step process below:

1. Mood-board, definition and introduction
2. Mind-map of ideas
3. Artist References / Case Study (must include image analysis)
4. Photo-shoot Action Plan
5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets
6. Image Selection, sub selection
7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation
8. Presentation of final outcomes
9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference
10. Evaluation

Contact Sheets

Edits

One of the good things about Lightroom is that while editing the photos you cab split the screen to show a before and after which allows you to see how your editing has developed the picture and might help you improve to more.

https://www.jerseyheritage.org/explore/find-a-place-to-visit/jersey-museum-art-gallery/

we visited jersey museum and art gallery to explore the “people power protest” exhibition. the exhibition gave us information about the jersey corn riots of 1769, as well as information on the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ and Woman’s Rights.

My photographs

My best photographs

EDITING: in the first round of editing I selected images using p (pick) and x (reject) . After that I filtered my images by selecting the white flag.

then I went through the images that I had selected using P(pick) and rated them using a staring system. This allows for me to pick the best images.

then I went into develop mode to edit the photos with a star rating of 4 and above.

after entering develop mode I adjusted the white balance as the first step of my editing.

then I adjust the exposure and the contrast until I am happy with the final image.

A cyanotype is a photographic printing process which produces a cyan/blue print. Engineers used this process in the 20th century to create blueprints. This process involves using two chemicals ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. This process what discovered by a British scientist Sir John Hershel in 1842.

Anna Atkins

Was a British botanist and photographer Anna was the first person to publish a book with photographic images her 19th century cyanotypes used light exposure to create detailed images of botanical specimens.

Annas use of cyanotypes helped to merge photography and science and showed that photography has a potential in books.

1849 Anna published her book ‘Photographs Of British Algae: cyanotype impressions’ which only had a limited amount of copies.

my cyanotype

Here is the cyanotype I created on our visit to the Hamptonne using flowers and leaves that I had collected. I placed them on top of the paper and left it in the sun to process then I placed it in water for 2-3 minutes to stop it from developing more and set it out to dry.

An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. The term is most frequently used of a genre of photography.

By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it is thought that you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also thought that by photographing a person in their natural surroundings, the subject will be more at ease, and so be more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to in a studio, which can be a rather intimidating and artificial experience.

The surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed.

Where it is common in studio portraiture and even in location candid photography to shoot using a shallow depth of field, thereby throwing the background out of focus, the background in environmental portraiture is an integral part of the image. Indeed, small apertures and great depth of field are commonly used in this type of photography.

Mary Ellen Mark: (1940-2015)

Mary Ellen Mark (March 20, 1940 – May 25, 2015) was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were “away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes”.

Mark had 18 collections of her work published, most notably Streetwise and Ward 81. Her work was exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide and widely published in Life, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, New York Times, and Vanity Fair. She was a member of Magnum Photos between 1977 and 1981. She received numerous accolades, including three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2014 Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from the George Eastman House and the Outstanding Contribution Photography Award from the World Photography Organisation.

Mark was born and raised in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania and began photographing with a Box Brownie camera at age nine. She attended Cheltenham High School, where she was head cheerleader and exhibited a knack for painting and drawing. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and art history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962. After graduating, she worked briefly in the Philadelphia city planning department, then returned for a master’s degree in photojournalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, which she received in 1964. The following year, Mark received a Fulbright Scholarship to photograph in Turkey for a year, from which she produced her first book, Passport (1974). While there, she travelled to photograph England, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain.

In 1966 or 1967, she moved to New York City, where over the next several years she photographed demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam War, the women’s liberation movement, transvestite culture, and Times Square, developing a sensibility, according to one writer, “away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes”. Her photography addressed social issues such as homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, and prostitution. Children are a reoccurring subject throughout much of Mark’s work. She described her approach to her subjects: “I’ve always felt that children and teenagers are not “children,” they’re small people. I look at them as little people and I either like them or I don’t like them. I also have an obsession with mental illness. And strange people who are outside the borders of society.” Mark also said “I’d rather pull up things from another culture that are universal, that we can all relate to…There are prostitutes all over the world. I try to show their way of life.” and that “I feel an affinity for people who haven’t had the best breaks in society. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence”. Mark was well known for establishing strong relationships with her subjects. For Ward 81 (1979), she lived for six weeks with the patients in the women’s security ward of Oregon State Hospital, and for Falkland Road (1981), she spent three months befriending the prostitutes who worked on a single long street in Bombay. Her project “Streets of the Lost” with writer Cheryl McCall, for Life, produced her book Streetwise (1988) and was developed into the documentary film Streetwise, directed by her husband Martin Bell and with a soundtrack by Tom Waits.

Mary Ellen Mark (1940- 2015) is one of the leading documentary photographers of the past half-century, and has achieved worldwide visibility through her many exhibitions, books, photo essays and portraits.

Mark traveled extensively since her first trip to Turkey on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1965. Her pictures of diverse people and cultures are groundbreaking images in the documentary field. Her essays on runaway children in Seattle, circuses and brothels in India, Catholic and Protestant women in Northern Ireland and patients in the maximum-security ward of Oregon State Mental Hospital demonstrate original and insightful ways of examining each theme. Her photographs are compassionate and factual.

Mark’s photographs have appeared in The Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Vogue. Among her many books are Ward 81 (Simon & Schuster, 1979); Falkland Road (Knopf, 1981); Mary Ellen Mark: 25 Years (Bullfinch, 1991); Mary Ellen Mark: American Odyssey (Aperture, 1999); and, most recently, Mary Ellen Mark: The Book of Everything (Steidl, 2020). Mark earned three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Photographer of the Year Award from the Friends of Photography, the World Press Award for Outstanding Body of Work Throughout the Years, the Victor Hasselblad Cover Award and two Robert F. Kennedy Awards. She was the associate producer of the film American Heart (1992), directed by Martin Bell.

some of her work:

this image was taken by Arnold Newman who was famed for taking environmental portraits. this type of portrait is used to show his huge industrial empire with a sinister way. the shadows and the way the light highlights all the wrinkles in his face making him look more corrupt and dis honourable.

Alfred Krupp invented the spoon roller for spoons and forks.

the Krupp company helped the Nazi regime, used slave labour by the Nazis to carry out the holocaust. as Krupp gained the economic benefits.

On Thursday 30th of September we visited the Jersey Museum and Art Gallery in St. Helier to observe and take pictures of their most recent “People Power Protest” exhibit, as well as their other general history exhibits, which details history of Protest on Jersey. We thought this would be appropriate for our topic of ‘Heritage’

A Link to their Page on the Jersey Heritage website:

https://www.jerseyheritage.org/explore/find-a-place-to-visit/jersey-museum-art-gallery/

Some of my Images:

I chose to edit this image because I liked the way the straw figures were organised, their positions made them look human-like, while their faces are simply straw. I took the image at eye-level so it may appear that the viewer is a part of those figures’ organisation. I think that the way I edited it was effective as the harsh lighting, line and dark shadows makes the image look serious.

I chose to edit this image because I thought the colours and use of line was interesting to look at. Similar to the last image, I took an image of the straw figures, only this time I decided to use a low-angle shot to make the figures look more intimidating. I edited the image to have a darker, more contrasting look to help make the figures look more sinister.

I chose to edit this image because I like how shape and line is very vivid, as well as the colder colours and clear shadows. When editing I wanted to keep all of the things that the original image did well and make them even more effective by increasing the contrast and making the image ever-so-slightly colder, which to me, makes the image look more formal.

I like this image because of the way the sheets of paper are layered, it creates an angular shape which takes up the whole frame. Also, because of the layering, I get a sense of time from these pieces of paper and how it looks almost like a timeline of sorts. When editing I wanted only the pieces of paper to be visible, so I increased the contrast and lowered the exposure slightly, this also allowed the paper to look more clear.

This image’s layout is similar to the last image, with an angular, staircase-like shape to it. Because of the harsher lighting and lack of colour, I think like this image is more formal and office-like, which works nicely with its ordered appearance. When editing I wanted to preserve its formal and angular look by simply increasing the contrast and exposure slightly, as well as making it black-and-white to keep the image’s formal appearance.

I chose this image because I like the way the object in the foreground works with the straw-like pattern in the background. I also think that the harsh lighting creates an interesting shadow that is a similar shape to the object. When editing I wanted to create a contrast that would bring out the shadows of the image, as well as keep the beige colour which, to me, makes it look more farm-like.