The Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive (SJPA) contains over 125,000 items dating from the mid-1840s to the present day. It is the Island’s principal collection of nineteenth and early twentieth-century photography and reflects a rich history generated from our geographical and cultural position between Britain and France, two nations that were prominent in developing the medium.

During the trip, the class listened to a presentation from two people in the industry about how the archives are stored and sorted. We learnt that they take archival donations of photographic materials, causing their collection to rapidly grow each day.

Due to the Elizabeth Castle project, I photographed this old map of Elizabeth Castle.

I also found this drawing of St. Helier’s hermitage, before the breakwater connecting it to the castle was built.

These pictures of Elizabeth Castle and Gorey Castle were also quite interesting, showing what the castles looked like in the past.

SJ Photographic Archive

On their website (above) it is mentioned how ‘we hold over 15,000 portraits of named individuals, together with views of every bay, valley and vista across the Island. Our collection offers a detailed visual record of Jersey and Channel Islands history and is an excellent representation of technical and aesthetic developments throughout the photographic era.’

We will be using a range of our images and archives to create contrast and a historical feeling to our film. We want to include images of the ocean too to set the mood, and further support the story our narrator will be reading.

1. RESEARCH: Elizabeth Castle and decide which particular aspects of its 1000 year history you wish to make into a short film of 3-5 mins – see below. Gather together research material, such as images, maps, documents, links to online sources and write a short synopsis of 300-500 words.

Elizabeth Castle

Built on a rocky islet in St. Aubin’s Bay, Elizabeth Castle (a castle and tourist attraction) has defended Jersey for more than 400 years. Construction of the earliest parts of the castle, the Upper Ward including the Queen Elizabeth Gate, began in 1594. This work was carried out by the Flemish military engineer Paul Ivy. Sir Walter Raleigh Governor of Jersey between 1600 and 1603, named the castle Elizabeth Castle after Elizabeth I of England. The castle was first used in a military context during the English Civil War in the 17th century.

Plan:

The earliest known structure to be built on the two rocky outcrops on which the Castle was subsequently to be built was the Hermitage of St Helier, thought to have been founded as a monastery and oratory in 1155 but amalgamated with the Abbey of Cherbourg and downgraded to a priory in 1179.

For our film, Caitlin and I decided to base it around the life of St. Helier (Helierus), the man that lived in the hermitage that is now connected to Elizabeth Castle by a breakwater.

We want our film to have quite a dark, creepy and slightly gothic theme, including a narrator talking about the life of the saint and the legends and myths surrounding his story.

We want to focus on both the religious and mythical aspects of the saint, as I think both are important to make an interesting film about him.

About Chris Marker

Chris Marker was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La Jetée, A Grin Without a Cat and Sans Soleil. He was born on the 29th of July, Neuilly- sur- Seine, France and passed away on his birthday in 2012, Paris, France. He was always elusive about his past and known to refuse interviews and not allow photographs to be taken of him; his place of birth is highly disputed. Marker was a philosophy student in France before World War II. During the German occupation of France, he joined the Maquis (FTP), a part of the French Resistance. During his early journalism career, Marker became increasingly interested in filmmaking and in the early 1950s experimented with photography.

La Jetée (1962)

Meaning The Pier, La Jetée is Marker’s most well known movie.

It tells of a post-nuclear was experiment in time travel by using a series of filmed photographs developed as a photomontage of varying pace, with limited narration and sound effects. In the film, a survivor of a futuristic third World War is obsessed with distant and disconnected memories of a pier at the Orly Airport, the image of a mysterious woman, and a man’s death. Scientists experimenting in time travel choose him for their studies, and the man travels back in time to contact the mysterious woman, and discovers that the man’s death at the Orly Airport was his own. Except for one shot of the woman mentioned above sleeping and suddenly waking up, the film is composed entirely of photographs by Jean Chiabaud and stars Davos Hanich as the man, Hélène Châtelain as the woman and filmmaker William Klein as a man from the future.

The editing of La Jetée adds to the intensity of the film. With the use of cut-ins and fade-outs, it produces the eerie and unsettling nature adding to the theme of the apocalyptic destruction of World War III. 

Front Cover

I decided to create quite a simple cover, with one of my pictures featured in the middle. I added a white border around the picture (with a thicker bit at the bottom to create a polaroid effect) and a double border around the edge. I choose quite a simple yet blocky font, adding a title and my name in a smaller size beneath it. I think it is an effective cover as it gives the viewer a taste of what is featured in the zine without revealing too much.

Inside

My first double page includes a blank black page with an overview of the trip written in the middle. On the right, I included a landscape image that I took.

I decided to display my favourite landscape images over two pages.

I displayed the portrait images side by side, some filling up the whole page and some having a black border.

For my remaining portrait and landscape photos, I went for a different layout, including a quote from Henri Cartier- Bresson below the landscape image.

Back Cover

For the back cover, I used a similar layout as I did for my front cover, however this time I included another quote from Henri Cartier- Bresson.

-A photo zine is a self-made, printed issue built of photos and captions. The term comes from the word “magazine”, as zines follow the style of magazines with headings, text, and illustrations put on a grid. An important feature of a photo zine is visual storytelling.

-A photography zine is a tool that photographers can use to tell a visual story, to inform an audience about a specific topic or issue, to showcase and advertise a new idea or simply create a preview of an ongoing project. 

Inspiration

Cover:

I like the idea of a colour theme (except I was thinking about using black and white. I also like the border to add detail and how it draws attention the small photograph in the middle. The small photograph causes the cover to be minimalistic and give a taste of the zine without revealing too much. I think this is something I will do for my own zine, however I would like to include a title.

Inside:

I like the use of blank space and how the photos don’t use up the entire page. However, I might use writing like quotes to slightly fill up the space without making it too crowded.

I think this is also a successful layout option as the slightly different image sizes look very effective.

Photos that fill up the entire page also look very good, the white border left around it drawing attention to the image in the middle. I will use this layout technique for some of my favourite images. Instead of the white background however, I will make it black.

I want my zine to be quite minimalistic and simple, with some bits of writing and pages with various layouts. I want my layout to be quite meaningful, arranging the photos using the composition of the photo itself (for example, positioning a photo of a person walking to the left of the image on the left side of the page). I want the reader to notice these small yet meaningful choices and how it ties all the photos together.

STORY: What is your story?
Describe in:

• 3 words- People in St. Malo

• A sentence- Exploring the citizens of St. Malo and the tourists, as well as their environments

• A paragraph- The year 1960 marked the end of the 12 years it took to rebuild St. Malo, and ever since it has been a place overflowing with people- tourists and residents wondering its streets. St. Malo is a place for everyone, this was clear as soon as I walked in through the town’s entrance. The warm weather invited a lot of activity, the air filled with a welcoming atmosphere. People were everywhere, eating in restaurants, shopping, exploring the old town. It was difficult to focus on singular individuals, however, after supressing the initial excitement, I began to break the crowds of people up, noticing details. It was a fascinating experience, seeing how both couples and individuals enjoy themselves within the walls of St. Malo. I wanted my photos to be an exploration of people, taking into account the different moods that each person experienced. The idea of loneliness seems to be forgotten about within these walls, the contrast between groups of people, families, couples and individuals being interesting, especially since everyone appeared to be content, whether in others company or just their own.

What is a NARRATIVE?

A narrative is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional or fictional. Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these. Some see it as a recount of events, in a more artistic manner.

The word derives from the Latin verb narrare (to tell), which is derived from the adjective gnarus (knowing or skilled).

NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?

For my zine, I have selected photos that explore people and their surroundings. I think my photos are most effective in black and white, which is why I based my entire zine of these two shades. I will include some typography in my zine, using quotes from Henri Cartier- Bresson (my inspiration) and a short paragraph explaining my reasoning for my theme of photos, and the though that went in. Although most of the photos include people, I have also used a photo of graffiti, as I think it can be be a portrayal of the thoughts that people have. I will only be using real images of St. Malo, as for me AI generated images don’t provoke any feelings of nostalgia.

The Life of my Grandad- Zbigniew Dziwisz

For this project, I decided to focus on my grandad’s life. He was born in Bierna, Poland on the 9th of September, 1948. He grew up with his two sisters, Zofia and Krystyna, and his father Tadeusz and his mother Elżbieta, my great-grandparents. My grandma (my grandad’s late wife) was born on the 31st of January, 1949. They got married on the 31st of August in 1974 and they had my mum, Małgorzata, on the 28th of March 1976. My grandma sadly passed away on the 29th of August 1992, which left my grandad a widower. I looked through many photos of my grandad’s life as a young adult, even finding a photograph of him as a young child. I picked out photos in which he looked happy, either alone or with my grandma. During my holiday in Poland, I took pictures of my grandad and his environment, even recreating some of the photos from the past.

The Old Photos

The New Photos

Best Photos

Environment:

For this project, I also focused on my grandad’s everyday environment.

Portraits:

Then and Now

I decided to recreate some old photos of my grandad, creating contrast between the age gap and different surroundings.

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Experimentation

Original Photo:

Experiment 1:

Experiment 2:

Experiment 3:

Experiment 4:

Experiment 5:

Research

Photographic storytelling is the art of conveying stories, ideas and viewpoints through the medium of photography. It is a great example of how photography is not just the practice of creating visually interesting or stunning pictures, but is about telling stories, real or fantasised.

Typically photojournalists create photo stories to share their editorial or journalistic work. These standalone documentary photography pieces are a great tool to capture readers’ attention, especially in today’s visual world. They can also be used as evidence or visual art that supports any stories/ information the photographers have to share.

There are many magazines that produce picture stories, for example the LIFE magazine which was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent “special” until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. On the website PictureCorrect, the magazine was said to be the only magazine which ‘has placed such fantastic emphasis on pure, honest, visual storytelling, and done it so well’. The LIFE magazine is said to have created images that provoke feelings of nostalgia when looking back at America’s ‘golden years’. I think LIFE is truly one of the best examples of photographic picture stories, presenting viewers with interesting photos with captions and descriptions that intrigued many.

Experimentation (in InDesign)