Camera obscura and pinhole photography

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture (the pinhole). Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box, which is known as the camera obscura effect. The size of the images depends on the distance between the object and the pinhole.

A camera obscura is a dark room with a small hole in one wall. When it’s bright outside, light enters through the hole and projects an upside down image of the outside world onto the wall opposite the hole. This was before 1839 (which is when photography was thought to be invented). Its appears upside down as light travels in straight lines.

A simple camera obscura can be made with a box that contains an opening on one side where light can pass through. When light passes through the opening, an image is then reproduced upside down on an opposite surface.

Nicephore Niepce and Heliography 

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was a French inventor and one of the earliest pioneers of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world’s oldest surviving products of a photographic process. In 1826, Niépce used his heliography process to capture the first photograph, but his pioneering work was soon to be overshadowed by the invention of the daguerreotype.

Heliography is an early photographic process producing a photoengraving on a metal plate coated with an asphalt preparation. Nicéphore Niépce began experiments with the aim of achieving a photo-etched printmaking technique in 1811. To make the heliograph, Niépce dissolved light-sensitive bitumen in oil of lavender and applied a thin coating over a polished pewter plate. He inserted the plate into a camera obscura and positioned it near a window in his second-story workroom.

By 1822 he had made the first light-resistant heliographic copy of an engraving, made without a lens by placing the print in contact with the light-sensitive plate. In 1826 he increasingly used pewter plates because their reflective surface made the image more clearly visible.

Louis Daguerre and Daguerreotype 

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French artist and photographer, recognised for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography. The daguerreotype process made it possible to capture the image seen inside a camera obscura and preserve it as an object. It was the first practical photographic process and ushered in a new age of pictorial possibility.

After Niépce’s death, Daguerre alone kept on researching how to take images and invented the daguerreotype, a photographic process which was easier to put into practice, since exposure times were only of a few minutes. The daguerreotype knew a huge success and made Daguerre world famous.

The Boulevard du Temple photograph of 1838 is an image of a Parisian streetscape and one of the earliest surviving daguerreotype plates produced by Louis Daguerre. Although the image seems to be of a deserted street, it is widely considered to be the first photograph to include an image of a human.

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. 

To make the image, a daguerreotypist polished a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish; treated it with fumes that made its surface light-sensitive; exposed it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; made the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; removed its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment; rinsed and dried it; and then sealed the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure. This process produced positives (which means it’s a one off and copies can’t be created).

Henry Fox Talbot  and Calotype

William Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries. In 1834 he discovered how to make and fix images through the action of light and chemistry on paper. These ‘negatives’ could be used to make multiple prints and this process revolutionised image making.

Calotype is an early photographic process introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. Paper texture effects in calotype photography limit the ability of this early process to record low contrast details and textures.

The original negative and positive process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot, the calotype is sometimes called a “Talbotype.” This process uses a paper negative to make a print with a softer, less sharp image than the daguerreotype, but because a negative is produced, it is possible to make multiple copies. The image is contained in the fabric of the paper rather than on the surface, so the paper fibers tend to show through on the prints. The process was superceded in the 1850s by the collodion glass negative. Because of Talbot’s patent rights, relatively few calotypes were made in the United States.

In this technique, a sheet of paper coated with silver chloride was exposed to light in a camera obscura; those areas hit by light became dark in tone, yielding a negative image.

Similarities between daguerreotype and calotype:

1. -Both black and white
2. -Both have links to romanticism (ie capturing loved ones in a photograph)
3. -Both involve photographs being fixed onto a surface (eg metal or salt paper)
4. -Both were invented in 1839 (they came out at similar times due to competition

Differences:

1. -One is produced on salt paper whereas the other is on metal 
2. -The calotype process first produced a photographic ‘negative’ in the camera, from which many ‘positive’ calotype prints could be made, whereas daguerreotypes were a one-off image.

Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture

Robert Cornelius was an American photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. His daguerreotype self-portrait taken in 1839 is generally accepted as the first known photographic portrait of a person taken in the United States, and a very important achievement for self-portraiture. He operated some of the earliest photography studios in the United States between 1840 and 1842 and implemented innovative techniques to significantly reduce the exposure time required for portraits.

Robert Cornelius figured out how to take the first ever selfie by setting up a camera on legs, removing the lens cap, and running into the frame before quickly clamping the lens cap back on. By doing so, he captured a self-portrait of himself, which is considered the first ever selfie.

Julia Margaret Cameron & Pictorialism

Julia Margaret Cameron was 48 when she received her first camera, a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. When Cameron took up photography, it involved hard physical work using potentially hazardous materials. The wooden camera was large and cumbersome. She used the most common process at the time, producing albumen prints from wet collodion glass negatives. The process required a glass plate to be coated with photosensitive chemicals in a darkroom and exposed in the camera when still damp. The glass negative was then returned to the darkroom to be developed, washed and varnished. Prints were made by placing the negative directly on to sensitised photographic paper and exposing it to sunlight. Each step of the process offered room for mistakes: the fragile glass plate had to be perfectly clean to start with and kept free from dust throughout; it needed to be evenly coated and submerged at various stages; the chemical solutions had to be correctly and freshly prepared.

Within a month of receiving her camera, she made the photograph that she called her ‘first success’, a portrait of Annie Philpot, the daughter of a family staying in the Isle of Wight where Cameron lived. 

From her ‘first success’ she moved on quickly to photographing family and friends. These early portraits reveal how she experimented with soft focus, dramatic lighting and close-up compositions, features that would become her signature style. However, she was criticised against because she included imperfections in her photographs – eg streaks, swirls and even fingerprints – that other photographers would have rejected as technical flaws.

Pictorialism is an approach to photography that emphasises beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.

Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visite 

Henry Mullins was the most prolific of the first generation of Jersey photographers in the mid-nineteenth century. He produced thousands of portraits of islanders between 1848 and 1873 at his highly successful studio in the prime location of the Royal Square, St Helier. As a commercial photographer he consistently embraced the rapid technical progress that ran in parallel with his career. While numerous photographic studios opened across the town of St Helier in the 1850s and 1860s, Henry Mullins continued to be the photographer of choice for leading members of Jersey society and successful local and immigrant families. 

A carte de visite is a photograph mounted on a piece of card the size of a formal visiting card. The format was patented by the French photographer Andre Adolphe Eugene Disdéri in 1854. Most professional portrait photographers of the 1850s took either daguerreotypes or collodion positives.

Saint Helier Harbour is the main harbour on the Channel Island of Jersey. It is on the south coast of the island, occupying most of the coast of the main town of St Helier. It is operated by Ports of Jersey, a company wholly owned by the Government of Jersey.

Before 1700 St Helier had no decent harbour although a map of 1545 does show two stone piers in the area under Le Mont de la Ville, near where South Pier is today. The modern harbour dates back to the construction of the stone fronted quay at La Folie in the early 1700s.

Etymology: Saint Helier Harbour is named after Helier, a 6th-century ascetic hermit from Belgium. The traditional date of his martyrdom is AD 555. His feast day, marked by an annual municipal and ecumenical pilgrimage to the Hermitage, is on 16 July.

History: The harbour was constructed in the early 19th century. Previously, ships coming into the town had only a small jetty at the site now called the English Harbour and the French Harbour. The Chamber of Commerce urged the States Assembly to build a new harbour, but they refused, so the Chamber took it into their own hands and paid to upgrade the harbour in 1790. A new breakwater was constructed to shelter the jetty and harbours. In 1814, the merchants constructed the roads now known as Commercial Buildings and Le Quai des Marchands to connect the harbours to the town and in 1832 construction was finished on the Esplanade and its sea wall. A rapid expansion in shipping led the States of Jersey in 1837 to order the construction of two new piers: the Victoria and Albert Piers.

The Old harbour: English Harbour and French Harbour have berths for over 500 motorboats and sailing yachts which dry out on the mud at low tide.

Main harbour: The main harbour provides deep water berths for commercial vessels alongside the Victoria Quay and New North Quay. On Victoria Quay you will find fish wholesalers such as, Fresh Fish Company and Aquamar Fisheries. Albert Pier has now been re-developed from a ferry terminal to new berths for large vessels and yachts.

Elizabeth harbour: The Elizabeth Harbour consists of a ferry terminal, two roll-on/roll-off ferry berths and a trailer park for shipping containers. These are used by high-speed craft to Poole, Guernsey and Saint-Malo, traditional ferries to Saint-Malo, Guernsey and Portsmouth and foot passenger ferries to Granville, Barneville-Carteret and Sark.

Marinas: There are three marinas — the La Collette Yacht Basin, the Saint Helier Marina (built in 1980) and the Elizabeth Marina. The La Collette Yacht Basin is the only one of these to provide non-tidal, 24-hour access to the sea and is home to Jersey’s commercial fishing fleet.

What was the involvement of Jersey mariners in the Canadian cod-fisheries and the Transatlantic carrying trade?

More than 400 years ago, the first Islanders crossed the Atlantic ocean in search of pastures new (a new place/ activity that offers new opportunities). They went over in order to raid the cod-rich seas of the American and Canadian coast, which would then be sold later. (Merchants).

Its unclear when the first Europeans reached Canada, but it is thought to be Italian explorer John Cabot’s descriptions of ‘new found landes’ and a sea swarming with fish in 1497 that drew fishermen to the north of the continent. Around 1600, English fishing captains still reported cod shoals.

By the beginning of the 16th-century Basque fishermen were travelling to the region to fish and, by 1580, around 10,000 European fishermen were making the transatlantic voyage to the area each year to fish for cod. Channel Island fishermen were among these and by the 1750s they had set up lucrative trade routes between Canada, Europe and America, establishing bases on the Gaspé Coast where they could salt and prepare the cod. One of the biggest companies on the Gaspé coast was operated by Charles Robin, a Jersey merchant, who set up a fishing post at Paspebiac in 1767 after Canada passed to the English.

Which ports did Jersey ships sail to and trade with?

Jersey ships sailed to the Gaspé Coast in which they then salted and prepared the cod they had caught. The nearer the fishermen were to the coast, the harder it was to catch the cod, but Channel Islanders experience with coastal fishing made use of their skills. Some other ports they sailed to was on the Newfoundland and South America.

What type of goods did Jersey merchants exchange for cod-fish?

Cod from Canada produced by Jersey merchants was consumed by enslaved people. Jersey cod-merchants also exported cod-fish to British colonies in the West Indies and later Brazil too in exchange for plantation goods, such as sugar, molasses, rum, cotton, coffee and tobacco which it brought to markets in America, Europe and the UK (inc. Jersey). Within that context Jersey benefitted from the profits made in the British Empire build on a capitalist model of a slave-based economy.

To what extent, has the island of Jersey benefitted from its constitutional relationship with Britain and the legacies of colonialism based on a slave plantation economy during the first Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)?

Jersey was not a bystander in the transatlantic slave trade – but played an “active” and even “pioneering” role in it

Jersey had grown prosperous through its strong connections to the United Kingdom. People generated wealth from trading enslaved people. For example, the founder of New Jersey, Sir George Carteret. Some of the most common Jersey structures to end up involved with the salve trade were boats eg Speedwell, commandeered by Sir George Carteret’s son, James Carteret.

Jersey’s links with the slave trade “chiefly” stem from the mahogany industry. Mahogany was harvested using enslaved people. Many Jersey merchants either owned or traded in mahogany and some Jersey families even had mahogany plantations in British Honduras.

In order to create my picture story, I used InDesign. We first created a page on it using certain dimensions so that we had four columns doing down it and a boarder. To do this, I first selected an A4 sized paper and made it landscape (width= 410mm, height= 297mm) then made 4 columns with a column gutter of 5mm. My margins were 10mm and I had a bleed of 3mm.

Next, I created a box in which I would add my image into. I did this by using the rectangle frame tool. Next, I pressed ctrl d which then opened up to my photos I had taken in France. I decided that I wanted to create a picture story focusing on the architecture of St Malo. I ensured that all of my images were black and white beforehand so there was consistency in my work. If my image wasn’t lined up correctly, I right clicked on the circle in the box and selected fitting then fit frame proportionally. I repeated this step of adding boxes and images to them until I had the desired amount. Next, I added writing into the empty spaces on the page. This writing included the history of St Malo and other facts. Finally, I added a title ‘behind the wall of St Malo’.

Once I had created my basic outline of my picture story, I then added details into it to make it more pleasing to look at. Firstly, I added a dark grey boarder around all of my images in order to create a contrast between the background and the images.

Next, I decided that I wanted to add a background to my picture story that would consist of another image I had taken in the photoshoot. I first copied the original picture story beforehand so I could experiment with it more than once. When I first added this image to the background, it was quite dark and made the picture story look very crowded and made it difficult to read the words on the page. In order to fix this, I lowered the opacity of the background of the image. This made it lighter and enabled you to establish the difference between the background and the pictures.

Finally, I added an outer glow to my title in order to make it more prominent.

Next, I decided to create the French flag on the background of the picture story. I did this by adding shapes onto my page and adding colour to them. I also experimented with adding circles instead of just rectangles. Then adding circles within circles. A problem I occurred whilst doing this was that there was overlay of the shapes from one page to another. In order to fix this problem, I had to adjust the level the shapes were on and create white boxes to hide some.

Final outcomes

These are my final outcomes for the picture stories. Overall, I like how these came out as I think I managed to successfully experiment with InDesign and create unique, interesting picture stories. However, one improvement I would make to this is by creating a picture story with other images eg with people as mine only consisted of the same images of buildings. I would also have liked to experiment with using colours in my photographs instead of making them all black and white.

An outdoor photography exhibition showcasing photos of Rohingya was placed across seven locations in Jersey as part of a European premiere.

The Rohingya Experience, is a photographic exhibition offering an intimate view into the lives and experiences of the Rohingya refugee community in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Curated by David Palazón and Sahat Zia Hero, the exhibition launched at the Jersey Arts Centre and was displayed in St Helier between 1–14 July 2024. i love the way every image has a different meaning to it.

Hope and dreams: The Rohingya artist’s daughter yearning to look like a princess

Onaysa Khan was only 3 months old when her father, the Rohingya artist Enayet Khan, took her picture. Her name in Arabic means ‘Good Friend’, the one who brings peace and calmness to the heart.

Decades of displacement: The harrowing life story of Rohingya refugee Muhammad Jalil

Muhammad Jalil was 102 years old when this photo was taken. Born in 1920 in Thaming Chaong, Rathedaung, he was one of the oldest Rohingya living in the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. He had been an eye-witness to many historical events in Arakan like the Japanese-British war before Burmese independence. Jalil first became a refugee in 1978, when the Tatmadaw —the Myanmar armed forces—conducted an operation called Naga Min (Dragon King) targeting the Rohingya through the confiscation of possessions, destruction of villages and desecration of mosques. The second time Jalil became a refugee was in 1991, when operation Phi Thaya (Clean and Beautiful Nation) was launched by the Tatmadaw resulted in killings, rape, arbitrary arrests and the burning of Rohingya villages. 250,000 Rohingya were forced to flee Bangladesh. Since then, Jalil lived in the refugee camp under crowded conditions, without freedom of movement or the most basic human rights, deprived of access to a healthy environment and to the nature he loved. He had lived with the only hope to go back to Myanmar before he died.

Guided by the light of her ancestors: The story of Umme Habiba

Umme Habiba, born in Myanmar to a family of three, cherishes a memory from her father, a Rohingya fisherman. His prized possession was a serak (kerosene lamp) inherited from his grandfather. Amid the 2017 conflict and ensuing brutality, Umme Habiba’s family fled Buthidaung township for Bangladesh. Her father, realising he’d left the lamp behind, was distraught, as it held immense sentimental value.

Like a sunset: Rohingya youth hopes for a beautiful ending to the hardship of their community

Amidst life’s difficulties in the refugee camp, this scene of beauty of a sunset over the camp reminds the photographer, Ro Mon Sur Ali, that even in our toughest moments, there’s a radiant end to each day. It inspires him the hope that a Rohingya future, too, may be as beautiful as this golden hour of the day.

25th August: The legacy of Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day

View of the gathering that took place on August 25, 2019 to commemorate Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day. This annual event honours and mourns the victims of the genocide against the Rohingya people, the ethnic minority group that has faced widespread persecution and violence in Myanmar for decades. The event was led by Mohib Ullah, an outspoken Rohingya leader and a brave and fierce advocate for the human rights of Rohingya Muslims around the world. Sadly he was assassinated by gunmen on 21st September 2021.

Threads of hope: A Rohingya girl’s embroidered journey

A teenage Rohingya girl finds solace in the art of embroidery, meticulously stitching her creation within the confines of her shelter. Though displaced, she carries on a long-standing crafting tradition among Rohingya women and girls.

Unbroken circle: Henna hands capture women’s unity in the Rohingya community

In the heart of the Rohingya Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, a circle of young girls join hands in a collective practice that transcends mere physical connection. Their shared effort is a mingling of spirits, each contributing to a tapestry of uniqueness. To the discerning eye, the extraordinary can be found in the seemingly mundane.

Devoted son, daunting terrain: A Rohingya man’s courageous care for his mother

A Rohingya man carries his elderly mother up steep, rugged terrain to reach the nearest hospital in their overcrowded camp. The camps are not designed with accessibility in mind, making it extremely difficult for the disabled and elderly to navigate the hilly paths and countless stairs.

Photo story means presenting a story or essay primarily through images. Many photo stories have written elements that help narrate the story. And, individual images may even have captions that give more in-depth information or context to that photo. It is important to ensure that all of the photographs link to the story and remove any anomalies that don’t fit into the story your trying to convey.

Establishing shot: Establishing shots are typically wide or extreme wide shots of buildings or landscapes. These shots might include signage, landmarks, or other obvious signals of place and time. This type of photo gives the audience viewing the story context. An establishing shot is the first shot in a scene that provides an overview of the setting. It is often shot from above as an aerial shot, offering a view from a distance that helps the audience orient themselves to and identify the time and/or location in which the scene is occurring.

Person at work: This next type of shot involves an image being captured of someone in their own work environment. Typically in these images, the person seen in the photograph is completing a task/ activity which relates to their job. The background of the image holds high importance in the viewer being able to understand the context of the image. The objects/ things seen around them can provide as clues in order to figure out what profession the person in the image has.

Relationship shot: A relationship shot captures a connection between people whether that be platonic or romantic. Eg family, friends, couples.

Detail shot: Detail shots often tell the story of the situation by focusing on a relatively small portion of it. Details shots also can be images that, through compositional techniques, draw attention to a specific detail of a subject that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Environmental portrait: 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.

These are some examples of picture stories. Each one has unique details added to it in order to make it different from one another eg different backgrounds, colours, text fonts, layouts etc.

What is a Picture story?

A picture story is an intentional use of pictures and words put together to form a meaningful story. Picture stories are often found within Photobooks. There are multiple different types of shots which can be put together to create a picture story, here are some examples:

• Person at Work – A person at work shot should show WHO the person is, WHAT they are doing, HOW they are doing it, and the CONTEXT of the situation.

For example in this photo you can see part of the subjects face, what they are doing and how they are doing it, as well as the context of the situation, (being in some sort of mechanic working environment.)

• Relationship Shot – a relationship shot is a type of shot which shows the relationship between multiple people. It should show who the people are and what role they present.

In this photo you can see who the people are, and that they have some kind of relationship between the two of them, for example they could be siblings.

• Establishing Shot – An establishing shot is one which shows what the topic of the picture story is. It may be a photo of where the place is for example St Helier.

This is an establishing shot as it shows that the location is New York, this is shown by the statue of liberte.

• Detail shot – Detail shots often tell the story of the situation by focusing on a relatively small portion of it. Details shots also can be images that, through compositional techniques, draw attention to a specific detail of a subject that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

In this detail shot it shows that there is a musical performance going on and a guitar is being used.

• Environmental Portrait – 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.

For example in this photo the man is working at a food place possibly a van, this is an environmental portrait as it is a usual environment for him to be in.

• Formal Portrait –  A formal portrait is not a snapshot but a carefully arranged pose under effective lighting conditions.

This is an example of a formal portrait as the subject has been arranged in the centre of the photo and the lighting is effective and there is little detail in the background that guides the viewers attention away from the subject.

• Observed Portrait – An observed portrait is taken when the subject is doing something and they are unaware they are being photographed, it is similar to candid photography.

This is an observed photograph as they are being observed colouring and they have not been arranged in anyway for the photo to be taken.