‘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’

An archive is a collection of historical records or materials which contain primary source documentation, such as photographs- reports – memos etc, of certain events. These sources have been collected over the course of an organization’s lifetime, and are usually kept in order for the public to gather or view said information first hand. A popular archive in Jersey is the société Jersiaise which was founded in January 1873 by a small number of prominent Islanders who were interested in the study of the history, language and antiquities of Jersey. Membership of the société grew quickly and the aims of the new society soon widened to include multiple new aspects such as; the publication of historical documents, the founding of a Museum and the study of the Island’s natural history. The museum became permanent in 1893 when it moved to 9 Pier Road, which was a large early nineteenth century merchant’s house. The Museum and collections are now looked after by Jersey Heritage but are continued to be added to annually. The current aim of the Société is to produce and discover research on the Island’s history, culture, language and environment, as well as to share that knowledge with the community. They achieve this through their active sections, research collections, community outreach and collaboration with local and international heritage partners. 

Albert Smith

The photographer I chose to focus on is Albert Smith. He was born on the 12th of August, 1856 in Hornsey to his parents, Henry Smith and Mary Rawlings. He was a stockbroker in Weybridge, Surrey until the early 1880s where had his first child, with his wife Josephine Elizabeth Coutts, in Weybridge before the family moved north to Scotland. They had two more children who were born in Waterloo, and this is where Albert took up photography.  He would later start business in Jersey in 1892 and by the time of his Sixth child he and his family had already moved to St. Helier with Albert purchasing a photography studio.  

Smith used the collodion wet plate process in order to produce his images, leading to thousands said images surviving the test of time. These images can also be viewed in the archive of Société Jersiaise. This an example of how useful archives can be in preserving knowledge as not only do we get to learn more about the past through said images, (since they would have captured key aspects of the past like clothing, locations, lifestyle, etc.) as well as gaining more knowledge about the processes behind the pictures. We are also able to learn a bit about Albert though his photos, for example we can tell that he takes a variety of pictures, from portraits to landscapes, leading us to believe that he enjoyed many aspects of photography and didn’t want to stick to one main part of it.  

Analysis of photo

The photo above was taken by photographer Emile F. Guiton. In the picture we are able to see a well-dressed woman in what appears to be a style from the 1800’s. The image creates a contrast between the woman and the background due to the light, pastel colours of her attire in comparison to the more bleak/ dull appearance of the scenery behind her. This helps to keep our attention on the woman making her the main focus of the image even if she isn’t directly in the centre. Since she is what we focus on we are able to focus more on the finer details about her, such as her body language. The way shes standing, in my opinion, makes her seem dejected as her arms are hanging somewhat loosely at her side, while she looks off into the distance with a sullen expression on her face.  

Photos like the one above provides quite a bit of insight into the past. Going back to her attire, we can infer quite a bit from the woman such as she could be well off since the style is one that was often worn by the upper middle class. We are also able to link the image to fact that we know about the past, for example maybe a reason she seems upset is due to her being forced into something since we know patriarchy was quite strong during this time.  The main point is that having sources like this which we can access means that we are able to learn more about the past suggesting that archives are a good repository of knowledge.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, archives are a repository of knowledge as they hold an abundance of information and resources which are used to look into the past. Looking into the past is important as we can learn about key events which is important in order to better the future, if we don’t reflect or learn about the past we won’t be able to avoid making the same mistakes. It is also a good way of improving skills or methods of doing things, for example with photography we can look back at old photographs and see what made them eye catching and then replicate that in our own photos. Additionally, archives are a great way to research about the past since they hold many primary sources which you wouldn’t be able to find normally, such as old photos, notes, diary’s etc.  

Script

“Saint Helier was born to pagan parents in Tongeren, Belgium in the early 6^th century. His parent’s inability to conceive caused them to seek help from a Christian teacher, Saint Cunibert, who advised them to pray to God. However, his came with one condition- the child would have to be handed over to God, and Saint Cunibert would be the one to bring him up as a Christian. The couple were blessed with a son and were forced to act upon their promise.”  

“After years of Saint Cunibert’s influence on his son, Helier’s father grew angry and had the teacher killed. This caused Helier to flee, and the young traveller ended up in Normandy, where he found shelter in a monastic community. Helier was baptised by Saint Marculf, who sent him as a missionary to Agna, which we now know as Jersey. The island was recorded as having only 30 inhabitants at the time, due to the repeated attacks by Vikings. Helier, along with a companion Saint Romard was sent to guide the helpless people.” 

“After their arrival, Helier settled on a tidal islet, nowadays known as the Hermitage Rock, next to the island now occupied by Elizabeth Castle. Having a better view of the surrounding ocean, Helier could easily spot the approaching attackers and signal to the shore, allowing the inhabitants to scatter and avoid the attackers’ bloodlust.” 

“However, this all came to an abrupt stop on one stormy night in the year 555. Night was falling, the storm made the sea dark, and Helier did not spot an incoming pirate ship. The tyrants reached the small islet where the hermit lived and beheaded the frail man with an axe, after he refused to renounce his religion.” 

“Legend says that Helier picked up his head and walked to the shore of Jersey, declaring pirates were attacking, before falling down: dead. His body was placed in a small boat by Saint Romard, which is said to have reached the beaches of Normandy where he was later buried. He was a declared a saint due to his sacrifice for the people of Jersey.” 

“During his life in Jersey, it was recorded that Saint Helier performed one healing miracle, curing a man named Anquetil. However, the man was mostly known for bringing Christianity and hope to the island, for which the inhabitants were extremely grateful for.” 

“Nowadays, the saint’s memory is preserved in the Hermitage, a small 12th-century oratory, which can be visited by walking down the breakwater connecting the castle and the hermit’s old residence. A part of the original islet has been kept inside of the Hermitage, where a shallow nook in the rock served the hermit as a home.”

Why?

The script will be read by Gail O’Malley as we decided that it would be more effective to have mature voice. The script will be split up into seven parts and then edited together with some instrumental music playing in the background to create the type of atmosphere we want for that specific part of the film.

When editing the stills (which we weren’t sure if we were going to include or not) I made sure to edit them with standardisation and keep them similar in appearance. This was difficult when images differed in tone because of the balance of light or were darker because of cloud, but I tried to ensure that they all had the same feel despite the differences in light/colour in the original images. As a more general overview of changes made, I increased saturation and vibrancy to make the images a little less grey, whilst also bringing the contrast and sometimes the highlights down. I then adjusted exposure as necessary. I think I have achieved what I wanted to an extent, but the general greyness and lack of light in the original images made it hard to create images I was truly happy with. In terms of creating images that match the style of Wes Anderson’s work – which is characterised by bold colour palettes, wide lens shots and symmetrical framing – I think I have only truly achieved this on a few occasions, which I will show below.

-We decided to have a narrator to read our version of St. Helier’s life story, with links to Elizabeth Castle. We chose Gail O’Malley as the reader to have a more mature voice and we thought it would sound most effective. We will record the narration in seven parts, making it simpler to re-record mistakes as we wouldn’t have to re-do the entire narration. The audio will play over the entire duration of the film, with short pauses in between each paragraph.

Script

“Saint Helier was born to pagan parents in Tongeren, Belgium in the early 6^th century. His parent’s inability to conceive caused them to seek help from a Christian teacher, Saint Cunibert, who advised them to pray to God. However, his came with one condition- the child would have to be handed over to God, and Saint Cunibert would be the one to bring him up as a Christian. The couple were blessed with a son and were forced to act upon their promise.”  

“After years of Saint Cunibert’s influence on his son, Helier’s father grew angry and had the teacher killed. This caused Helier to flee, and the young traveller ended up in Normandy, where he found shelter in a monastic community. Helier was baptised by Saint Marculf, who sent him as a missionary to Agna, which we now know as Jersey. The island was recorded as having only 30 inhabitants at the time, due to the repeated attacks by Vikings. Helier, along with a companion Saint Romard was sent to guide the helpless people.” 

“After their arrival, Helier settled on a tidal islet, nowadays known as the Hermitage Rock, next to the island now occupied by Elizabeth Castle. Having a better view of the surrounding ocean, Helier could easily spot the approaching attackers and signal to the shore, allowing the inhabitants to scatter and avoid the attackers’ bloodlust.” 

“However, this all came to an abrupt stop on one stormy night in the year 555. Night was falling, the storm made the sea dark, and Helier did not spot an incoming pirate ship. The tyrants reached the small islet where the hermit lived and beheaded the frail man with an axe, after he refused to renounce his religion.” 

“Legend says that Helier picked up his head and walked to the shore of Jersey, declaring pirates were attacking, before falling down: dead. His body was placed in a small boat by Saint Romard, which is said to have reached the beaches of Normandy where he was later buried. He was a declared a saint due to his sacrifice for the people of Jersey.” 

“During his life in Jersey, it was recorded that Saint Helier performed one healing miracle, curing a man named Anquetil. However, the man was mostly known for bringing Christianity and hope to the island, for which the inhabitants were extremely grateful for.” 

“Nowadays, the saint’s memory is preserved in the Hermitage, a small 12th-century oratory, which can be visited by walking down the breakwater connecting the castle and the hermit’s old residence. A part of the original islet has been kept inside of the Hermitage, where a shallow nook in the rock served the hermit as a home.” 

-Read by Gail O’Malley

How are Archives a repository of knowledge?

What are Archives:

“Archives” is traditionally a name for a room that stores and documents information about something or several things. This can be for history or general information etc.. Archives have been used throughout human history and they have been very helpful among historians who are studying a specific era in human history. These days, while archives still remain in use, digital archives are now very well used and are much easier and quicker to access, digital ones contain images, documents and many more things that you wouldn’t be allowed to even touch in a physical archive. Despite the rise in technology and the internet, physical archives have seemed to push through as it has done so for many centuries as one of Man’s most reliable resources for information.

Archives in Jersey:

There are a few Archives here in jersey too. Such as The Société Jersiaise and the Jersey Archive. In The Société Jersiaise, you will find a lot of work from the well known photographer, Henry Mullins. His work consisted of many portraits of Jersey during the 1800s. His work helped him be recognised as the person who played an important role in the early development in Jersey’s photography. In the Jersey Archive, it stores information on Claude Cahun, another well known photographer that is linked to jersey. In the Jersey Archive you can find her work, or what is left of it after the Germans destroyed most of it during WW2. Her work covers alot on sexuality and gender identity, quite interesting especially since it’s from the 30s to 40s. Appealing to anyone who wants to study the history of gender identity and sexuality.

Conclusion:

To conclude, archives are a great way to tap into the history of a certain event or era. It is a very reliable source as it will tell you the truth on something and nothing but the truth, it wont be altered by other people’s stories that you would hear online. Using an archive to gather information is a more authentic way of learning from the past as you will likely be in a different atmosphere and have different surroundings from that era, like in The Societe Jersaise where you are inside a real building that was built from that time.

Lightroom:

To edit all of our photos, we used Lightroom where we could enhance all of the features to create a mood within each image. We edited our images and decided that they would be more fitting to our short film in black and white. We also used Lightroom to resize the images for adobe premiere.

Adobe Premiere:

Premiere Pro is designed for a video editor’s post-production workflow. It’s equipped with a suite of powerful editing tools for content creators and filmmakers to organize and edit video files as well as to enhance and fine-tune audio and image quality.

Due to out short film only being still images, I started by importing all of the final edits into Adobe Premiere Pro. II created sub folders for my images so it would be easier to find my images.

When importing all of the images into Adobe Premiere, each image was zoomed in, therefore we had to scale every image to the right size. we could also use the scale to crop out part of the image we do not want in the short film.

I created transitions between each image to allow all the photos to flow together. I did this by adding key frames. I opened up the top bar and on each image a would add four key frames. The first two would be on a inclining angle where as the last two would be on a declining angle, this creates a fade between each frame.

Adobe Audition:

On Adobe Audition we played around with sounds and started creating the audio for our short film.

During the lesson where we were being taught how to use adobe audition, we learnt how to cancel out background noise and add in sound effects. the audio was collected from our visit to Elizabeth castle. My aim is to enhance the audio to make it clear while ensuring it fits in with the Nazi Occupation theme.

Using the ‘multitrack’ feature I began to layer different sounds including ambiances and SFX to create a suitable audio file for the short film.

Using the sound bar I was able to adjust the volume of the clip allowing the sound to slowly get louder or quieter and could be faded in/out. This meant that there were no harsh transitions between sounds.

Once i was happy with the audio I had created I needed to import it for the film but first had to comprise all the sounds into one. I did this by going FILE>EXPORT>MULTITRACK MIXDOWN>ENTIRE SESSION and then save it as a file ready to export it onto the film.

Our short film will be a visual display of Elizabeth castle, showing images from current time and archived pictures. The audio will represent the war times and create the atmosphere of when the castle was used for battle.

About

The Société Jersiaise was founded in January 1873 by a small number of prominent Islanders who were interested in the study of the history, language and antiquities of Jersey. Membership grew quickly and the aims of the new society soon widened to include multiple new aspects such as; the publication of historical documents, the founding of a Museum and the study of the Island’s natural history.

The museum became permanent in 1893 when it moved to 9 Pier Road, which was a large early nineteenth century merchant’s house. The Museum and collections are now looked after by Jersey Heritage but are continued to be added to annually.

The current aim of the Société is to produce and discover research on the Island’s history, culture, language and environment, as well as to share that knowledge with the community. They achieve this through their active sections, research collections, community outreach and collaboration with local and international heritage partners.

Images from the Société

We recorded a mix of photos and videos of Elizabeth castle and the Hermitage.

We searched through the Jersey Archives Catalogue to find an appropriate poem/ letter from the Second World War to feature in our film. Originally, we weren’t going to use any archival material because we wanted to base our film off factual history, however we decided that we wanted to make a cinematic film. We thought including information about the war form a letter would be a more creative and cinematic way of showing how Elizabeth castle was involved in the war.

We chose 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.