We have included a mini-unit to help you explore creative opportunities with self portraiture in photography based around themes of femininity and masculinity. We will spend time looking closely at this and discussing ideas for you to produce a number of potential outcomes that will be the culmination of your module on portraiture. We are expecting that you will continue to develop your portraiture skills and use lighting creatively both in the studio and on location outside or inside relevant to your ideas.
Binary opposition
The themes of ‘FEMININITY and MASCULINITY’ are a binary opposite – a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning.
Binary opposition originated in Saussurean structuralist theory in Linquistics (scientific study of language) According to Ferdinand de Saussure, binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. Using binary opposites can often be very helpful in generating ideas for a photographic project as it provides a framework – a set of boundaries to work within.
Watch this film and discuss the way in which artists tackle identity…
Blog Posts to make :
THEORY/ CONTEXT: Make a blog post and write 300-500 words expressing your view on identity politics and culture wars. How does it impact society? Describe some of the positive aspects of groups harnessing their shared identity and political views as well some of the dangers of tribalism dividing communities. Provide examples both for and against, reference sources used and include images. Try and frame the debate both within a global and local perspective.
THEMES: Define “femininity” and “masculinity” and explain how identity can be influenced by “place”, or belonging, your environment or upbringing with reference to gender identity / cultural identity / social identity / geographical identity / political identity / lack of / loss of identity / stereotypes / prejudices etc.
MINDMAP/ MOODBOARD: Add a mindmap and moodboard of ideas and trigger points.
ARTISTS REFERENCES: Choose a range of photographers that you feel explore themes of femininity, masculinity in relation to gender, identity or ‘self’ and create at least two ARTISTS CASE STUDIES (detailed analysis and interpretation) that must include Claude Cahun and then compare Cahun to your chosen artist reference (that will have an influence on your final outcomes re : MOCK EXAM)
PHOTO-SHOOTS: focused photoshoots exploring your ideas
EXPERIMENTATION: development of a number of final ideas
THEORY > CONTEXT
IDENTITY POLITICS is a term that describes a political approach wherein people of a particular religion, race, social background, class or other identifying factor form exclusive socio-political alliances, moving away from broad-based, coalitional politics to support and follow political movements that share a particular identifying quality with them. Its aim is to support and center the concerns, agendas, and projects of particular groups, in accord with specific social and political changes.
The term was coined by the Combahee River Collective in 1977. It took on widespread usage in the early 1980s, and in the ensuing decades has been employed in myriad cases with radically different connotations dependent upon the term’s context. It has gained currency with the emergence of social activism, manifesting in various dialogues within the feminist, American civil rights, and LGBT movements, disabled groups, as well as multiple nationalist and postcolonial organizations, for example: Black Lives Matter movement.
CI Pride 2019 in St Helier
CULTURE WARS are cultural conflicts between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal values is seen.
Grayson Perry’s: Big American Road Trip. Artist and social commentator Grayson Perry crosses the US, exploring its biggest fault lines, from race to class and identity, making art as he goes along. Click here to watch Episode 3 where he travels to the Midwest and finds folk bitterly divided over identity politics and hot issues like abortion and vaccination. What causes such ‘culture wars’ and how can they be overcome?
Grayson Perry. The American Dream. 2019
This map of the US reflects a battle-torn landscape where nuance, compromise and empathy are casualties in the culture war
Read article here in the Financial Times, that uses the recent debate around the removal of Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square as an example of wider discussion on Britain’s colonial past and the current government’s handling of racial inequality.
The issues above should also be viewed within a much broader historical frame work on racism and colonialism.
Claude Cahun
CASE STUDY: Claude Cahun, born Lucy Schwob was a French photographer, sculptor, and writer. She is best known for her self-portraits in which she assumes a variety of personas, including dandy, weight lifter, aviator, and doll. The Jersey Heritage Trust collection represents the largest repository of the artistic work of Cahun who moved to the Jersey in 1937 with her stepsister and lover Marcel Moore. She was imprisoned and sentenced to death in 1944 for activities in the resistance during the Occupation. However, Cahun survived and she was almost forgotten until the late 1980s, and much of her and Moore’s work was destroyed by the Nazis, who requisitioned their home. CaHun died in 1954 of ill health (some contribute this to her time in German captivity) and Moore killed herself in 1972. They are both buried together in St Brelade’s churchyard.
In this image, Cahun has shaved her head and is dressed in men’s clothing. She once explained: “Under this mask, another mask; I will never finish removing all these faces.”1 (Claude Cahun, Disavowals, London 2007, p.183)
Cahun was friends with many Surrealist artists and writers; André Breton once called her “one of the most curious spirits of our time.”
While many male Surrealists depicted women as objects of male desire, Cahun staged images of herself that challenge the idea of the politics of gender. Cahun was championing the idea of gender fluidity way before the hashtags of today. She was exploring her identity, not defining it. Her self-portraits often interrogates space, such as domestic interiors and Jersey landscapes using rock crevasses and granite gate
READ articles here in The Guardian and the BBC to learn more and use these texts for your essay. Link to Jersey Heritage which houses the largest collection of her work and an article written by Louise Downie in response to an exhibition in 2005, Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marvel Moore at Jersey Museum.
In 2017 the National Portrait Gallery in London staged a major exhibition Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask showing their work together for the first time. Slipping between genders and personae in their photographic self-images, Wearing and Cahun become others while inventing themselves. “We were born in different times, we have different concerns, and we come from different backgrounds. She didn’t know me, yet I know her,” Wearing says, paying homage to Cahun and acknowledging her presence. The bigger question the exhibition might ask is less how we construct identities for ourselves than what is this thing called presence?
Claude CahunGillian Wearing
In Behind The Mask, Wearing is being Cahun. Previously she has re-enacted photographs of Andy Warhol in drag, the young Diane Arbus with a camera, Robert Mapplethorpe with a skull-topped cane, hard-bitten New York crime photographer Weegee wreathed in cigar-smoke. Among these doubles, you know Wearing is in the frame somewhere, under the silicon mask and the prosthetics, the wigs and makeup and the lighting. Going through her own family albums, she has become her own mother and her father. It is a surprise she has never got lost in this hall of time-slipping mirrors, among her own self-images and the faces she has adopted. Wearing has got others to play her game, too – substituting their own adult voices with those of a child, putting on disguises while confessing their secrets on video.
Read articles in relation to exhibition here
Read articles here in Aperture and The Guardian in relation to the exhibition. Cahun has been described as a Cindy Sherman before her time. Wearing’s art undoubtedly owes something to Sherman – just as Sherman herself is indebted to artist Suzy Lake. Looking back at Cahun, Wearing is both tracing artistic influence, and paying homage to it, teasing out threads in a web of relationships crossing generations.
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman, A selection of images from her film stills
Cindy Sherman works play with female stereotypes. Masquerading as a myriad of characters, Cindy Sherman (American, born 1954) invents personas and tableaus that examine the construction of identity, the nature of representation, and the artifice of photography. To create her images, she assumes the multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, and stylist. Whether portraying a career girl, a blond bombshell, a fashion victim, a clown, or a society lady of a certain age, for over thirty-five years this relentlessly adventurous artist has created an eloquent and provocative body of work that resonates deeply in our visual culture.
Cindy Sherman reveals how dressing up in character began as a kind of performance and evolved into her earliest photographic series such as “Bus Riders” (1976), “Untitled Film Stills” (1977-1980), and the untitled rear screen projections (1980).
For an overview of Sherman’s incredible oeuvre see Museum Of Modern Art’s dedicated site made at a major survey exhibition of her work in 2012…
This exhibition surveys Sherman’s career, from her early experiments as a student in Buffalo in the mid-1970s to a recent large-scale photographic mural, presented here for the first time in the United States. Included are some of the artist’s groundbreaking works—the complete “Untitled Film Stills” (1977–80) and centerfolds (1981), plus the celebrated history portraits (1988–90)—and examples from her most important series, from her fashion work of the early 1980s to the break-through sex pictures of 1992 to her monumental 2008 society portraits.
Some of her latest images using digital montages
Sherman works in series, and each of her bodies of work is self-contained and internally coherent; yet there are themes that have recurred throughout her career. The exhibition showcases the artist’s individual series and also presents works grouped thematically around such common threads as cinema and performance; horror and the grotesque; myth, carnival, and fairy tales; and gender and class identity.
1910’s – The Suffragette1920’s – The Flapper1930’s – The Wall Street Wife1940’s – The Riveter1950’s – The Movie Star1960’s – The Super Model1970’s – The Hippie1980’s – The Business Woman1990’s – The New Wave Feminist
Here is link to Shannon’s blog showing all her research, analysis, recordings, experimentation and evaluations
Here is link to Shannon’s blog showing all her research, analysis, recordings, experimentation and evaluations.
Since her A-level studies Shannon has continued her passion for photography and has recently completed her BA (Hons) degree in Documentary Photography at University of South Wales. During her 3-year degree she developed a number of projects based around gender identities and constructions. Shannon will deliver a presentation about her practice on Wed 14 Oct, but beforehand you need to do some research about her work so you can engage with her talk and ask some relevant questions. You will need to have an in-depth knowledge of her work as you are are required to write a comparetive essay between Claude Cahun and Shannon O’donnell.
Here is a link to her website, a short biography below and examples of key works:
I am an artist born in Jersey, Channel Islands. Currently based in Cardiff, Wales my practice explores themes around the gendered experience with a focus on femininity and masculinity as gendered traits. Through deep research and a sociological approach my work explores the self and identity.
My fascination lies with questioning society and challenging traditional views of gender through my work. My work is informed by my personal experience and through interviewing specific demographics to help gage a sociological understanding of how gender is viewed or challenged within mainstream society.
That’s Not The Way The River Flows Gender is being re-conceptualised. Our experience of gender is changing, transforming from being solely male and female, opening to a multitude of subcategories including; gender queer, non-binary, transgender and gender fluid. As we unpick the complicated narrative of gender and the generalisations that it encapsulates, we are forced to re-imagine what it is that makes us who we are and what we want or can identify as. The beginning of change starts with the self.
That’s Not The Way The River Flows (2019) is a photographic series that playfully explores masculinity and femininity through self-portraits. The work comes from stills taken from moving image of the photographer performing scenes in front of the camera. This project aims to show the inner conflicts that the photographer has with identity and the gendered experience. It reveals the pressures, stereotypes and difficulties faced with growing up in a heavily, yet subtly, gendered society and how that has impacted the acceptance and exploration of the self.
A Short Film: That’s Not The Way The River Flows A visual poem with word by me surrounding the claustrophobia of gender identity, while visuals poke fun at ideas of masculinity and femininity (2019).
Here They Stood “Remember the dignity of your womanhood. Do not appeal, do not beg, do not grovel. Take courage, join hands, stand beside us, fight with us.” – Christabel Pankhurst
The Cat And Mouse Act, formally known as the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act, 1913 was formed in British Law specifically aimed at militant Suffragettes who went on hunger strike while imprisoned. The Act, passed on 25th April 1913, afforded prison guards to temporarily discharge individuals whose health was at major risk. Once in better health prisoners were informed to report back to carry out the rest of their sentence, many of whom did not conform.
The Cat And The Mice (2018) project, name derived from the Act of 1913, follows the path of Suffragettes and Suffragists alike around Cardiff in the early 1900s. It encapsulates historically significant places, now forgotten in modern city life. The project also aims to show how the efforts of those Welsh women within the Suffrage movement have allowed for contemporary women of Cardiff, specifically Riverside, the freedom to have a voice, to set up local peaceful organisations for change in the community, as well as a leading example to contemporary activists of today.
Susan’s Sleep (2018) is a short film that, when creating, became a form of therapy for me. It helped me to understand that I had a lot of unresolved trauma and for that reason and for my family I will not release the full short film but instead leave you with a trailer.
This body of work explores the traumatic experience that my family and I went through beginning on the 25th December 2016 and well into the new year. My mother was ill and on Christmas day was taken in an ambulance to the hospital as she could no longer breathe for herself. On the 27th December she was put into a medically induced coma after fighting with the NIV (Non Invasive Ventilation System). Here we spent our days by my mothers bedside in an isolated room on ICU (Intensive Care Unit). This short film is about that time in limbo, waiting each day for bad news, or any news.
By Your Bedside (2018) is a series of images that I created to compliment my short film, Susan’s Sleep. The images are quite, to reflect my own experience during the time my mother was in a coma. I went mute during this time, isolated myself and kept my emotions inside. The only time that I felt able to express myself was when I was sat by my mother’s bedside. These images convey the surreal movie-like experience I felt while waiting for my mum to wake up.
Casa Susanna: A series of polaroid portraits found at a jumble sale about 20 years after the images were originally taken in the 1960s. This was a place where men who enjoyed female dress and transgender women were able to fully be themselves without judgement. It was a kind of holiday place but with an extremely strong community that cared for one another surrounding it. Lissa Rivera. In Beautiful Boy (a chaptered series) the photographer makes images of her effeminate male partner, they have an interesting story on how he had felt so free during his time in college to dress and act as he felt confident but in the greater outside world he has reverted to sticking to the status quo and blending in as felt that he wouldn’t be accepted otherwise. Walter Pfeiffer – Carlo Joh. A collaboration between photographer and the subject where the subject brought in their own props and was involved in the creative process of how they wanted to be represented..
Clare Rae
Clare Rae, an artist from Melbourne, Australia who produces photographs and moving image works that interrogate representations of the female body via an exploration of the physical environment. Rae visited Jersey as part of the Archisle international artist-in-residence programme in 2017. She was researching the Claude Cahun archive, shooting new photography and film in Jersey, as well as running workshops.
From her research she produced a new body of work, Entre Nous: Claude Cahun and Clare Rae that was exhibited at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne Australia 22 March – 6 May 2018, and subsequently at CCA Galleries in Jersey, UK, 7–28 September 2018.
In her series, Never standing on two feet, Rae considers Cahun’s engagement with the physical and cultural landscapes of Jersey, an aspect of her work that has received little analysis to date. Rae writes:
Like Cahun’s, my photographs depict my body in relation to place; in these instances sites of coastal geography and Jersey’s Neolithic ritual monuments. I enact a visual dialogue between the body and these environments, and test how their photographic histories impact upon contemporary engagements. Cahun used self-portraiture to subvert the dominance of the male gaze in photographic depictions of the female body in the landscape. My practice is invested in the feminist act of self-representation and I draw parallels between my performances of an expanding vocabulary of gesture and Cahun’s overtly performative images of the body expressing a multiplicity of identity. In this series, I tease out the interpretations inherent in landscape photography. I utilise gesture and the performing body to contrast and unsettle traditional representations of the female figure in the landscape.
See this blog post Photography, Performance and the Body for more details and context of the above artists work
Clare gave a artist talk contextualising her practice, covering recent projects that have engaged with notions of architecture and the body, and the role of performative photography in her work. Clare will discuss her research on these areas, specifically her interest in artists such as Claude Cahun, Francesca Woodman and Australian performance artist Jill Orr. Clare also discussed her photographic methodologies and practices, providing an analysis of her image making techniques, and final outcomes.
PHOTO-ASSIGNMENT 1: Homework
Here is the task that Clare Rae asked participants to respond to in a workshop she delivered while in Jersey in 2017.
1. Produce a self-portrait, in any style you like. Consider the history of self-portraiture, and try to create an image that alludes to, (or evades?) your identity.
2. Produce a performative photograph, considering the ideas presented on liveness, performance documentation and Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment. ‘Captured’ vs. pre-meditated?
3. Produce a photograph that engages the body with the physical environment. Think of architecture, light, texture, and composition to create your image..
Francesca Woodman
Another site of influence to Clare Rae is Francesca Woodman. At the age of thirteen Francesca Woodman took her first self-portrait. From then, up until her untimely death in 1981, aged just 22, she produced an extraordinary body of work. Comprising some 800 photographs, Woodman’s oeuvre is acclaimed for its singularity of style and range of innovative techniques. From the beginning, her body was both the subject and object in her work.
The very first photograph taken by Woodman, Self-portrait at Thirteen, 1972, shows the artist sitting at the end of a sofa in an un-indentified space, wearing an oversized jumper and jeans, arm loosely hanging on the armrest, her face obscured by a curtain of hair and the foreground blurred by sudden movement, one hand holding a cable linked to the camera. In this first image the main characteristics at the core of Woodman’s short career are clearly visible, her focus on the relationship with her body as both the object of the gaze and the acting subject behind the camera.
Woodman tested the boundaries of bodily experience in her work and her work often suggests a sense of self-displacement. Often nude except for individual body parts covered with props, sometimes wearing vintage clothing, the artist is typically sited in empty or sparsely furnished, dilapidated rooms, characterised by rough surfaces, shattered mirrors and old furniture. In some images Woodman quite literally becomes one with her surroundings, with the contours of her form blurred by movement, or blending into the background, wallpaper or floor, revealing the lack of distinction of both – between figure and ground, self and world. In others she uses her physical body literally as a framework in which to create and alter her material identity. For instance, holding a sheet of glass against her flesh, squeezing her body parts against the glass and smashing her face, breasts, hips, buttocks and stomach onto the surface from various angles, Woodman distorts her physical features making them appear grotesque.
Through fragmenting her body by hiding behind furniture, using reflective surfaces such as mirrors to conceal herself, or by simply cropping the image, she dissects the human figure emphasising isolated body parts. In her photographs Woodman reveals the body simultaneously as insistently there, yet somehow absent. This game of presence and absence argues for a kind of work that values disappearance as its very condition.
Since 1986, Woodman’s work has been exhibited widely and has been the subject of extensive critical study in the United States and Europe. Woodman is often situated alongside her contemporaries of the late 1970s such as Ana Mendieta and Hannah Wilke, yet her work also foreshadows artists such as Cindy Sherman, Sarah Lucas, Nan Goldin and Karen Finley in their subsequent dialogues with the self and reinterpretations of the female body.
MASCULINITIES: LIBERATION THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY Through the medium of film and photography, this major exhibition considers how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day. Examining depictions of masculinity from behind the lens, the exhibition brings together over 300 works by over 50 pioneering international artists, photographers and filmmakers such as Richard Avedon, Peter Hujar, Isaac Julien, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annette Messager and Catherine Opie to show how photography and film have been central to the way masculinities are imagined and understood in contemporary culture. The show also highlightslesser-known and younger artists – some of whom have never exhibited in the UK – including Cassils, Sam Contis, George Dureau, Elle Pérez, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Hank Willis Thomas, Karlheinz Weinberger and Marianne Wex amongst many others. Masculinities: Liberation through Photography is part of the Barbican’s 2020 season, Inside Out, which explores the relationship between our inner lives and creativity.
In the wake of #MeToo the image of masculinity has come into sharper focus, with ideas of toxic and fragile masculinity permeating today’s society. This exhibition charts the often complex and sometimes contradictory representations of masculinities, and how they have developed and evolved over time. Touching on themes including power, patriarchy, queer identity, female perceptions of men, hypermasculine stereotypes, tenderness and the family, the exhibition shows how central photography and film have been to the way masculinities are imagined and understood in contemporary culture.
Here is a downloadable teaching resource that includes information, activities and tasks that will help you develop ideas.
Key Focus Areas and questions in relation to the exhibition and the concept: MASCULINITIES
1. What does it mean to be male?
2. What overarching themes do you associate with the words masculine, masculinities or male? What would you classify as hegemonic (ruling) masculine values or traits, particularly historically – e.g. power, leadership, strength, dominance?
3. What would you say are the assumed norms of masculinity today? Think of examples of what breaks or subverts these norms and find examples in the exhibition.
4. Compare expectations and perceptions of masculinity through time, society and place – where are we now and where have we come from? Look at the variety of masculine identities encompassed, often complex or even contradictory, shaped by culture and society. In addition, you could consider the word femininities in just the same way and compare commonalities or differences.
5. How much are we conditioned by the society or culture in which we live, in terms of our gender identities? Consider gender expectations from birth onwards – what messages do we receive about who we are or are supposed to be and accompanying notions of equality? Do you feel there is still pressure put on young boys to be a certain way or to conform to some perceived gender norm?
6. Consider too, the word liberation in the context of the title – how and if photography is a liberating force for the subjects of the camera’s gaze
7. Do you think photography such as that seen in the exhibition can help to pave the way for new attitudes and choices? Discuss using examples you find in the exhibition.
In 2018 the Barbican staged another ground breaking exhibition; ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE: PHOTOGRAPHY ON THE MARGINS. Touching on themes of countercultures, subcultures and minorities of all kinds, the show featured 20 photographers from the 1950s to present day, reflecting a more diverse complex view of the world.
Another Kind of Life followed the lives of individuals & communities on the fringes of society from America to India, Chile to Nigeria. Driven by personal and political motivations, many of the photographers sought to provide an authentic representation of the disenfranchised communities with whom they spent months, years or even decades with, often conspiring with them to construct their own identity through the camera lens.
Featuring communities of sexual experimenters, romantic rebels, outlaws, survivalists, the economically dispossessed and those who openly flout social convention, the works present the outsider as an agent of change. From street photography to portraiture, vernacular albums to documentary reportage, the show includes the Casa Susanna Collection, Paz Errazuriz, Pieter Hugo, Mary Ellen Mark, Dayanita Singh, Teresa Margolles, Katy Grannan, Phillipe Chancel, Daido Moriyama, Seiji Kurata, Igor Palmin and many others.
Narrative photography, also referred to as Tableaux photography often have an element of performing for the camera. See artists such as, Duane Michaels, Tom Hunter, Anna Gaskell, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Philip- Lorca diCorcia, Sam Taylor Johnson (former Sam Taylor-Wood), Hannah Starkey, Tracy Moffatt, Vibeke Tandberg. Read also page 26 in exam booklet that lists other artists, Sandy Skoglund, Carrie Mae Weems, Deana Lawson and Laurie Simmons who are using photography to create complex narratives using staged events and artificial set ups. The historical context of this type of photography is Pictorialism – make sure you reference this in your research and provide examples from this period of photographic history and experimentation.
Duane Michaels: photo-stories eg. The Bogeyman, The Spirit Leaves the Body. A self-taught photographer, Duane Michals broke away from established traditions of the medium during the 1960s. His messages and poems inscribed on the photographs, and his visual stories created through multiple images, defied the principles of the reigning practitioners of the form. Indeed, Michals considers himself as much a storyteller as a photographer.
Tom Hunter: Headlines, Life and Death in Hackney Since 1997, Tom Hunter has turned his camera on his surrounding neighbourhood of Hackney, showing empathy without being polemic. He is known for a remarkable blend of political commentary, history of art and the technicalities of photography. Working to create photographs that are the result of an exaggerated link between newspaper headlines, paintings from The National Gallery’s permanent collection and Hackney lifestyle, Hunter often seems to ask more questions than he can answer visually.
Read more here about Tom Hunter’s work in The Guardian
Anna Gaskell crafts foreboding photographic tableaux of preadolescent girls that reference children’s games, literature, and psychology. She is interested in isolating dramatic moments from larger plots such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, visible in two series: Wonder (1996–97) and Override (1997). In Gaskell’s style of “narrative photography,” of which Cindy Sherman is a pioneer, the image is carefully planned and staged; the scene presented is “artificial” in that it exists only to be photographed. While this may be similar to the process of filmmaking, there is an important difference. Gaskell’s photographs are not tied together by a linear thread; it is as though their events all take place simultaneously, in an ever-present. Each image’s “before” and “after” are lost, allowing possible interpretations to multiply. In untitled #9of the wonder series, a wet bar of soap has been dragged along a wooden floor. In untitled #17 it appears again, forced into a girl’s mouth, with no explanation of how or why. This suspension of time and causality lends Gaskell’s images a remarkable ambiguity that she uses to evoke a vivid and dreamlike world.
Anna Gaskell
Jeff Wall
Gregory Crewdson
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Sam Taylor-Johnson
Tracy Moffat
Untitled – May 1997 1997 Hannah Starkey born 1971
Vibeke Tandberg
PHOTO-ASSIGNMENT 2: Selfie Experiments
Choose 3-5 of these ideas below to explore and produce a range of outcomes. Remember to create blog posts that clearly show your process and where the ideas come from…
Other possibilities
Luis Cobelo
Hans Peter Feldmann – identity, status and gender
John Coplans Self Portraits 1984Hassan Hajjaj -culture clash- Moroccan Pop ArtKensuke Koike – reconstituting found portraits to create new / possible identities
Shooting through materials
Dino Kuznik shares how he shoots through household materials like grease and broken glass…See what transparent materials or objects you have lying around and see if you can use them to throw light and create a visually compelling creative self-portrait.
The daily grind can be a test of endurance. In Tokyo Compression, Michael Wolf recorded the extreme discomfort of Japanese commuters pressed up against windows dripping with condensation on their journeys to and from work.
In Harlem Trolley Bus, Robert Frank showed the divisions within American society in the mid-20th century. Dryden Goodwin took pictures of exhausted travellers on London night buses and wove a protective cocoon of blood capillaries around them.
Connections with film making…
The idea for this project comes from Luke Fowler‘s series of half-frame photographs recently published in the book ‘Two-Frame Films‘. The project is intended to encourage students to concentrate on the editorial aspect of photography, the selection and juxtaposition of photographic images and how this might affect the ways in which a viewer engages with the work. Fowler is better known for his work in film but has used a half-frame camera as part of his practice. This work explores the relationship between two juxtaposed images. A half frame camera exposes two shots on each 35mm frame. A roll of 36 exposures therefore produces 72 images in pairs. The resulting diptychs are still images but reference the theory of montage, first articulated by Russian film makers in the 1920s, specifically Sergei Eisenstein
An example of two frames from Sergei Eisenstein’s film ‘Battleship Potemkin’, 1925
Thinking sculpturally / 3-D options
Sculptural images – using print-outs – student example
MOCK EXAM PREPARATION: Final prints by FRI 19 MAYNOON
We expect see a selection of final outcomes from various portrait tasks and assignments. Ensure that your final images are a direct response to your chosen photographer(s) and show a clear visual link
1-2 environmental portraits
3-4 studio portraits showing different lighting techniques etc.
1-2 self-portraits from Masculinity/ Femininity
Add your images to the print folder here:
M:\Radio\Departments\Photography\Students\Image Transfer\Yr 12 portrait project final prints
CONTROLLED CONDITIONS : Essentials
You will have 15 hours to complete this unit so make sure you use it productively
Complete and publish relevant blog posts as per Checklist above/ Go4School Tracking sheet and comments from teacher. BLOG SIZE images = 1000 pixels on SHORT EDGE
Produce mock versions of your final prints and describe how you wish to present them
Complete mounting all final prints and include label and velcro
Produce a virtual gallery and write an evaluation, comment on:
– How successful was your final outcomes? – Did you realise your intentions? – What references did you make to artists references – comment on technical, visual, contextual, conceptual? – Is there anything you would do differently/ change etc?
PREPARE AND SAVE IMAGES FOR PRINTING:
File Handling and printing...
Remember when EXPORTING from Lightroom you must adjust the file size to 1000 pixels on the Short edge for “blog-friendly” images (JPEGS)
BUT…for editing and printing when EXPORTING from Lightroom you must adjust the file size to Short edge for “high resolution” images (JPEGS) like this…
A5 Short Edge = 14.8 cm
A4 Short Edge = 21.0 cm
A3 Short Edge =29.7 cm
This will ensure you have the correct ASPECT RATIO
Ensure you label and save your file in you M :Drive and then copy across to the PRINT FOLDER / IMAGE TRANSFER
For a combination of images, or square format images you use the ADOBE PHOTOSHOP > NEW DOCUMENT + PRINT PRESETS on to help arrange images on the correct size page (A3, A4, A5)
You can do this using Photoshop, Set up the page sizes as templates and import images into each template, then you can see for themselves how well they fit… but remember to add an extra 6mm for bleed (3mm on each side of the page) to the original templates. i.e. A4 = 297mm x 210 but the template size for this would be 303mm x 216mm.
Making a Virtual Gallery in Photoshop
Download an empty gallery file…then insert your images and palce them on the walls. Adjust the persepctive, size and shape using CTRL T (free transform) You can also add things like a drop shadow to make the image look more realistic…
Always ensure you have enough evidence of…
moodboards (use influential images)
mindmap of ideas and links
case studies (artist references-show your knowledge and understanding)
For the 5 x weeks leading up to the Year 12 PHOTOGRAPHYCONTROLLED CONDITIONS you will need to refer to this resource pack for ideas and inspiration… “SELF -PORTRAIT and IDENTITY JAC PDF” (to find it just copy and paste the link below into the top bar of the folder icon on your screen) M:DepartmentsPhotographyStudentsResourcesPortraitureTO DO
ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITS usually depict people in their…
working environments
environments that they are associated with…
“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”
Paul Heartfield
TASK 1CREATE A VISUAL MOOD-BOARD
Choose a range of portraits to develop a grid of images (minimum of 9) to show your understanding of what an environmental portrait can be…
You must include a range of approaches to the portraits in your mood-board…
We will be studying the history, theory and concept of environmental portraits…their purpose and role in our day to day lives too.
Design a mind-map / mood-board / spider-gram / flowchart of environmental portrait ideas
Think about the ways in which we use these portraits, and what they can say about us / reveal / conceal
define what an environmental portrait actually is
Add your mind-map to your blog post
Choose a photographer from the list below to research and write about…include specific examples of their work and show that you can analyse and interpret their image(s).
>>You can find resources here<<
M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Portraiture\TO DO
and here : M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Planners Y12 JAC\Unit 2 Portrait Photography
August Sander – The Face of Our Time
One of the first photographic typological studies was by the German photographer August Sander, whose epic project ‘People of the 20th Century‘ (40,000 negatives were destroyed during WWII and in a fire) produced volume of portraits entitled ‘The Face of Our Time’ in 1929. Sander categorised his portraits according to their profession and social class.
The art of Photographic Typologies has its roots in August Sander’s 1929 series of portraits entitled ‘Face of Our Time’, a collection of works documenting German society between the two World Wars. Sander sought to create a record of social types, classes and the relationships between them, and recognised that the display of his portraits as a collection revealed so much more than the individual images would alone. So powerful was this record, the photographic plates were destroyed and the book was banned soon after the Nazis came into power four years later.
The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’. Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes so once again, Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world.
The Becher’s influence as lecturers at the Dusseldorf School of Photography passed Typologies onto the next generation of photographers. Key photographic typologists such as Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand and Gillian Wearing lead to a resurgence of these documentary-style reflections on a variety of subject matter from Ruff’s giant ‘passport’ photos to Demand’s desolate, empty cities.
Typologies has enjoyed renewed interest in recent years, thanks partly to recognition from galleries including the Tate Modern who hosted a Typologies retrospective in London in 2011. With it’s emphasis on comparison, analysis and introspection, the movement has come to be recognised as arguably one of the most important social contributions of the 20th century.
August Sander – Master Mason – 1926Arnold Newman – Leonard Bernstein-1968Igor Stravinsky, composer. New York, 1946.Credit…Arnold Newman/Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery
Mary-Ellen Mark – Circus Performer – 1970
Karen Knorr produced a series of portraits, Belgravia and Gentlement of the wealthy upper classes in London
Jon Tonks, from his celebrated book, Empire – a journey across the South Atlantic exploring life on four remote islands, British Overseas Territories, intertwined through history as relics of the once formidable British Empire.Alec SothAlec Soth
Listen to Alec Soth talk about the story behind the portrait of Charles.
Vanessa Winship is a British photographer who works on long term projects of portrait, landscape, reportage and documentary photography. These personal projects have predominantly been in Eastern Europe but also the USA.
Vanessa Winship: In her series Sweet Nothings she has been taking photographs of schoolgirls from the borderlands of Eastern Anatolia. She continues to take all photographs in the same way; frontal and with enough distance to capture them from head to toe and still include the surroundings.Michelle Sank: from her series Insula – a six month residency in Jersey
Michelle Sank: Maurice from Sank’s series My.SelfSian Davey and her project Martha capturing her teenage daughter’s life on camera
Read about Siân Davey on the ways psychotherapy has informed her photography here
Sian Davey’s first book Looking for Alice explore all the tensions, joys, ups and downs that go with the territory of being in a family—and finding love for a child born with Down syndrome.
Laura Pannack is a British social documentary and portrait photographer, based in London. Pannack’s work is often of children and teenagers. Explore more of her work here
callum on the lawns – 2The Cracker – Laura Pannack
Read Laura Pannack’s best photograph: four teenagers on a Black Country wasteland here
Alys Tomlinson is an editorial and fine art documentary photographer based in London. See more of her work here
Lost Summer: These images were taken between June and August 2020. With school proms cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I photographed local teenagers dressed in outfits they would have worn to prom. Instead of being in the usual settings of school halls or hotel function rooms, I captured them in their gardens, backyards and local parks.
Look at these influential photographers for more ideas and information…
August Sander (1876 – 1964)
Paul Strand (1890 – 1976)
Arnold Newman (1918 – 2006)
Daniel Mordzinski (1960 – )
Annie Leibovitz (1949 – )
Mary Ellen Mark (1940 – 2015)
Jimmy Nelson (1967 – )
Sara Facio (1932 – )
Alec Soth
Vanessa Winship
Karen Knorr (Gentlemen, Belgravia)
Rob Hornstra
Michelle Sank
David Goldblatt
Sian Davey
Laura Pannack
Alys Tomlinson
Deanne Lawson
Thilde Jensen
Jon Tonk
Bert Teunissen
Key features to consider with formal / environmental portraits…
formal (posed)
head-shot / half body / three quarter length / full length body shot
high angle / low angle / canted angle
colour or black and white
high key (light and airy) vs low key (high contrast / chiarascuro)
Technical > Composition / exposure / lens / light
Visual > eye contact / engagement with the camera / neutral pose and facial expression / angle / viewpoint
Conceptual > what are you intending to present? eg : social documentary / class / authority / gender role / lifestyle
Contextual >add info and detail regarding the back ground / story / detail / information about the character(s) / connection to the photographer eg family / insider / outsider
Classroom activity: Environmental portrait of a student
Take 100-200 photographs showing your understanding of ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITS
Remember…your subject (person) must be engaging with the camera!…you must communicate with them clearly and direct the kind of image that you want to produce!!!
Outdoor environment
Indoor environment
two or more people
Then select your best 5-10 images and create a blog post that clearly shows your process of taking and making your final outcomes
Remember not to over -edit your images. Adjust the cropping, exposure, contrast etc…nothing more!
Remember to show your Photo-Shoot Planning and clearly explain :
who you are photographing
what you are photographing
when you are conducting the shoot
where you are working/ location
why you are designing the shoot in this way
how you are going to produce the images (lighting / equipment etc)
More Examples
Environmental portraits mean portraits of people taken in a situation that they live in, work in, rest in or play in. Environmental portraits give you context to the subject you are photographing. They give you an insight into the personality and lifestyle of your subject.
Portrait 1: This particular image was photographed by Jane Bown of Quentin Crisp at home in Chelsea in 1978. Quentin Crisp was an English writer, famous for supernatural fiction and was a gay icon in the 1970s. This image was taken in his “filthy” flat as Bown describes. In the back ground we can see piles of books on top of the fireplace shelf which represents his career as a writer and a journalist. It looks as though he is boiling water on the stove which looks out of place because the room looks as if it is in the living room. As you would not normally place a stove in your lounge. He was living as a “Bed-Sitter” which means he had inadequate of storage space, this explains why his belongings were cramped in one room.
Portrait 2: This image was captured by Arnold Newman. He is also known for his “environmental portraiture” of artists and politicians, capturing the essence of his subjects by showing them in their natural surroundings. Here is a portrait of Igor Stravinsky who was a Russian pianist, composer and musician. In this photograph, the piano outweighs the subject which is him and depicts the fact that music was a massive part of him and his life. His body language looks as if he is imitating the way the piano lid is being held up, he is using his hand as a head rest. Another element in the photograph, is that the shape of the piano looks like a musical note which again symbolises his love of music.
Portrait 3: This photograph was also taken by Arnold Newman of John F. Kennedy, an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States of America. This pictures was taken on a balcony at the White house. Mr. Kennedy isn’t directly looking into the camera, he is looking at the view outside which suggests his role as a president because at the time he was one of the most powerful man in the world. He is looking at the scenery, people and his surroundings. The image was taken at a low angle to depict the huge building and the horizontal lines symbolise power, dynamism and control.
Ideas for your environmental photo shoot
Who
Barber/Hairdresser
Dentist/Doctor
Postman
Market trader
Florist
Tattooist
Musician
Barista
Fishmonger
Butcher
Baker
Farmer
Cleaner
Chef/Cook
Stonemason
Blacksmith
Fisherman
Builder/Carpenter
Sportsman/Coach
Taxi driver
Where
Central Market
Fish Market
St Helier Shops
Hair salons/barbers
Coffee shop
Farms
Building Sites
Harbour
Sport centres/fields
Taxi Ranks
Offices
WHEN
You will have to think ahead and use your photo shoot plan. You may have to contact people in advance, by phone, or arrange a convenient time. (Ask if you can return later in the day).
Remember to be polite and explain what your are doing and why!
It may surprise you that most people will be proud of what they do as it is their passion and profession and will be happy to show it off!
Don’t be scared. Be brave. Be bold. Be ambitious!!!
Essential Blog Posts…
Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
Artist References / Case Study (must include image analysis) (AO1)
This task explores the following genres: travel, nature, self-portrait, landscape, still life, fine art, portrait, fashion, architecture. But which is which?
PHOTO GAME : TREASURE HUNT
Photograph the following…
A view through a window
Your reflection in a shiny surface
The back of someone’s head
A small object with a plain background
The palm of someone’s hand with the word HELP on it
A smile
A plant growing in the wrong place
A cracked paving stone
A pile of clothes
A close up of a computer screen
A map
The spine of a book
The inside of a bag
The sky
A part of a fork
The ceiling of a room
A photograph of a photograph
A glass of water
The sole of a shoe
A corner
Some Examples…
You will have a print out of the prompts and be given a time to photograph each prompt around the school
When you return you will be able to print / present the images
Discuss
The most interesting images
The most surprising images
The most difficult images
What makes a good image
Does it matter if an image is wrong or right ?
2. Image Analysis
As a group you must discuss this image…
Describe the image
Discuss the subject and the background
What is the lighting like?
How is the photo framed?
What is your emotional response to this image?
What do you think this image could be about?
You will be given the name and title of the image to help you search online for the image and its details
How does the information you have found change the way you view the image?
We will be looking at Romanticism and The Sublime as a starting point and if you click here you will have a better understanding of some of the roots of landscape as a genre in contemporary photography….
The focus of your study and research is natural landscapes and the impact of ROMANTICISM and The Sublime in Landscape painting and then later, photography.
Working Title/Artist: Stormy Coast Scene after a Shipwreck Department: European Paintings Working Date: (1830)
Watch this film about the history and influence of Romanticism.
Watch this film about Edmund Burke and the Sublime
“Writers and artists rejected the notion of the Enlightenment, which had sucked emotion from writing, politics, art, etc. Writers and artists in the Romantic period favored depicting emotions such as trepidation, horror, and wild untamed nature.”
“The ideals of these two intellectual movements were very different from one another. The Enlightenmentthinkers believed very strongly in rationality and science. … By contrast, the Romantics rejected the whole idea of reason and science. They felt that a scientific worldview was cold and sterile.”
JMW Turner- Hannibal Crossing The Alps 1835Caspar David Friedrich 1832 Germany
Social Commentary
PAINTING VS PHOTOGRAPHY
Roger Fenton, inspired by nature and romanticism revisited a spot in Wales where previously the painter Samuel Palmer had been inspired by the natural beauty of this river valley.
Aspects of pictorialism are evident here too…an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.
Roger Fenton c. 1852-62
Valley of the Shadow of Death is also a photograph by Roger Fenton, taken on April 23, 1855, during the Crimean War. It is one of the most well-known images of war…most likely staged too and is in stark contrast to the example above. Exaggerating and exploiting the surroundings are a key part of creating dramatic imagery and opens up the question of truth in photography
Carelton E. Watkins (1829–1916)
“…it is hard to consider the birth of the environmental movement without mentioning Watkins and the rippling, far-reaching influence of his 1861 images of Yosemite. All that came after – Lincoln’s signing of the Yosemite grant, Muir’s nature writing, the founding of conservation groups such as the Sierra Club – can be traced back to the intake of breath when his images were seen for the first time.”
20th Century 1900 —
Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams 1942 USA
Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph…even creating a Zonal System to ensure that all tonal values are represented in the images. Ansel Adams was an advocate of environmental protection, national parks and creating an enduring legacy of responses to the power of nature and sublime conditions…Other members in Group f/64 included Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham among other female photographers who has been overlooked in the history or photography.
IMAGE ANALYSIS: For your analysis of Adams’ work and practice, try and find the story behind the image – as an example, see Monolith, the face of Half Dome, 1927
Monolith, the face of Half Dome, 1927
Pixelation of Halfdome image in Photoshop
Edward Weston
EXTENSION > COMPARE & CONTRAST: Compare and contrast the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston using Photo Literacy Matrix. Find 3 quotes that you can use in your analysis, that either supports/ disapprove your own view. Make sure that you comment on the quote used.
For example, you can use quotes: 1. a quote from Adams’ on Weston’s influence 2. a quote from Adams’ on his own practice, eg. technique, pre-visualisation (zone system), subject (nature), inspiration etc. 3. a quote from Weston on Adams’ images. 4. a quote from someone else, for example a critic, historian that comments either on Adams’ or Weston’s work.
I can’t tell you how swell it was to return to the freshness, the simplicity and natural strength of your photography … I am convinced that the only real security lies with a certain communion with the things of the natural world
— A letter from Edward to Ansel in 1936
RURAL LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Don McCullin 2000 UK
Fay Godwin 1985 UK
Wynn Bullock
Fay Godwin
Edward Weston
Minor White
Don McCullin
Jem Southam
Whale Chine, 1994, Jem Southam
BLOG POSTS to complete…
An introduction to rural landscape photography, including a definition and mood-board of influential images
Create anin-depth case study that analyses and interprets the work of a key landscape photographer…EG: Ansel Adams or Edward Weston or Fay Godwin or Don McCullin (or similar)
Create a blog post that defines and explains what Romanticism is in Landscape Photography…include examples and make reference to Romanticism in other art-forms eg painting. Discuss the notion of the sublime and the picturesque.
4. Create a mind-map / mood-board of potential locations around Jersey that you could record and create romanticized landscape photographs of….look for extremes (either calm or wild, derelict, desolate, abandoned or stormy, battered and at the mercy of nature)
AIM to photograph the coastline, the sea, the fields, the valleys, the woods, the sand dunes etc. USE the wild and dynamic weather and elements to help create a sense of atmosphere, and evoke an emotional response within your photo assignment. PHOTOGRAPH before dark, at sunset or during sunrise…and include rain, fog, mist, ice, wind etc in your work LOOK for LEADING LINES such as pathways, roads etc to help dissect your images and provide a sense of journey / discovery to them.
5. Take 150-200 photos of romanticisedrural landscapes. . Add your edited selective contact sheets / select your best 3-5 images / include edits and screen shots to show this process. |Ensure you include both monochrome and colour examples.
6. Produce comparative analysis between one of your images and a landscape photographer – discuss similarities and differences.
REMEMBER you MUST use PHOTO-LITERACY (TECHNICAL / VISUAL / CONTEXTUAL / CONCEPTUAL) to analyse effectively.
Ensure that you include the following key terms in your blog posts…
Composition (rule of thirds, balance, symmetry)
Perspective (linear and atmospheric, vanishing points)
Depth (refer to aperture settings and focus points, foreground, mid-ground and back-ground)
Scale (refer to proportion, but also detail influenced by medium / large format cameras)
Light ( intensity, temperature, direction)
Colour (colour harmonies / warm / cold colours and their effects)
Shadow (strength, lack of…)
Texture and surface quality
Tonal values ( contrast created by highlights, low-lights and mid-tones)
Leading Lines
Composition : The Rule of Thirds Grid
Composition : Fibonacci Curve / Golden ratio
EXPOSURE BRACKETING
Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera’s light meter.
TASK : try a few variation of exposure bracketing to create the exposures that you want…you may already have pre-sets on your phone or camera to help you do this, but experimenting manually will help your understanding!
Many digital cameras include an Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) option. When AEB is selected, the camera automatically takes three or more shots, each at a different exposure. Auto Exposure Bracketing is very useful for capturing high contrast scenes for HDR like this…
…by taking the same photograph with a range of different exposure settings
You can use Exposure Compensation to quickly adjust how light or how dark your exposure will be using these controls…
Or set the amount of “bracketing” like this…
Alwaysfollow the 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :
Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
Image Selection, sub selection, review and refine ideas (AO2)
Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)
URBAN AND INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES
You will be learning about photographing man-altered landscapes and The New Topographics over the next 2 weeks and will be shown inspiration, influences, background and theory…and will be taken on at least 1 x guided photo-walk.
What was the new topographics a reaction to?
The stark, beautifully printed images of the mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental…
Post-war America struggled with
Inflation and labor unrest. The country’s main economic concern in the immediate post-war years was inflation. …
The baby boom and suburbia. Making up for lost time, millions of returning veterans soon married and started families…
Isolation and splitting of the family unit, pharmaceuticals and mental health problems
Vast distances, road networks and mobility
Robert Adams
Colorado Springs, 1974, Robert Adams
Critic Sean O’Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said “his subject has been the American west: its vastness, its sparse beauty and its ecological fragility…What he has photographed constantly – in varying shades of grey – is what has been lost and what remains” and that “his work’s other great subtext” is silence…
Explore these options…
St Helier
Residential areas
Housing estates
Retail Parks and shopping areas
Industrial Areas
Car Parks (underground and multi-storey too)
Leisure Centres
Building sites
Demolition sites
Built up areas
Underpass / overpass
The Waterfont
Harbours
Airport
Finance District (IFC buildings)
NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
Many urbanised areas are great to photograph at night or in low light conditions…
Naoya HatakayamaNaoya Hatakayama
Edgar Martins
Rut Blees Luxemburg , A Modern Project, 1996
use a tripod
use slow shutter speeds (experiment with your TV Mode / Shutter speeds !
be safe…take a friend and let your parents know where you are going
Check your EXPOSURE SETTINGS according to the light and what you are photographing…
Frank Golhke
Bernd and Hilla Becher
Stephen Shore
The beginning of the death of “The American Dream”
LEWIS BALTZ
Many of the photographers associated with The New Topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by the man-made…selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact.
New Topographics was inspired by the likes of Albert Renger Patszch and the notion of The New Objectivity
Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers also revealed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development.
ROADS / BUILDINGS / STREETS / ST HELIER / FLATS / CAR PARKS / OFFICE BLOCKS / PLAYING FIELDS / SCHOOL / SHOPS / SUPERMARKETS / BUILDING SITES / TRAFFIC / HOTELS
Where to shoot ?
ORDANCE YARD / ST AUBINS HIGH STREET / COBBLED BACK STREETS / OLD ST HELIER / NEW ST HELIER / FLATS / ESPLANADE / TOWN / CAR PARKS / FORT REGENT / FINANCE DISTRICT / UNDERPASS / TUNNEL / NIGHT TIME / PIER ROAD CAR PARK / HUE COURT / LE MARAIS FLATS / PLAYING FIELDS / SCHOOLS / ANN STREET BREWERY BUILDING SITE / SPRINGFIELD STADIUM
TASK ONE
Research and explore The New Topographics and how photographers have responded to man’s impact on the land, and how they found a sense of beauty in the banal ugliness of functional land use…
Create a blog post that defines and explains The New Topographics and the key features and artists of the movement.
ANSWER : What was the new topographics a reaction to?
TASK TWO
A case study on your chosen NEW TOPOGRAPHIC landscape photographer. Choose from…ROBERT ADAMS, STEPHEN SHORE, JOE DEAL, FRANK GOLKHE, NICHOLAS NIXON, LEWIS BALTZ, THE BECHERS, HENRY WESSEL JR, JOHN SCHOTT ETC to write up a case study that will inspire your own photography.
Produce a list of places in Jersey you could go and shoot urban landscapes.Create a blog post of a visual mood board and photo shoot plan. Scrapyards, building sites, cranes, restoration yards, derelict ruins, car parks, underpass, harbours and dockyards, industrial centres, retail park, Stadiums, floodlight arenas, staircases, road systems, Circuit boards, pipework, telephone poles, towers, pylons, Shop displays, escalators, bars, libraries, theatres and cinemas, Gardens, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, etc.
Possible titles to inspire you and choose from… Dereliction / Isolation / Lonely Places / Open Spaces / Close ups / Freedom / Juxtaposition / Old and new / Erosion / Altered Landscapes / Utopia / Dystopia / Wastelands / Barren / Skyscapes / Urban Decay / Former Glories / Habitats / Social Hierarchies / Entrances and Exits / Storage / Car Parks / Looking out and Looking in / Territory / Domain / Concealed and Revealed
TASK FOUR
Firstphotoshoot inspired and influenced by your first chosen urban landscape photographer. (+100 photographs). Can be any urban landscape photographer, but remember to include a brief case study and examples of their work that have influenced your work.
Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
Realise a final outcome.
TASK FIVE
Secondphotoshoot inspired and influenced by your second chosen urban landscape photographer. see list below URBAN PHOTOGRAPHERS (+100 photographs). Can be any urban landscape photographer, but remember to include a brief case study and examples of their work that have influenced your work. Ensure you experiment with different vantage points eg: worms eye view etc.
Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
Realise a final outcome.
TASK SIX
Select one of your photographs to compare and contrast against one photograph of your chosen photographer.
Create a venn diagram to illustratethe similarities and differences between the images.
New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape…
The beginning of the death of “The American Dream”
Bernd and Hilla Becher – Typologies of industrial architecture
Read this useful introduction to the Becher’s work from American Photo magazine which describes their interest in the ‘Grid’ and their influence on future generations of photographers, members of the Düsseldorf School.
The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’.
Partly inspired by the likes of Karl Blossfeldt, August Sander and The New Objectivity (that we looked at in the previous project)
Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes so once again, Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world.
The Bercher’s influence as lecturers at the The Dusseldorf School of Photography passed Typologies onto the next generation of photographers. Key photographic typologists such as Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand and Gillian Wearing lead to a resurgence of these documentary-style reflections on a variety of subject matter from Ruff’s giant ‘passport’ photos to Demand’s desolate, empty cities.
You could:
Create your own typological series documenting repeated forms within your surroundings. For example, you might like to choose one of the following subjects:
front doors on the street where you live
cracks in the pavement
fences and walls
the colours of all the cars in the supermarket car park
telegraph poles viewed from below
TV aerials silhouetted against the sky
KEVIN BAUMAN
Images from 100 Abandoned Houses – A record of abandonment in Detroit in the mid 90’s by Kevin Bauman
Ed Ruscha, “Every Building On The Sunset Strip”
The artist Ed Ruscha is famous for his paintings and prints but is also known for his series of photographic books based on typologies, among them Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Some Los Angeles Apartments, and Thirtyfour Parking Lots. Ruscha employs the deadpan style found in many photographic topologies. The book shown above is a 24 foot long accordion fold booklet that documents 1 1/2 miles of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha, Standard Station, 1966
Here’s another topology for you to look at by Ólafur Elíasson :
Idris Khan Every…Bernd And Hilla Becher Gable Sided Houses, 2004 Photographic print 208 x 160 cm
The structures in the Bechers’ original photographs are almost identical, though in Khan’s hands the images’ contrast and opacity is adjusted to ensure each layer can be seen and has presence. Though Khan works in mechanised media and his images are of industrial subjects, their effect is of a soft ethereal energy. They exude a transfixing spiritual quality in their densely compacted details and ghostly outlines. …Prison Type Gasholders conveys a sense of time depicted in motion, as if transporting the old building, in its obsolete black and white format, into the extreme future.
Creative Outcomes Can include : grids, animations, GIFs, Timelapse etc
Analysis and discussion… starting points and key features of The New Topographics (Stephen Shore)
Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, 1975, chromogenic color print
Foreground vs background | Dominant features
Composition | low horizon line | aspect ratio
Perspective and detail / cluttering
Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
Colour | impact and relevance
Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
Social commentary | The American Dream ?
An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc
Remember to use this
What do I photograph?
ROADS / BUILDINGS / STREETS / ST HELIER / FLATS / CAR PARKS / OFFICE BLOCKS / PLAYING FIELDS / SCHOOL / SHOPS / SUPERMARKETS / BUILDING SITES / TRAFFIC / HOTELS
Where to shoot ?
ORDANCE YARD / ST AUBINS HIGH STREET / COBBLED BACK STREETS / OLD ST HELIER / NEW ST HELIER / FLATS / ESPLANADE / TOWN / CAR PARKS / FORT REGENT / FINANCE DISTRICT / UNDERPASS / TUNNEL / NIGHT TIME / PIER ROAD CAR PARK / HUE COURT / LE MARAIS FLATS / PLAYING FIELDS / SCHOOLS / ANN STREET BREWERY BUILDING SITE / SPRINGFIELD STDIUM
Research and explore The New Topographics and how photographers have responded to man’s impact on the land, and how they found a sense of beauty in the banal ugliness of functional land use…
Create a blog post that defines and explains The New Topographics and the key features and artists of the movement.
ANSWER : What was the new topographics a reaction to?
A case study on your chosen NEW TOPOGRAPHIC landscape photographer. Choose from…ROBERT ADAMS, STEPHEN SHORE, JOE DEAL, FRANK GOLKHE, NICHOLAS NIXON, LEWIS BALTZ, THE BECHERS, HENRY WESSEL JR, JOHN SCHOTT ETC to write up a case study that will inspire your own photography.
Produce a list of places in Jersey you could go and shoot urban landscapes.Create a blog post of a visual mood board and photo shoot plan. Scrapyards, building sites, cranes, restoration yards, derelict ruins, car parks, underpass, harbours and dockyards, industrial centres, retail park, Stadiums, floodlight arenas, staircases, road systems, Circuit boards, pipework, telephone poles, towers, pylons, Shop displays, escalators, bars, libraries, theatres and cinemas, Gardens, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, etc.
Possible titles to inspire you and choose from… Dereliction / Isolation / Lonely Places / Open Spaces / Close ups / Freedom / Juxtaposition / Old and new / Erosion / Altered Landscapes / Utopia / Dystopia / Wastelands / Barren / Skyscapes / Urban Decay / Former Glories / Habitats / Social Hierarchies / Entrances and Exits / Storage / Car Parks / Looking out and Looking in / Territory / Domain / Concealed and Revealed
Firstphotoshoot inspired and influenced by your first chosen urban landscape photographer. (+100 photographs). Can be any urban landscape photographer, but remember to include a brief case study and examples of their work that have influenced your work.
Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
Realise a final outcome.
Photo Walk – urban
Once you have completed your photo walk from Havre Des Pas to La Collette you should aim to make comparisons with photographers and their work…as well as the notion of psychogeography to help understand your surroundings
Your image selection and editing may be guided by this work…and you must show that you can make creative connections.
For Example Albert Renger Patszch and The New Objectivity
Secondphotoshoot inspired and influenced by your second chosen urban landscape photographer. see list below URBAN PHOTOGRAPHERS (+100 photographs). Can be any urban landscape photographer, but remember to include a brief case study and examples of their work that have influenced your work. Ensure you experiment with different vantage points eg: worms eye view etc.
Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
Your vantage point affects the angles, composition, and narrative of a photograph. It is an integral part of the decision-making process when taking a photograph.
We often spend more time considering camera settings and lighting, than exploring viewpoints. A picture taken from a unique vantage point makes us think about the subject in a different way. Perspectives from high or low angles add emotion to the photograph.
Eye-level vantage points provide a feeling of directness and honesty. Changing your vantage point can include or exclude part of the photo’s story.
NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
Many urbanised areas are great to photograph at night or in low light conditions…
Naoya HatakayamaNaoya Hatakayama
Edgar Martins
Rut Blees Luxemburg , A Modern Project, 1996
use a tripod
use slow shutter speeds (experiment with your TV Mode / Shutter speeds !
be safe…take a friend and let your parents know where you are going
Check your EXPOSURE SETTINGS according to the light and what you are photographing…
Follow this 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :
Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
What is a Geopark? Every Geopark is unique. There are 169 UNESCO Global Geoparks in 44 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.
“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 comprises a number of geological heritage sites of special scientific importance, rarity or beauty. These features are representative of a region’s geological history and the events and processes that formed it. It must also include important natural, historic, cultural tangible and intangible heritage sites.
The UNESCO Global Geoparks celebrate the links between people and the Earth. Jersey hopes to be recognised as a unique place by being awarded Geopark status.
A Geopark is about more than rocks. Jersey is a strong contender for this special designation because of our Island’s exceptional geology and our important cultural heritage which forms the outstanding surroundings we enjoy every day. Whether exploring Jersey’s diverse landscapes or seascapes there is lots to discover and inspire you.
Jersey’s Geological Heritage – Sites of Special Interest (SSI)
The Island of Jersey has a geology that is significantly different to that of the United Kingdom and even from that of the other Channel Islands. Many of the island’s geological sites are of regional and international significance and some have attracted global attention.
In recognition of this, the States of Jersey has designated 22 of the island’s most important outcrops as Sites of Special Interest (SSIs) so that they may be protected from development and preserved for future public enjoyment and research purposes. The booklet below offers an introduction to all of Jersey’s geological SSIs with the aim of promoting knowledge of their existence to residents and tourists and highlighting their importance to amateur and professional scientists.
All the Island’s geological SSIs are covered here along with information about their location plus basic descriptions and photographs which highlight each site’s significance and its salient features.
The Aspiring Jersey Island Geopark Visitor Centre introduces the story of Jersey’s geological heritage and is the Island hub for information on exploring Jersey to see first-hand how geology has shaped and influenced the Island we know today.
GEOPARK AMBASSADORES
Geopark Ambassadors represent some of the organisations working with Aspiring Jersey Island Geopark. They champion Jersey’s unique landscapes and seascapes through their roles within our community and their passion for Island life.
Each Ambassador was asked about what makes this Island such a remarkable place.
Ralph Nichols – Geologist Société Jersiaise Lecturer, Teacher, Secretary for the Geology, Archaeology and Jèrriais Sections of Société Jersiaise. Favourite of Jersey’s Geology: Anne Port Bay to La Crête Point, St Martin. “My favourite geology is the Anne Port agglomerate and Anne Port rhyolite (Bouley Rhyolite Formation) with flow–banding, spherulitic rhyolite and columnar jointing. The columnar jointing at La Crête Point is similar to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland but has no crater!”
Minerals are made from elements like silicon, oxygen, aluminium, iron and other metals. They are the fundamental building blocks of all rocks. As magma (molten rock) cools, minerals such as quartz and feldspar form crystals. The longer the cooling process takes, the larger the crystals. Minerals can also be carried through rocks by water, forming crystals as the water evaporates.
JERSEY SHALE FORMATION
The shales are the oldest rocks in the Island. You can see them in the west, across the centre and in the south of Jersey. They were formed by mud, silt and sand brought together on the sea floor about 600 million years ago. These sediments were transformed into rock by being pushed together, hardened and folded.
JERSEY VOLCANICS
Volcanic lavas and ashes can be seen along the north and northeast coasts of the Island. These andesites and rhyolites formed as a result of volcanic eruptions occurring 580 million years ago.
JERSEY GRANITES
Jersey is famous for its granites, which have been favoured as a building material for thousands of years. These major intrusive or ‘plutonic’ rocks were formed between 580 and 480 million years ago by molten rock cooling and solidifying between the Earth’s surface. They are only visible once the overlying rocks have been eroded away. The dark rocks known as gabbros are the oldest, and are rich in iron and magnesium. The true granites, visible along the northwest and southwest coasts, are lighter in colour, and consist of three main minerals: quartz, feldspar and mica. On the southeast coast, where granites have broken through the Earth’s surface into older gabbros, a mixed rock called diorite has formed.
ROZEL CONGLOMERATE
Formation Conglomerate can be seen along the northeast of the Island and is made up of beds of pebbles which have been cemented together. They were formed around 400 million years ago and are the youngest hard rock formation in Jersey. Conglomerate is also known as ‘pudding stone’ because the rock formation is made up of lots of pebbles, probably from eroded and worn mountains. Streams with fast flowing water carried the pebbles and sand down valleys and left them behind before they cemented together.
JERSEY’S OFFSHORE REEFS
Jersey is surrounded by offshore reefs bursting with marine life, Les Pierres de Lecq to the north, Les Écréhous to the northeast and Les Minquiers to the south. Local fisherman enjoy fishing around these reefs which often prove dangerous to larger ships.
HOW OLD IS THAT ROCK?
At low tide Les Minquiers reef is bigger than Jersey. On this large reef, the rock is mostly made up of types of granite. These granites have features older than the Jersey granites. Could this mean that Les Minquiers reef is older than Jersey?
SEA LEVELS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The world’s climate fluctuates as a result of changes in the sun’s activity affecting the polar ice caps, the dome-shaped sheets of ice found in Greenland and Antarctica. These effects occur gradually over time, making sea levels change as ice caps melt or cool. This cycle of cold and warm periods has repeated itself several times over the past two million years. Since 10,000 years ago, sea levels have risen to make Jersey an Island once more.
GLACIAL
In a cold period, global temperature becomes cooler causing the ice caps to grow. This traps much of the world’s water, causing sea levels to drop as much as 200 metres. Just imagine the English Channel disappearing with Jersey and Guernsey as only hills in a vast coastal plain.
INTERGLACIAL
In a warm period, global temperature becomes warmer causing the ice caps to melt. Sea levels rise as freshwater is released back into the oceans. Evidence for past changes in sea level and the shifting of the Earth’s tectonic plates can be seen today in the many raised beaches in Jersey. The highest raised beach in the Island is at South Hill.
To explore the Island’s heritage of Jèrriais also known as Jersey French, our Island’s mother tongue, we have highlighted some special parts of Island life. This #landscapelanguage series can be found on Jersey Heritage’s Instagram (@jerseyheritage) featuring images by local photographer Lucy Le Lievre.
LES HUTHETS
Les Hurets is the often overlooked, rather bare headland on the north coast above Bouley Bay. This place’s name in Jèrriais, Les Huthets, translates to ‘high, rocky, stony and barren ground’…our ancestors certainly got that one right! ~ in life there are downs and ups ~ dans la vie y’a des flias et des huthes. ~
ÎLET
Where can you find this islet? Here is a clue…home to miner bees and at least two trees, this remarkable green-headed rock’s name in Jèrriais is îlet.
CAÛCHIE
Many bays around the Island feature a pier, or caûchie in Jèrriais. These extensions of the coast were mostly built in the 1800s to create protected pockets of water for seafarers. Today, our piers still prove popular for fishing, boating and more recently cold-water swimming. The caûchie at Grève de Lecq, pictured, was almost completely destroyed during storms in the 1890s.
ROTCHI
You can’t go far in the Island without seeing a large rock, or rotchi in Jèrriais. The correct word for rock in Jersey’s traditional language actually varies depending on which side of the Island you find yourself in! Can you guess if rotchi is for rocks in the east or west?
BOUAIS
Our language is deeply intertwined with nature. For example, tree is bouais in Jèrriais. In a small Island where timber is limited, the importance of trees to our ancestors can be seen every day in place names like Five Oaks or Les Ormes (or elms in Jèrriais). Today, trees remain just as vital as we realise their benefits to the planet and our wellbeing. The entire woodland ecosystem plays a huge role in locking up and storing carbon which is important in combating climate change. Research shows that within minutes of being surrounded by trees and green space, our blood pressure drops, heart rate slows and stress levels come down – spending time amongst trees is good for all of us.
FORT
As an Island, Jersey has always had to protect itself and the coastline hosts examples of fortifications from many different time periods. The importance of these defences can be seen in the similarities between language used then and now. For example Fort, is also Fort in Jèrriais. Fort Leicester, pictured, was built in 1836 to guard a certain bay in partnership with L’Étacquerel Fort to the east. The defensive position was named after the Earl of Leicester centuries before a fort was constructed. Today, both forts are available to enjoy as unique Heritage Lets.
BOUAÎS’SIE
In a small Island where timber is limited, the importance of trees to our ancestors can be seen every day in place names like Seven Oaks or La Rue de Sapins (sapin in Jèrriais means fir, spruce). Au temps pâssé (Jèrriais for in times past), wood from trees would have been used as fuel for fires to heat homes during the colder winter months. This practice continues today with more considerations and actions being made about replanting trees. These logs are from a wooded area, or in Jèrriais ~ bouaîs’sie.
USS’SIE
Features like an arch, or uss’sie in Jèrriais, can be seen around the Island in old buildings. This example is an arch at Manor Farm, La Route de Vinchelez in St Ouen – a farm which is still used today to grow delicious genuine Jersey produce.
GRANNIT
A building block of Island life – quite literally – types of granite, or grannit in Jèrriais, can be seen in almost every corner of Jersey. Formed hundreds of million years ago by molten rock cooling and solidifying between the Earth’s surface, this intrusive rock has stood the test of time. Jersey granites have been used as a building material for thousands of years. To build walls, slipways, places of worship, schools, houses and traditional farm buildings like the one pictured at Manor Farm, St Ouen. Look out for granite features when you are out and about.
GRAVYI
You can find gravel, gravyi in Jèrriais, in lots of places: gardens, driveways, indoor plant pots or stuck in your shoes! At sea, our ancestors even named the gravel banks, like ‘Les Graviers du Petit Port’.
BATÉ
As an Island surrounded by the sea, Jersey has a deep connection to maritime heritage. A boat, or baté in Jèrriais, was an essential possession for lots of our ancestors in order to make a living – catching fish to feed their families and navigating Jersey’s offshore reefs.
MONTÉE
This slipway, or montée in Jèrriais, at L’Étacq in the west of the Island was built in the 1860s. Most of the protective seawalls in Jersey were not built until the early 19th century – initially in St Ouen to prevent the ongoing loss of farmland. Slipways were constructed in each parish, designed mainly to allow access to the shore to gather vraic (seaweed) or to launch a small boat. The cobbles, or setts, used to build slipways were traditionally laid at a raked angle to prevent cartwheels and horses hooves from slipping. Today, the Island’s slipways give Jersey’s seaside a unique character and offer the perfect platform for a quick dip.
CORPS DÉ GARDE
As an Island, Jersey has a complex military history. Guardhouses, or corps dé garde in Jèrriais, were used by the local militia to keep a watchful eye over Jersey’s coastal waters and look out for smugglers, pirates or possible invaders. Defence posts like the corps dé garde located above Bouley Bay were built during the 18th century and can be found all over the Island.
L’ÊTACQ’SÉ
Head to the northern end of St Ouen’s Bay and you’ll find the Island’s oldest bedrock beneath your feet at L’Étacq, or L’Êtacq’sé in Jèrriais. This place name, like others in Jersey, is Old Norse for stack or large rock. It’s likely that Viking raiders did what we all tend to do – chose a fitting name for a new place according to a distinctive feature. For L’Étacq this is the stack which also has it’s own name Le Grand Étacquerel.
ISLAND SOUNDS
L’ÎLE FAIT LA VIE
As an Island shaped by time and tide, Jersey has a unique playlist. The music playing here is made up of sounds recorded around the Island. Listen. Êcoutez. What can you hear? Can you pick out all the different sounds?
Soundscape by Sam Hills.
WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?
Sea waves and weather ambience from multiple locations, including: Green Island, Bouley Bay and Anne Port.
Harbour ambience from Gorey Harbour
Cave ambience from La Corbière
Farm ambience from Oakwood Farm (St Mary) and Les Cotiles Farm (Trinity)*
Farm animal noises from Oakwood Farm (St Mary) and Les Cotiles Farm (Trinity)*
Chruch bells from St Nicholas Chruch (St Clement)
Birds at Val de la Mare Reservoir
Molluscs at Green Island at low-tide
Seagulls at Green Island
Waterfall from Bouley Bay and Plemont
Fishing boat noises in St Helier Marina **
Jèrriais pâle entouor la fèrméthie en Jèrri – talks in Jèrriais about farming in Jersey ***
Sweeping at Les Cotils Farm (Trinty)****
Waxing a surfboard in St Clement
Fire crackling in St Clement
Clock chiming in St Clement
Footsteps in St Clement
Traffic in St Clement
* Sound by Time Le Gresley and Mick Binet
** Sound by Josh Dearing The Jersey Catch
** Sound by Winston Le Brun
**** Sound by Mick Bine
ISLAND LIFE UNDERWATER
LA VIE D’L’ÎLE SOUOS L’IEAU
Many Islanders have seen dolphins or seals around Jersey but what else lives beneath the surface? In Jersey, our seascape has lots of different types of seaweed that provide homes for some amazing creatures. The seagrass, kelp forests and maerl beds around the Island also all absorb blue carbon which help mitigate global climate change. Check out what happened when a few of these creatures got captured on camera by Samantha Blampied using some tasty bait just above the seabed. Watch Èrgardez this fantastic footage of cuttlefish, catsharks, stingrays and tope.
The Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) is working to learn more about the Island’s seascape. Learn more about their Jersey project and other work on their website.https://player.vimeo.com/video/477609699?h=b27a808021&dnt=1&app_id=122963
HISTORY OF GEOTOURISM
L’HISTOUAITHE DU GÉOTOURISME
Watch this video to see how people explored our Island in the past and how you can explore Jersey today. The video runs for 6 minutes 25 seconds. Film by Submarine Creative.
ACTIVITIES
There are lots of ways you can explore the Aspiring Jersey Island Geopark, here are just some ideas to get you out and about.
WALKING
You will find an extensive network of footpaths as well as winding country lanes, breathtaking cliff paths and beautiful beaches to explore and all within easy reach.
Walks can vary in length from short leisurely strolls to more challenging hikes along the cliff paths. Follow the links below to find a walk best suited to your level of ability. Some paths may be suitable for wheelchair users.
Walking is a great way to explore the outdoors allowing us to wander through Jersey’s spectacular landscapes, enjoying this Aspiring Geopark’s natural and built heritage. More information on walking in the Aspiring Geopark can be found by clicking on the links below:
Jersey Walk Adventures – Discover Jersey’s very own wilderness on foot with expert local guides who have explored this wonderful coast for many years. Revel in the stillness and expanse of an area that is covered twice a day by some of the highest tides in the world. Here marine life must survive the extremes of being submerged under water or marooned high and dry.
Jersey’s Countryside Map – From Jersey’s footpaths to individual ecological and geological sites of special interest (SSI) to our network of green lanes, Jersey’s countryside map invites you to discover the Island’s diverse natural landscapes.
Move More Health Walks – Enjoy short, easy and free walks run by Move More Jersey designed to improve mental and physical wellbeing and provide the opportunity for support and encouragement to walk. This is especially useful for those with lower physical ability or long-term health conditions.
Jersey Heritage – Explore the Island’s history and stories with a range of self-guided walking routes and audio tours.
National Trust for Jersey – The Trust maintain many local footpaths through a variety of the Island’s natural habitats such as coastline, valleys, woodland and heathland for the public to enjoy. Try one of their self-guided walks.
CYCLING
See the Aspiring Geopark on two wheels. Cover more miles by exploring the Island via Jersey’s cycle routes and green lanes. Enjoy taking in the sites from the slow lane or challenge yourself with an uphill climb, there are routes for all abilities.
For information and ideas on cycling in the Aspiring Geopark visit the following websites:
– EVie bikes – Sustainable transport, put some power behind your pedalling and hire an electric bike to cover more kilometres.
– Visit Jersey – Be inspired by Visit Jersey’s cycle routes and top tips for cycling around the Island.
STRETCHING
Find your flow in nature and return to your breath. Let your troubles float away as you reconnect with your body through gentle movement and perhaps testing your balance. More information on opportunities to stretch in the Aspiring Geopark can be found by visiting the link below:
Bunker Yoga – Celebrate the natural world and all of its cycles of life. Delia at Bunker Yoga aims to reemphasise the importance of this to others through the practice of yoga at locations that bridge the gap between indoor and out.
Explore the parts of the Aspiring Geopark that lie offshore. You could take in the scenery at your own pace on a guided kayak, test your balance on a paddle board or visit a deserted sandbank by getting a lift to the furthest corners of the Aspiring Geopark. Learn about how to explore the Island’s seascapes safely by looking at these activity providers:
Escape to another word and experience what Island life is like underwater. Dive into exploring Jersey’s surrounding waters by visiting:
Bouley Bay Dive Centre – Situated in Bouley Bay is Jersey’s longest established dive centre offering a full range of dive courses, equipment sales, rentals and servicing.
SURFING
Head over to the west coast of the Aspiring Jersey Island Geopark to watch the waves at St Ouen’s Bay. Well known across the Island as a surfer’s paradise take in this idyllic Bay from the sea waiting to catch your next wave. More information about surfing in the Aspiring Geopark can be found by clicking on the links below:
The Surfyard– Surf school and shop located right in the middle of one of the finest bays in Northern Europe, and at the heart of Jersey’s surf culture.
CLIMBING
Take yourself to new heights and challenge yourself. With one of the largest tidal ranges in the world, Jersey offers the perfect natural playground to practice climbing and coasteering. Discover a whole new landscape uncovered as the tide rises and falls every 12 hours. More information on climbing and coasteering opportunities can be found at:
watch the documentary on ‘Fixing the Shadows’ from BBC Genius of Photography, Episode 1.
To embed your understanding of the origins of photography and its beginnings you’ll need to produce a blog post which outlines the major developments in its practice. Some will have been covered in the documentary but you may also need to research and discover further information.
Your blog post must contain information about the following and keep it in its chronological order:
Camera Obscura
Nicephore Niepce
Louis Daguerre
Daguerreotype
Henry Fox Talbot
Richard Maddox
George Eastman
Kodak (Brownie)
Film/Print Photography
Digital Photography
Each must contain dates, text and images relevant to each bullet point above. In total aim for about 1,000-2000 words.
Archives in contemporary photography: Also read text about the resurgence of archives in contemporary photography by theorist David Bate: archives-networks-and-narratives_low-res, make notes and reference it by incorporating quotes into your essay to widen different perspectives. Comment on quotes used to construct an argument that either support or disapprove your own point of view.
Origins of Photography: Study this Threshold concept 2: Photography is the capturing of light; a camera is optional developed by PhotoPedagogy which includes a number of good examples of early photographic experiments and the camera obscura which preceded photography. It also touches on photography’s relationship with light and reality and delve into photographic theories, such as index and trace as a way of interpreting the meaning of photographs.
Photography did not spring forth from nowhere: in the expanding capitalist culture of the late 18th and 19th centuries, some people were on the look-out for cheap mechanical means for producing images […] photography emerged experimentally from the conjuncture of three factors: i) concerns with amateur drawing and/or techniques for reproducing printed matter, ii) light-sensitive materials; iii) the use of the camera obscura — Steve Edwards, Photography – A Very Short Introduction
View from the Window at Le Gras by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827
Debates about the origins of photography have raged since the first half of the nineteenth century. The image above left is partly the reason. View from the Window at Le Gras is a heliographic image and arguably the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera. It was created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. The picture on the right is an enhanced version of the original which shows a view across some rooftops. It is difficult to tell the time of day, the weather or the season. This is because the exposure time for the photograph was over eight hours.
What is a 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.
In contrast to photographic paper, 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. Different types of housings existed: an open model, a folding case, jewelry…presented in a wooden ornate box dressed in red velvet. LD a theatre set designer
The invention of photography, however, is not synonymous with the invention of the camera. Cameraless images were also an important part of the story. William Henry Fox Talbot patented his Photogenic Drawing process in the same year that Louis Daguerre announced the invention of his own photographic method which he named after himself. Anna Atkins‘ British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions of 1843 is the first use of photographic images to illustrate a book. This method of tracing the shapes of objects with light on photosensitive surfaces has, from the very early days, been part of the repertoire of the photographer.
Henry Fox Talbot – Latticed Window, 1835
In the month of August 1835, William Henry Fox Talbot produced the first photographic negative to have survived to this day. The subject is a window. Despite the clear connection, it is an entirely different image compared to those of his colleagues Niépce and Daguerre. Those are photographs taken from a window, while this is the photograph of a window. From the issue of realism, we shift here into an extremely modern outlook which today would be likened to conceptual and metalinguistic discourse. While the window constitutes the most immediate metaphor to refer to photography, Talbot doesnʼt use it but more simply he photographs it. He thus takes a photograph of photography. The first to comment on this was the author himself, writing a brief note (probably added when it was displayed in 1839) on the card upon which it is mounted. The complete text reads:
Latticed Window (with the Camera Obscura) August 1835 When first made, the squares of glass, about 200 in number could be counted, with help of a lens6
In 1978, the German photographer Floris Neusüss visited Lacock Abbey to make photograms of the same window. He returned again in 2010 for the Shadow Catchers exhibition at the V&A to create a life-sized version of Talbot’s window (below right).
That 1878 photogram was the start of our adventures in creating photograms of large objects in the places where we found them […] we took our equipment to Lacock Abbey and made a photogram of a fixed subject. This particular subject was for us not just a window in a building but an iconic window, a window on photography, opened by Talbot. The window is doubly important, because to be able to invent the photograph, Talbot first used photograms to test the light sensitivity of chemicals. His discovery became a window on the world. I wonder what percentage of our understanding of the planet we live on now comes from photographs? — Floris Neusüss
The idea of photographs functioning like windows makes total sense. Like the camera viewfinder, windows frame our view of the world. We see through them and light enters the window so that we can see beyond. Photographs present us with a view of something. However, it might also be possible to think of photographs as mirrors, reflecting our particular view of the world, one we have shaped with our personalities, our subconscious motivations, so that it represents how our minds work as well as our eyes. The photograph’s glossy surface reflects as much as it frames. Of course, some photographs might be both mirrors and windows. If you’re interested in thinking a bit more about this you might want to check out this resource.
Examples of Jersey-based Photographers—the early days…
Henry Fox Talbot – Latticed Window, 1835