The Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive was founded in 1873 (Société Jersiaise, n.d.) and acts as a service to supply knowledge and artefacts to the Jersey community about Jersey heritage. The archives are of great importance to our understanding of the past, which, in turn, allows us to better frame our view of both the present and the future. Comprised of drawings, documents, paintings, photographs and records, the archives allow us to reach back in time and attribute meaning to our heritage. The images found in the Photographic Archive focus on many areas – there is documentation of wildlife found on our island, the islanders themselves, the geography of the island itself, and of key events that have taken place here. The Société’s mission is to ‘produce and facilitate research on the Island’s history, culture, language and environment; and to share that knowledge with the widest possible audience for the benefit of our island community.’ (Société Jersiaise, n.d.). This attitude of inclusivity is well evidenced in the ways that the Société interacts extensively with the local community; they take part in community outreach schemes, research collections, and their numerous relationships with local partners. The impact of the archive’s extensive work to preserve our past is seen throughout the island’s art scene, as the relationship between art and history grows stronger. The Archisle Contemporary Photography Programme, hosted by the Société Jersiaise, has commissioned artists such as Tom Pope, Martin Parr, and Michelle Sank, to name a few, to create work about Jersey since its inception in 2001 (Archisle, n.d.). Hence, through the careful cultivation and conservation of artefacts donated to the Société, the members can truly contribute the value of heritage to the community. The archives allow us to physically contextualise our history, and to contextualise is to gain knowledge. Knowledge strengthens our ability to understand the world around us and therefore become more conscious.

Photographer Ernest Badoux is an important contributor to the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive and its material. Born in 1828, Badoux worked in Jersey from 1869 from a studio at 11 Craig Street and 51½, 56 and 59 New Street (Jerripedia, 2022). Of his work, 1350 images are available to view online at the Jersey Heritage website and the majority of these are portraits. The sheer volume of these portraits, as well as the fashions worn within them, indicates to us that there was a vast culture of wealth on the island, as only the particularly rich could afford to get their picture taken at the time. Portraits were the artist’s speciality, but he also photographed landscapes, did commissions on clients’ houses, and documented major events of the era. His images of various Jersey scenes are valuable in their representations of how the island once looked, and they help us to understand where things have changed – whether for the better or for the worse. Therefore, the variety of imagery supplied by Badoux to the Jersey Archives gives us a decidedly rich visual resource in a view of Victorian Jersey life and acts as a key example of how the archives can function as repositories of knowledge and experience.

I have chosen to analyse Badoux’s image of ‘view looking across St.Aubin railway station and harbour at low tide, topsail schooner berthed in harbour, The Bulwarks (Le Boulevard) and Noirmont in background.’ (Jersey Heritage, n.d.) taken between 1870 and 1873. I have chosen this image because it shows a part of the railway which no longer exists in Jersey, which demonstrates my point that Badoux’s work can be used to explore the changes in island life and geography. One would be inclined to assume that this image was produced with the chromotyping (or carbon printing) process, as this is how much of his surviving work was produced. Chromotyping is defined by the Collins Dictionary as ‘a procedure in photography that uses photographic paper that is made reactive to light by the use of a salt of chromium’ (Collins Dictionary, n.d.) and this was a rather difficult and laborious process, which made the carbon prints ‘about twice as expensive as platinum and up to five times more costly than silver’ (Jerripedia, 2022). Furthermore, the images are printed with pigments instead of dyes, which makes them last longer than those made by any other process. The image uses natural lighting and appears overexposed in the top left but is balanced elsewhere. The mise-en-scene presents a view of St Aubin from a vantage point, with the railway station as a focal point in the centre of the image. It appears to have been taken with not much thought or intention given to the artistic elements but rather more as a documentary image, which is implied by the composition being regular and deadpan. The piers and railway tracks create sweeping lines through the image, drawing the eye away from the rather wasted space of the grass in the foreground. Overall, this image is important to the question of how archives function as repositories of knowledge because it can be compared to a more recent one to analyse the differences between Victorian and modern Jersey.

In conclusion, the value of photographic archives to someone interested in studying the social, archaeological, or ecological history of a specific area is substantial, and this is clear in the nature of the photographs stored by the Société. They cover a wide range of studies, and their usefulness has been demonstrated throughout the years. Images from the past allow us to learn more about who we are and where we come from, which links smoothly to the action of artistic inspiration. To an artist, archives are valuable because they serve as a valuable tool to aid self-exploration, demonstrated by the work of many photographers and artists who use archival material in their work. Having studied the work and life of Ernest Badoux, I have learned that the archival material I used to do this was essential to my study. It allowed me to view a wide range of his work to a fairly good standard and to learn the methods he used to produce it, and this therefore illuminates that the archives are a key factor in the way we view our island and its history. They are important to both those who were Jersey-born and those who moved here later in life, which illustrates that they build a tapestry of how our island once worked – which we as islanders can use to navigate our way through its future.

Bibliography

Archisle, n.d. Archisle: About us. [Online]
Available at: https://www.archisle.org.je/about-archisle/
[Accessed 2 October 2023].

Collins Dictionary, n.d. Chromotype definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary. [Online]
Available at: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/chromotype
[Accessed 2 October 2023].

Jerripedia, 2022. Ernest Badoux – Jerripedia. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Ernest_Baudoux
[Accessed 2 October 2023].

Jersey Heritage, n.d. Collection Search | Jersey Heritage. [Online]
Available at: https://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/collection-search/?si_elastic_detail=archive_110472499
[Accessed 2 October 2023].

Mason, D., 2023. ARA Excellence Awards 2023 – Archives and Records Association. [Online]
Available at: https://www.archives.org.uk/news/ara-excellence-awards-2023#:~:text=In%202023%20over%201%2C000%20votes,at%20Lothian%20Health%20Services%20Archive
[Accessed 2 October 2023].

Société Jersiaise, n.d. History, Mission & Governance. [Online]
Available at: https://www.societe.je/history-mission/
[Accessed 2 October 2023].

Société Jersiaise, n.d. Société Jersiaise: About. [Online]
Available at: Société Jersiaise
[Accessed 2 October 2023].

We visited the Société Jersiaise, located at the Jersey Museum, to get information on how to access archive material online and through the archives.

Hautlieu students have been visiting the archives for many years for project material, and the school has a firm relationship with the Société. We were able to view some of the material on the history of Elizabeth Castle, including the original plans to build it.

We also visited Capital House to see an exhibition called No Place Like Home, which was a collection of work from multiple artists from both Jersey and the rest of the world on what they viewed as ‘Home’.

A floating sculpture of the Earth was situated in the Queen’s Valley Reservoir by artist Luke Jerram between 14th and 24th of September and this was a part of the exhibition.

The piece was intended to make the viewer feel the same sense of awe that astronauts feel when they view the Earth from space. A soundscape is played at the same time, drawing us to confront the issue of climate change and its effect on our planet.

One artist’s work, Harriet Mena Hill’s Aylesbury Estate fragments, was rather interesting to me. It was made up of fragments of debris from the Aylesbury Estate in South East London, which is being demolished as part of a renovation program. She wanted to focus on the impact of gentrification on communities, and decided to do this with the act of preservation of rendering scenes of her local architecture onto the fragments of concrete.

I felt that this trip was helpful as it helped me to understand how the archives work and how they can be used to add further depth to my projects. I also felt that the exhibition was rather interesting, and as it focuses on the idea of home and its importance to each individual, I think it is pretty relevant to our module on nostalgia.

Chris Marker, French filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor and multi-media artist, is the creator of what some view to be the most radical and influential science-fiction films of all time; La Jétte.

“THIS IS THE STORY of a man marked by an image from his childhood”

The film is composed entirely of still images, but through the careful choice of music, sound, voiceover and selection of images, it is still at once cinematic and illuminating in its style of storytelling.

The tale concerns a man who travels in time after the devastation of WW3 and is forced to confront his memories, the most significant of which is the image of a woman’s face – a memory from his childhood that predates the nuclear apocalypse: “the only peacetime image to survive the war.” It is composed of photographs taken with a Pentax Spotmatic, with a few archival ones wired in: bombed-out buildings and ruined cities to stand in for a post-apocalyptic Paris.

Watch the full version (29 mins) of the film here.

Early History

• The Islet on which the castle now lies has its own history, with it being the place where Helier (the Christian anchorite from whom St Helier gets its namesake) lived in solitude for 15 years in a niche in a rock on the south-east of the island before he was named a patron saint. The Hermitage that can now be found there was erected at a much later date, probably in the 12th Century, as Helier’s chosen habitation was in reality nothing more than a rock.

• The site was later that of the Abbey of St Helier, named after the hermit. This was annexed in 1179 to that of St Mary of the Vow, near Cherbourg and was accordingly reduced to the status of a priory.
• This was later the scene of a historic event – in the 14th Century, the Magna Carta (issued in June 1215 by King John) was thus far being ignored by the officials sent by the English monarchy. They were not in fact concerned with the fulfilment of justice but rather more so with using the most frivolous instances to claim heavy fines so as to line their own pockets.
• At last the islanders decided that they would come together on the islet in 1331 and swear to defend their ancient rights before the High Altar of the Priory Church, if need be at the cost of their lives. This was dangerous as, by going against the King’s orders, they could be accused of rebellion or even of high treason. 500 of the Island’s chief men appeared before the King’s Justices in Guernsey to plead their cause, and gained 17 special rights. They were arrested but later acquitted by the jury. The officials were not happy with this and so ordered their arrest once again, but we do not know what happened after this. In 1341 Edward III confirmed by Charter the cherished rights and privileges which they had claimed. 

• The castle was decided to be built in 1550.
• It was named after Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 by her favourite in the court, Sir Walter Raleigh. He did this to earn further praise and adoration from the queen after having fallen out of her favour towards the end of her reign (on account of him having married one of her ladies-in-waiting without the Queen’s permission or blessing). He had escaped the threat of his opponents in court to govern Jersey in 1600.

What is a zine?

A zine is a small self-publication containing a mix of text, images and creative elements. They are usually the tool of photographers or artists who want to distribute their work through the medium of visual storytelling and put across their exact intentions in terms of how they want their work to be viewed.

Here are some of the popular zines of 2021, as curated by Adobe.

Evaluation

I am happy with the way my zine has come out and I like the fact that the layout is thoughtful. I think the text certainly adds something to the presentation and I think my selection of typography and imagery was successful. If I could do something differently perhaps I would not include the colour page and keep it all black and white, as it may have been a bit more cohesive.

I have chosen to use these images in my zine;

Textual elements

I have chosen to add some textual elements in the form of a few small blocks of text that describe my experiences in the moment which I took them. I also titled the zine with the French title ‘Souvenirs de Saint-Malo‘, translating to ‘memories of Saint-Malo’. I chose this because I think it reflects the main objective of the piece, which is to convey the concept of nostalgia through imagery and text. The typography settings I have chosen throughout (for everything except the cover) are shown below.

I chose these settings because I found they created the right kind of effect and that they fitted best with the nostalgic concept I wanted.

I am going to create a zine made up of my images from St Malo and AI pictures from the same source. A zine is like a magazine, only smaller and more focused. It is defined as a ‘self-published unique work of minority interest‘.

Narrative is the telling of a story. It is adaptable and perspective dependent, and therefore is a subjective process. Narrative is constructed when relationships between images (and/or text) are established, and the layout of these is key to the receiver’s understanding of the narrative.

What is my story?

In order to create my own zine I will need to come up with a story I wish to tell with my images. I think my images speak to a certain type of nostalgia. This was my objective and I think that in their cinematic nature (framing, editing, lighting) they have embodied this. Therefore I feel that I would most like to tell a story that is more subjective and reliant on the receiver’s interpretations, as this is the best way to ignite nostalgia as an abstract emotion. It relies on the receiver’s memories and the individual emotions attached to them. Below are some images I feel are the most nostalgic.

Narrative – How will I tell my story?

I plan to use the layout of the zine to display the images in as thoughtful an order as possible. I would like to arrange them in a series of groups; beach, street views, deadpan frames, colour – but this may be difficult as the orientation of these images differs.

I may also use text to aid description of sensual elements, as the senses are often key to nostalgic recollection.

Photography is often a – if not the – central element of newspaper pieces or magazine spreads, and this illustrates that pictures are used to tell stories and alleviate the need for every piece of text to be consumed.

Below is my final spread.