Founded in 1873, by only a small group of Islanders, the Société Jersiaise holds around 35,000 historical images. Although it started with a small number of people interested in the study of history, language and antiques of Jersey, it soon grew a larger membership and the historical documents were published. In 1893 the museum became permanent and moved to 9 Pier Road. Now looked after and owned by Jersey Heritage, the collection is still growing. Their main mission is to make the Islands history available for people to see and admire, researching its history.
We visited the Société Jersiaise and got introduced to the people that look after all the archives. We got to see archival history of Elizabeth Castle, which was really interesting. It also inspired me to possibly use images from the archive, as well as letters, in our film. By learning about Jersey’s past, and seeing physical prints of the castle, we got to understand its history more in depth than just visiting a website. Over the years, images have become digitalised and we have become acclimated to online and digital presentations of photos. Learning about this emphasised how today’s society has no appreciation of the history of image making. This gave me the opportunity to understand the importance of archives, and how much care goes into keeping them safe. I wasn’t aware of this before, and it has made me want to create a more historic film, and edit my images and videos to replicate archives.
Archived Images:
Postcard of a painting of Elizabeth Castle by Dominique Serres
It is a French science fiction film made in 1962, directed by Chris Marker. It is put together by nearly just still photos and audio, where a story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel is told in French. It is monochrome and 28 minutes long, winning the Prix Jean Vigo for short film.
It is cleverly constructed because it uses dramatic black and white images to tell the story. It is inspiring to know that a film can be created from still images and not only video, using audio as the storyteller. We will take into consideration this strategy for filmmaking with our film. We will try to get some dramatic shots that tell the story we want to tell through stills.
For our film we don’t want to include too much factual history, but instead include archival history produced by previous Jersey Islanders.
We are going to use a letter written from Elina Hellyer, née Teele, to Patricia from her aunt of ‘Rockwood’, Mont Cochon. The letter contains news of the liberation of Jersey, the family and life under the German Occupation. We accessed the letter on the Jersey Heritage website.
The letter is six pages long so we will only use certain parts of the letter that link best to the war and what possibly when on at Elizabeth Castle. In our film we will put writing across the screen, and images of the actual letter in a low opacity over our film. We also might get someone to read the letter out and have it in the background.
example
History
the castle began being built in 1550, and named after Queen Elizabeth I in 1660 by Sir Walter Raleigh. The construction stared with the Upper Ward, later including Queen Elizabeth Gate installed in 1959. When the English Civil war broke out in 1642, Prince Charles came to Jersey and lived on the castle for 10 weeks to stay safe. After becoming king in 1650, he donated Jersey land in America, which was named New Jersey. In the same year (1651) that a windmill was built in-between Fort Charles and the Lower Ward, the Parliamentarian forces arrived in Jersey and bombarded the castle with mortars.
Elizabeth Castle was at its greatest in 1848, owning 64 cannons. The castle later became the States of Jersey’s property in 1923, when the army sold it to them for £1,500.
In the 18th Century, the Seven Years War took place. French prisoners were kept on the island. On the 6 January 1781, French troops, under Baron Phillipe de Rullecourt, arrived in St Helier. This was the next conflict the castle was involved in. The castle garrison (the soldiers guarding the Castle) was marooned. After the garrison refused to surrender, the French were finally defeated by the troops under Major Francis Peirson at the Battle of Jersey.
During WW2, the German forces added bunkers, searchlights and gun emplacements to Elizabeth castle. This was during the second year of the war in 1940. The castle was then occupied by roughly 100 German soldiers until Liberation day in May, 1945.
The castle is now owned by Jersey Heritage, and is a popular tourist attraction.
Focusing on the people standing out that are silent or focused amongst the speed of the world passing by them. Also showing their style and their place/purpose in Camden.
My Images
In my zine I am going to lay these out in an order that shows my journey to Camden and the different kinds of people I saw on the way.
Archived Images
Images that will influence my text, layoutand style
My main images that I think have the best composition and meaning:
I’ve chosen these three images because they all have a main and obvious focal point for the viewer, which causes them to stand out unlike some of my other images where the focus is hidden amongst a crowd. They also give the viewer a chance to focus on the individual in the image and consider their story. I might use these images for full page images.
I’ve edited this image to have movement around the subject so that the focus is more obvious. I also like how the main subject is still, unlike everyone else.
These images are my second favourites, and I may use them as full page instead because there is a lot in the composition and could cause the page to become confusing, or I will place them next to a more simple image like the ones above.
Front Page
I attempted multiple designs to see which image and design was the most effective.
I decided to choose this image and text as my front page because I felt it was the most effective/ dramatic. I like the movement I created in photoshop as it creates more of a focus point on the main subject.
For the rest of the pages I just placed them in, cropping some and leaving some original. I put them in an order so a basic story could be told of going round Camden and seeing the different types of people.
For the back cover I reused one of my other images and added a transparent rectangle over it. I felt like ending with the beginning photo was a good idea as its revisiting the start.
Mind map of inspiration for my picture story from sites like the Guardian and newspapers. The use of large writing to present the story in the title is prominent in newspapers, and I will use this in some of my examples. They also tell the story with wording around the best images that present it, I will try different layouts for this.
Overall, I think that this is my best outcome. I like the simplicity of the layout, with two main images on the side, and two smaller images that complete the story. I chose to add automated text because it separates the images and includes more to look at.
I originally didn’t have a title, however adding one gave it more of a backstory, explaining what’s going on and where it’s set.
I also experimented with changing the opacity of images and using them as backdrops.
This was my most basic edit, which I liked, however I thought it was too simple and boring. I added an image with low opacity behind it to make it more interesting, but still didn’t think it was my best.
This is one of my best images from the shoot because of the composition and structure. I used the rule of thirds to centre the image and create strong leading lines up the image. I find the image in itself presents a story of movement and busyness in the underground. The focal point is the person getting into the escalator at the bottom, creating the idea that the image is telling their story. It also presents a sense of loneliness or self reflection amidst the crowd.
This image is similar using the rule of thirds and having a main focal point. Again the subject is stood still amongst the busy life of Camden Market.
Boris Eldagsen. The Electrician, from the series PSEUDOMNESIA, 2022
Introduction
Photography became a ‘threat’ to art on January 7 1839, when the daguerreotype was presented to members of the French Académie des Sciences, an invention that would change art and visual representations. Louis Daguerre had been experimenting with how to capture what he saw in his camera obscura since the mid 1820s. Once he had discovered the key to creating a daguerreotype, photography was invented, and became an issue for traditional art forms such as painting and drawing. Since then photography has evolved through techniques such as the calotype, ‘The first selfie‘ by Robert Cornelius, Pictorialism and even Henry Mullins’ Carte-de-Visit. It could be seen as a threat to the traditional art forms because, although in the early days of photography an image could take up to 3-15 to expose, photography was a quicker and easier way to capture moments and people. Robert Cornelius shot the first successful portrait in 1839, starting the trend for portraiture photography. There is a record of photographs of the hierarchy in society because it was expensive to produce images in the 1800-1900s. Photography removed the imagination from art as it opened up a broader idea of what it could be, revolutionising conventional art. How is photography an illusion? Photography can lie to its audience in many ways, from the Boulevard du Temple only presenting two people in the image, to Leap Into The Void, to photoshopped images, and even AI created photos. As a viewer, you will never know the truth behind an image without research into its creation, causing photography to lack truth and create illusions.
AI is a new form of technology that uses artificial intelligence to create text, images and sound. It is beginning to be used in art and photography to generate new kinds of art. Examples of AI are face recognition, Chat GPT, Google Maps and Ride, Chatbots etc. Photoshop Beta is a new app used to create AI on your images, easily accessed from home and used to create abstract photos. Will Lakeman uses this is his work to create fictional images, however using AI can create controversy for photographers. The question are AI generated images classed as photographs is prominent, and are the images created a lie? There are ethical concerns following AI and how powerful it could become. The so called ‘Godfather of AI’ Dr Geoffrey Hinton resigned from google due to his concern of its potential.
The two images that I have decided to study are Boris Eldagsen’s ‘The Electrician‘ and Robert Capa’s ‘Death of a Loyalist Soldier‘. They equally hold the power to be questioned based around their truth and how they were created, even though they were produced 86 years apart.
Julia Margaret Cameron
Photography was able to be manipulated before the digital age in many ways. From shutter speeds not capturing movement to darkroom experimentation, photographs have been manipulated since the beginning of photography. A key photographer that exemplifies manipulation in images is Julia Margaret Cameron and Pictorialism. At the start of the photography journey the process involved a lot of physical work using possible hazardous materials. She used a wooden camera that was large and inconvenient and placed it on a tripod. Her early portraits show how she experimented with a soft focus and dramatic lighting. She used a soft focus lens which deliberately introduces spherical aberration in order to give the appearance of blurring the image while retaining sharp edges. It is created from lens flaws, where the lens forms images that are blurred due to spherical aberration. Her images included imperfections such as fingerprints, streaks and swirls. She also manipulated her negatives by scratching into them. This photo of Julia Jackson shows her manipulation in the background where she scratched a picture into the background. Her work is an example, demonstrating that images were manipulated and lied to the viewer from the early stages of photography, not only modern day digital images.
Image 1
Robert Capa, Death of a Loyalist Soldier, 1936
“No tricks are necessary to take pictures in Spain. You don’t have to pose your camera. The pictures are there, and you just take them. The truth is the best, the best propaganda.” Robert Capa, interview with New York World-Telegram, September 2nd 1937 (Capa, 1937)
My chosen Image by Robert Capa, Death of a Loyalist Soldier, made in 1936 is an intriguing example of how photos can lie or tell the truth. The image was taken during the Spanish Civil War and named “the greatest war photographer in the world” (Capa, 1937). The image leads its viewer to question whether it is staged or not, however the story behind it explains that Capa arranged a small band of militiamen to pose on a hillside in the village of Cerro Muriano, creating staged images of war. The soldiers were not fighting at the time of the photoshoot. Whilst he was photographing one of the soldiers, a bullet hit him as Capa took the image, resulting in a half staged image. After the photo became famous for capturing a sudden and horror-stricken death, Capa was criticised for creating a staged photograph, leading to many theories being suggested. It was his 1975 book on war correspondents The First Casualty that raised questions about the images authenticity. In an interview he also spoke about the time he spend with this particular soldier, and how he was nervous to climb over the sand banks for the image because there had been gunfire earlier. The theory lies that the solider was told by Capa to run down the hill and fall, unfortunately being shot by chance during the making. However many people believe it is not true and the soldier was just ‘falling’. This example demonstrates that photographs leave underlying lies/ truths, showing us that not only digital images are manipulated to deceive its audience. Personally, I believe this image was not staged and he was shot by chance whilst the images were being taken. I find this case really interesting and investigating the different theories has lead me to realise the questions raised through images produced not only today, but back when digital images weren’t existent.
Modern photography has changed the way images are produced, introducing new digital technology such as Lightroom, Photoshop and now AI. Photography’s truth is becoming less reliable and causes uncertainty on what is really true. Even image cropping is a form of twisting the truth and context behind an image because it doesn’t give a full view of what is taking place at the time. Kevin Carter’s ‘The Vulture and the Little Girl’ is an example of how images can not tell the whole truth.
The photo presents a vulture watching a starving child, giving the impression that it is a natural occurrence and nothing can be done to help. However the broader knowledge behind the image informs us that there was a United Nations feeding centre near by. Although the image leads to a conclusion that the child didn’t survive, the truth reveals otherwise.
AI is also a technique to create images that don’t have a relationship with photography. DreamStudio is a website designed to create images based on what you ask the AI to create. In a matter of seconds you can make multiple images based on what you have searched. Using AI like this detaches creativity from photography because it is not using your imagination to create a piece of work from scratch, but rather using technology to create it. However AI and photography can be joined, through using Photoshop Beta (like Will Lakeman) and make creative works that are time consuming and still using your imagination.
Image 2
Boris Eldagsen. The Electrician, from the series PSEUDOMNESIA, 2022
Eldqagsen was awarded as a winner of the Creative Category of the Open Competition, however it was only after the award was given that he admitted to using AI to create the image. He declined the reward after admitting he purposefully hid his AI use from journalists. This caused issues surrounding the acceptance of AI in photography contests, spurring stories about how the World Photography Organisation took action to disclose the situation. the World Photography Organisation stated ‘We are interested in photography as an art form, and within the Sony World Photography Awards we have our Creative categories in the Professional and Open Competitions which welcome photographers to experiment and explore the dynamism of the medium. With technological advancements, a wider audience of creators are engaging with lens-based work and we look forward to seeing how this can expand the reach and impact of photography’ (Stewart, 2023).
Eldagsen’s primary question is ‘How does AI imagery fit into the world of photography?’
He believes that the basic answer is for photography competitions to have their own category.
“That’s easy to do. And then, if you have photography competitions, in the end people need to prove that it’s photography. There are RAW files and a multitude of technical possibilities to do that. Just look at the World Press Photo Award.” (Stewart, 2023)
Personally, I believe this image is intriguing because through AI, Eldagsen has managed to create a highly detailed image that deceived the World Photography Organisation into believing it was a photograph. I don’t think that AI generated images can be classed as ‘photography’ because it is not created through a camera, however I do believe that AI could be the next new art form. On the other hand, I think that AI has the power to create images that lie and have the potential to create false accounts when it is so highly developed, which could cause issues in the media.
Conclusion
Can a photograph lie?
These two images are dissimilar due to the fact one is created form a camera and the other AI. However they both don’t tell the truth, causing its viewers to wonder what is actually taking place/ what is real. Both photographers distort the truth, and the comparison between the two show how photography’s way of lying has advanced over time, leaving a concerning future ahead. What could AI become if it gains a greater power, and how far with the truth be twisted in photography?
Overall I believe a majority of images created ,from the first image with people in, to photoshopped and AI generated images, have the potential to be named false. There are many aspects in photography that can support the argument that photographs lie such as
cropping
shutter speed blurring/ not capturing the full scene
actors/ props
photoshop and lightroom
AI e.g. Dreamstudo, Midjourney, Photoshop Beta
Changes made when developing in the darkrrom
Scratchings and imperfections – Julia Margaret Cameron and Pictorialism
Reviewing this, I have come to the conclusion that these are aspects that contribute to what photography is, because nothing can compare to what the eye can see and witness in the exact same moment the shutter is released. I think the idea that there is no complete truth behind every image we see is part of what photography is, and it’s the creative imagination that needs to conclude a final belief about a certain photograph and the truth or lies it holds.
Bibliography
Stewart, J. (2023) Photographer Admits His Award-Winning Photo Is AI-Generated and Rejects Prize, My Modern Met. Available at: https://mymodernmet.com/ai-photography-boris-eldagsen/ (Accessed: 11 July 2023).
“The Falling Soldier by Robert Capa (1936) Story behind Perhaps the Most Well Known War Photograph Ever”
I have experimented using AI in Photoshop Beta, starting with using one of Will Lukeman’s photos and adding natural scenes to create a supernatural scene.
I began by using Neural Filters to create a basic edit and get the jungle look.
I then used generative fill to add the larger subjects; birds, dinosaur etc.
Original Image
Will Lakeman’s Image – Fort Regent
Process
Final outcome
I created a few more images using AI with the same techniques after my first trail with Lukeman’s photo, but I used my own photos for the rest.
Generative Fill
I used generative fill to extend my imager. I first extended the back layer using the crop tool. I then selected the image and inverted the selection. I then clicked generative fill.
Final outcomes
However, the AI doesn’t always create an image that works. I attempted to get an extension for this image multiple times but it wasn’t able to create one.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer who was seen as the ‘father of journalism’ and candid photography. Taking interest in recording human activity, he photographed the ‘everyday’ moments. Examining his influential publications, The Decisive Moment is seen as one of the most major photobooks of the twentieth century. Robert Capa described it as “a Bible for photographers.”. The book was not originally called The Decisive Moment, but was named Images à la Sauvette (“images on the run”). Little did Bresson know that this would latter become his motto, defining his popular work.
Henri was born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, and built up a great fascination with painting in the style of Surrealism. He discovered the Leica after spending a year in the Ivy Coast in 1932. The Lecia became his most frequently used camera, and influenced him to start his life-long career photography. His first ever exhibition was at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1933. After , in 1940, he was taken as a prisoner of war but managed to escape on his third attempt three years later. He then joined an underground organisation to help prisoners and other escapes. He filmed the documentary Le Retour (The Return) after he photographed Paris’ liberation in 1945.
He travelled in the East for three years, however in 1952 he returned to Europe and published his first book The Decisive Moment. He stated “For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.”
He created the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris with his wife and daughter to preserve his work, which he won multiple awards for. He later passed away in 2004.
