St Helier Harbour is the main Harbour in Jersey. This harbour is used to dock Jersey citizens boats, as well as how Jersey citizens travel to and from the Island on the Condon Ferry. There are 3 marinas in St Helier Harbour, which are used for private yachts on pontoons and drying harbours for commercial shipping, with facilities including a dock for lift-on/lift-off cargo ships, roll-on/roll-off ferry berths and a tanker berth. This harbour is operated by Ports of Jersey, the operative government company.

A Berth- A designated area where a vessel may be moored, typically for unloading and loading, assigned by an authority – in this example, Ports of Jersey.

The harbour gains its name from the 6th-century ascetic hermit from Belgium, Helier (Helierius).

Mood Board

Mind Map

I took these photos a week after I took the first ones, on the 18th of September. This time the sea was a lower tide, As well as being more sunny. We went around the maritime museum for the first 1-2 hours of our trip. Then after lunch we went around the harbour, but to different areas of the piers around. I focused more on portrait photography this time since I already have many photos of the piers, as photos with people normally tell more of a story.

here are some local fishermen who I asked for some photos. I would like to of positioned my camera more to the right so the man on the left wont be cut off by the pole. However I do think the composition is nice as there is not much negative space (as most areas have a face in), and the pole can be a leading line towards the right person. The right person also has a lot of character in his face so it helps add more story to the photo. To edit I added a black and white filter, and changed the contrast slightly. I also cropped it a little bit.

I like this photo because the bad boys paddle contrasts the subject on the left who seems a bit nervous.

This photo was taken inside a shell fish area, It was very dark and had containers with different shell fish in each.

Here is a montage of 3 images (plus 1 large image), each of buildings around the harbour. I chose these photos to be next to each other since each building is very large, showing the scale of the harbour in jersey. For editing I bumped up the saturation and contrast slightly, while adjusting the blacks and whites to make each image a similar style.

here are some photos from the maritime museum. Unfortunately a lot of my photos came out full of noise because I needed to increase the ISO to above 2000 since it was very dark.

Here is some photos of a worker changing the chains along the sea floor. I edited it so the neon green safety jacket would be the only object with saturation. This method of selective saturation can reduce the busyness of an image and allow the subject to be more obvious.

I tried again but with this dock workers shoes and it looks a bit naff. I will increase the workers exposure so he doesn’t blend into the background more, I will also try cropping the image to reduce background noise and to make the subject larger.

This looks a bit better in my opinion but still not the best.

Here is are 4 images that I edited with these settings:

These are all quite similar images In my opinion. They all don’t has an obvious main subject, meaning the eyes don’t have an obvious place to rest, making it more chaotic. They are also different in some ways as well, the first image and second image have a foreground and background where as the third and forth image is mostly all background.

Here is a one off image I took through a little gap in curb. It has good composition and reminds me of picture cards that you get while on holiday.

Our school did a trip around the St Helier harbours. A tour guide that explained some of the things I talked about in previous blog posts in more detail, which I added later on to those blog posts. My goal for this photoshoot was to capture the present harbours and compare them to what the harbours use to look like. We got handed photos on our tour at certain locations, showing how the area use to look like which was very interesting. I also learned about this photographer from France who takes photos of boat textures, which looks like abstract art on a canvas.

Here is some edited photos from my photoshoot:

For the first image I increased the saturation and contrast slightly, and aligned the subject to the middle. For the second Image I cropped towards his face more since it looks very sailor like, as well as creating a B&W image that I like.

For this photo I noticed that the background noise distracts from the subjects, so to combat this I used a radial filter around the subjects on Lightroom, then decreased the sharpening around the filter, as well as decreasing the exposure.

Here I just increased the saturation and changed some of the highlight settings, I cropped it so the boat is on the rule of thirds, so the eyes naturally go towards the people in the boat.

The left is my photo, and the right is a comparison from the mid 20th century, after the pier was built. As you can see nothing much has changed. One thing I did notice was how there are just less people around, this may be because we where doing shots while people where at work, however this contrast of people to no people does make our current time seem less exciting.

Above is a some more abstract photos towards the end of the pier.

Above I took a photo of the steam clock around new north quarry. I took 8 photos each at different angles giving this topology.

Photograph Ideas and Inspiration.

These photos are some inspiration for photos to take when we go on our trip to St Helier Harbour. I would like to incorporate a lot of industrial components into this first photoshoot, and take more photos of historical elements in my next photoshoot.

The Three Main Harbours of Jersey:

–La Collette Yacht Basin.

–Saint Helier Marina.

–Elizabeth Marina.

Harbour History.

In the 19th Century the Old Harbour was constructed. 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. To shelter the jetty and harbour a new breakwater was constructed and in 1814 the merchants constructed the roads now known as Commercial Buildings and Le Quai des Marchand’s. They did this to connect the harbours to the town and in 1832 construction was finished on the Esplanade and its sea wall. In 1837, a rapid expansion in shipping led the States of Jersey to order the construction of two new piers.

Edited Photos.

Edits.

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Whilst visiting Elizabeth Marina, La Collette Yacht Basin and Saint Helier Marina I attempted to get many pictures from different angles in order to replicate images when editing. I decided to go on a bright sunny day in order to capture the blue sky and shimmering water.

I decided to select these 4 images and convert them to both edited to be bright and colourful and also in black and white. I have also displayed a side by side comparison of both to decide which edit is more effective per image.

Edits and Experimentation.

Digital camera style editing inspiration.

For these images, I focused on editing these photos to look like they are taken in different eras such as the 40s- the 80s with a variety of cameras. Some have an older look by being more low quality and discoloured, some have a brown tint to them to look older and some have a more greenish tint to them to create a 90s style vibe to them. I particularly enjoyed editing these photos to give a 90s/ digital camera style as I am new to interpreting an older picture using Adobe Lightroom however I enjoyed experimenting with different filters etc.

My attempt.

Here is an example of the camera settings I used to create a digital camera interpretation.

Comparisons:

This image I have attempted to replicate an old photograph of St Helier Harbour. I chose a photo which is similar which includes a combination of boats and buildings. However, I struggled to give my image a low quality, old feel to it. Although the brownish tint is similar I could not make the objects as defined and low quality than I would’ve liked.

I particularly like this comparison as I tried to add a very very small blueish tint to this black and white photograph to make it slightly different than plain black and white.

At first glance, I was disappointed at a mark on my lens creating a few black dots on my photograph, but after editing my image I feel it adds an older, authentic and low quality feel to my photograph and has make it look more effective.

For this image, I decided to recreate an up-to-date image from the present time. This photo was the easiest to edit and interpret as I only increased the vibrance and made the image sharper as the photo is used for promoting Jersey so the colours are sharper and brighter.

Overall, this first photoshoot was successful to photograph and edit photos. Although for my 2nd photoshoot of St Helier Harbours, I hope to incorporate more photos capturing beaches, people and the production of seafood.

For this second photoshoot, I explored both the museum and around the industrial sector which was largely different to the old pier. I took 700+ images this time as I found it more interesting.

I split these into 3 sections: People, industrial and the museum.

In the museum I learned about many of the myths and urban legends such as:

Lé Tchian du Bouôlay. This is a man wolf which resembles a massive black dog with large eyes. He was known to follow pedestrians before a storm and so acted a warning to fishermen.

Contact Sheet and Selection

Edits

1

2

Combining all of my images in total, I decided that these were my best:

“Photography can turn something ordinary into the extraordinary”. Meudon, a famous photographer from the early 20th centry, has some very good examples to explain this quote. He would find a place witha nice composition (the ordinary), then wait for a story to be performed, so he can capture that moment (the decisive moment). By waiting for an interesting moment to be captured, he has turned the ordinary to the extraordinary. Below is an example:

The beginning – camera obscura

Photography in a certain sense has been around for almost 1000 years through a process called camera obscura (simply means dark room). It is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a small hole (also known as the aperture) into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) projection of the view outside.

It was often used as a drawing aid, used by the likes of leonardo davinci for example.

it allowed tracing the projected image to produce a highly accurate representation, and was especially appreciated as an easy way to achieve proper graphical perspective.

capturing the light

In the early 18th century, scientists found a certain silver salt that becomes darker from light exposure. However, they could not keep it from turning all black after they took it out the camera obscura.

The first ever photo was taken in the 1820s using a discovery made by Joseph Nicephore Niepce using asphalt and different solvents. Its a simple view from a window:

Nyep’s experiments further was an advanced version of Nicephore experiments and his camera design was used to create the first ever camera. This kick started the photography and allowed it to become what it is today.

Talbot further advanced the camera. He was not very good artist but needed to be for many of his hobbies. he switched photo drawing process from silver chloride to silver iodide. He then experimented with different solutions allowing him to create a photographic negative. With this photographic negative photo the same photo can now be produced many times after some exposure to light with the negative image underneath. This is called the positive negative process. This is what a negative image looks like:

Photography shaped the way we remember things, making it a very important cultural change. Early photography showed the truth in photos.

This photoshoot started at the Maritime Museum and then proceeded towards the fisheries and harbour around La Collette.

Analysis

Overall, I think I had a successful photoshoot. I’ve decided to analyse this image because it links well with the story I want to tell.

I really like the outcome of this image because of it’s general composition and low angled shot making the image look more dynamic and much more interesting. I also really like how dramatic and somewhat angelic it looks because of the natural lighting which helps intensify the various textures and forms within the item rack.

Although I believe it was a good photoshoot I think I could have further explored more areas in the harbour, such as Elizabeth harbour, in order to properly show how the whole harbour has changed. I could have also tried to build up more courage to take photos of more people at work.

Just like the first photoshoot, I have carried on relating back to my inspiration Ansel Adams because I believe his work is very good at creating or telling a story, which is what I am trying to achieve, as well as having a really powerful style of creating images that create a sense of drama. I had also attempted to capture decisive moments like Henri Cartier-Bresson through people who work within the marinas to also tell a story.

I plan to create a zine with my best images from both of my photoshoots and present them in a way that tells a story or shows a linear series of going further into the marina and how much change it has gone through. I will first create some layout designs on InDesign and then start printing out my images in order to make a physical copy of it.

experimenting with vivid colours and 'dream like' aesthetic

black and white images

colour popping

photos rated 1-2 stars

these photos are rated 1-2 stars because they didn’t meet the criteria of what I needed to accomplish inn terms of the quality of the photo itself or what the image its self consisted of.

photos rated 3-4 stars

these photos I believe are rated 3-4 stars because it has some of the criteria that is needed for project but is missing somethings that I would consider for the photos to be 5 stars. for the most part I would say the photos are missing the quality of the image or it doesn’t project the idea of the difference between the modern day harbour and the original harbour.

photos rated 5 stars

these eight photos are what I believe to be the best photos I took on this trip to the harbour as I think it captured what the harbours about as it shows how the modern day harbour works in comparison to the 1800s

Edited images

evaluation

overall I believe that I got a good set of images on the trip to the harbour as they capture the history of the harbour but also capture the changes and how its changed over the years of the harbour. However for next time I would prioritise getting more images of higher quality as I think I missed out on some images that could have been better due to the quality of the image.

We went to the maritime museum, taking photos of all of the history and facts from the boats and ships from the past and a lot of photos from the St Helier Harbour, showcasing fish such as crabs, lobsters and even a special lobster the fisherman brought out for us.

Here are some photos that are my favourite that I have taken and started to edit.

These photos are based around the harbour and the lobsters the fisherman caught. The man then let us take photos of him in his working environment with firstly his cafeteria with his dogs and work colleges, and then him lifting out a big lobster from the back-top to show to all of us and put it on the floor.

I took these photos of these old-fashioned, (some new) boats either being stored just waiting to enter the sea. Or, some boats being worked on as you see in the last photo, with a man sanding/drilling the bottom of it, potentially drilling holes or drilling something off of it.

These are some photos I really like with the B/W filter on top of it to create a dark/old style to them.

I like how the 3 faces are looking into the camera with a little grin/smile with the dog eyes peeking at the camera too. The men were in the back of the harbour which made it feel very sketchy with two blokes sat talking to each other with one on a bike with a dog on a seat.

These are some photos I have brought the saturation down and only shown the main colours of the photos, for example, the boots on the door, the door and window frames are all this orange/red colour, so I made everything else Black and white and brought out that colour a little more than standard.

The man moving the fish from the boxes into little plastic clear bags, I made the 3 bright lime green boxes stand out, but, I also wanted the mans boots and glove to be brought out as the lime green/orange is a nice opposite blend of colours that pops.

I felt that the mans apron was the main part of this photo for me, as the fish weren’t very colourful/bright, and that is the centre stage object/clothing. So, as I brought out the darkish-blue, I also saw that the air-con behind him was the same colour so I left that still blue to give the photo some front colour and back colour.

For the next photo, I saw the big pillar on the left side of the photo and knew, that this had to be the main coloured-part of the photo. So, I made everything else B/W but I saw this little barrel next to it and had to keep that with the navy blue to add a little clash of the colours.

Some other photos I have edited are these photos.