Saint Helier, chief town, resort, parish, and the capital of Jersey, in the Channel Islands The town lies along St. Aubin’s Bay opposite a tidal island known as L’Islet (accessible by causeway at low tide), on the south side of Jersey Island. The town is named for St. Helier, a Frankish missionary who was reputedly martyred there in 555. The saint’s memory is preserved in the Hermitage, a small 12th-century oratory on L’Islet, as well as in the Abbey (later Priory) of St. Helier, founded in the mid-12th century by Robert FitzHamon, of Gloucester.
The town originated as a fishing village that grew up beside the parish church, where from the 13th century the king’s courts usually met and where markets were held. St. Helier became the seat of island government after Elizabeth Castle was built (1551–90) on L’Islet. This castle was the refuge (1646–48) of Lord Clarendon, who there began his History of the Rebellion, and of the fugitive Charles II in 1646 and 1649. Harbour works were begun in 1700, and the modern harbour dates from 1841. The marketplace (now Royal Square) was the scene of the French defeat at the Battle of Jersey (1781). The marketplace is dominated by the Court House, La Salle des Etats (States House), and the Public Library (founded 1736) and is overlooked (south) by Fort Regent (1806). Victoria College dates from 1852. About one-third of Jersey’s population lives in St. Helier, which is the focus of island transport, commerce, government, and cultural activity.
Ports of Jersey is embarking on a once-in-a-generation programme to transform the harbours in St Helier. The plans will ensure the port’s long-term viability, improve customer experience, create new commercial opportunities, and realise the area’s potential as a leisure, cultural and tourism destination.
For this photoshoot, we walked around the Victoria harbour and south pier to take photos. I took pictures of people working at the harbour, and the different boats that were lined up in the harbour. I particularly like the photo of the man with the lobster because it shows what the men actually do. I feel as though these photos show how different the harbour used to look like now.
Final Edited Pictures
For this photo, I used photoshop. I started by using the quick selection tool to select the background. I then made the background black and white by making a second layer of the selected parts and proceeded to make it black and white. After this, I levelled the photograph to make the blacks in the background darker because it made the image more dramatic. I kept the objects in the photo in colour because it made them the focus point of the image to portray to the viewer the objects that the fisherman used to catch the fish that are in the harbour.
For this photoshoot, I walked along the harbours and photographed the structures and landscapes along with the smaller details. I tried to capture the historic side and the modern.
This photoshoot was fairly successful as I was able to capture a small variance of photographs of different aspects of the harbours. However, I would have liked to capture more images of the areas as a whole and the formations of the different harbours.
This photoshoot took place at the Maritime Museum, The Fresh Fish Company and around the Marina. In these areas alone, I took over 900 images in order to capture a wide variety of examples of what goes on down in these areas and what a working environment like this entails.
It was important for me to take images of nearly everything going on down here so that not only would my images be able to link with one another and tell an active story, but represent the way of life when working down on the Marina itself. As well as this, it meant that I could show comparisons and the advancements from when the transatlantic trade began for cod-fisheries, showing the more modernised and efficient industry.
BEST IMAGES:
One of my favourite images I took was of one of the hundreds of crabs that had been caught within The Fresh Fish company. These crabs were piled up onto one another and created an indistinguishable blanket of crabs, struggling to move around within these confined bodies of water. From here, these crabs would be exported to places overseas in Southern Europe. I think this image is really successful because there is so much detailed captured within the image, with the crab being partially submerged this creates an ominous tone due to the change in texture as the crab declines into the water, giving an almost glowing effect around its shell. I also think that this was really effective as in the foreground, the crab has high definition but as the background is entered, it goes out of focus, showing the compact space of crabs toppling over one another.
The image on the left is of one of the many fishermen working in this industry holding a crayfish. These creatures are exported to places such as Venice to become served in restaurants and are sold at £150 per kilogram. This environmental portrait depicts really well the type of ‘hands-on’ approach that fishermen take within their jobs, with the possibility of injury, in order to export these goods to be enjoyed.
Fishing wadersOne of the many shipping containersLobster pots
This image was taken from inside the Jersey Sailing Club, hanging their life jackets in the air on a metal rod. I really like this image, not just because of the high vibrancy throughout the image which makes it eye-catching, but also the way the first life jacket is the main focal point of the image, making everything else in the background blurred.
This image was taken of a commercial boat, however I similarly do like the way that the yellow buoy is the focal point of the image, with the row of boats in the background flowing behind and adding to the composition. I think that this has worked very well also due to blue in the background, contrasting the brighter yellow within the foreground. As well as this, the light has reflected off of the metal and bounced off at a good angle due to this being taken at midday, leading to a more iridescent and shiny look, outlining it and making it stand out.
This image was really appealing to me because of the rich and bold yellow on the boat in the foreground as its very eye-catching and hard to miss. Not only do the shadows within this image provide dynamic shapes to slide across, but it also includes a vast amount of various dinghy boats and heavy machinery in the background, giving a rich insight into the types of activities that take place down at the marina.
These images are of cargo boats onloading and offloading for imports and exports to places like France for example. I wanted to capture these as not only are they really vibrant and appealing, but there are so many intricate details, textures and parts which I thought would be beneficial to my work as it shows how technical and intricate this work is.
Dinghy boatsDinghy boats
I liked these images because the boats bring in bright block colours which juxtaposes all of the dull sand and left-over sea water in the boats as the tide has gone out.
These two images above are of the retailing part of the fishing process. The lobster and crab has been prepared during the production stage and now is ready to be bought and eaten.
A fishing boat
On the left is a photo of one of the many stacks of rowing boats at the Jersey Rowing Club. I feel that this image is really effective because the points of the boats go down in a vertical line as if its splitting the image into two halves. As well as this, this adds some depth to my image too.
The image on the right is taken of one of the many ladders used to get down onto the boats to fish. I really liked this image because there is a large contrast within it, the ladder has become extremely dark and allows the marina to be revealed behind it.
I liked this image because it resembles the sublime due to the way the sail boats are much bigger in comparison to the worker, creating an intimidating feel in the image. As well as this, this image has used a wide-pan approach meaning that you can see how large the harbour actually is.
Not only did I really like the saturated tone in this image but the way the two sailing boats created parallel lines, due to their masts, making the viewers eyes flow through the centres of the images. As well as this, the foreground of the thick sludge revealed from the tide going out has been imprinted with seaweed, rope and chains making an intricate pattern and an uneven texture from puddles of water left behind.
Maritime Museum:
Glass bottles of models of ships used within Jersey’s maritime history:
This photoshoot taken from Jersey’s Maritime Museum was very insightful and provided a high amount of historical value and contextual importance into my work, however I didn’t choose to use many of the images I took here as I don’t feel that these would be useful any further as it doesn’t fit in with what I am intending to explore in this topic. Although this information will help me when creating my zine as it means I will be more aware of what I am creating and help me create a narrative, I have other images which are more successful.
Black and White:
I put my images into black and white too to create a more composed perspective:
Frames around image- what is beyond the photo frame
Expresses a variety of emotions-
Happiness
Wonder
Disappointment
Turning the ordinary into the extraordinary
Photography is fast and instantaneous moment which will never be repeated or happen the same again.
Video 2
Darkness to see light
Lens is upside down
1893
Camera obscura– optical phenomenon
Twice as natural
Outside world pours in- dark room filled with a small cut out for light to come in, around an hour and image from outside if formed on e.g. wall.
Box camera- all natural deep and primitive, using old historical technology- not new and upcoming tech.
Video 3
Henry Fox Talbert– PAPER NEGATIVE was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes
Moment in time, fixed into place
Images made when exposed to light, but then went balck
Transient and momentary so was not the stronger product.
Was easily distributed and easy to produce.
On the edge of being present- looks not quite alive.
Romanticism
Photos were captured using different light sensitive chemicals and salts e.g. silver nitrate
Louis Daguerre – EPONYMOUS DAGUERREOTYPE was a French artist and photographer, recognized for hisinvention of the dagurreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography.
Photography turns ordinary into the extraordinary. It transforms what it describes, and reveals so much but keeps so much too itself, which frames reality. It can be objective and subjective because it is told by a persons intuition. It fixes the shadows, before the event of digital tools. You need darkness too see light.
Aberlardo Morell & Camera Obscurer
To use a camera obscurer, you need a blackout room, basically a box of light. Creating a small hole frame to let light in. The image is then portrayed on the wall upside-down and 2x bigger, the rays of light pass through the small hole. The reason this happens is because light travels in straight lines. The Latin name obscurer means dark chamber. Aberlardo Morell born 1948 is a contemporary artist known for transforming rooms into camera obscurers. He started his series in 1992, and was awarded with the Infinity Award from the International Centre of Photography.
Pinhole photography
A pinhole is a smaller homemade version of the camera obscurer, it is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture called a pinhole. It is a light proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the hole creating an inverted image on the opposing side of the aperture. The size of the image depends on the distance between the object and the pinhole. Pinhole cameras operate based on the concept of rectilinear light motion, which explains that light moves in straight paths. The pinhole camera is the simplest kind of camera. It does not have a lens.
Nicephore Niepce & Heliography
Joseph Nicephore Niepce born 1765, was a French inventor and one of the earliest pioneers of photography. He created heliography, a technique which is used to create the worlds oldest surviving products of a photographic process. Niépce conducted photographic experiments with the goal of meeting the increasing demand for inexpensive pictures by copying prints and capturing real-life scenes in the camera. During the following ten years, he experimented with various chemicals, materials, and methods in order to improve the process that he later named héliographie, meaning ‘sun writing.’
An old method of photography, héliographie, creates photoengraving’s on metal plates coated with asphalt. In general, it is considered a form of photography. Heliography, from the Greek words helios (meaning “sun”) and graphein (meaning “writing”). This process was used to create the first surviving photograph from nature, View from the Window at Le Gras. Niépce created the heliograph by mixing light-sensitive bitumen with oil of lavender and spreading a thin layer on a polished pewter plate. He placed the plate inside a camera obscura and placed it close to a window in his upper-level work space. After being in the sun for days, the plate showed a representation of the courtyard, outbuildings, and trees.
Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography He learned architecture, theatre design, and panoramic painting from Pierre Prévost, the pioneer French panorama painter, during his apprenticeship.
The daguerreotype is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The process required great care. The silver-plated copper plate had first to be cleaned and polished until the surface looked like a mirror. The daguerreotype technique allowed for the reproduction of images from a camera obscura and their conservation as physical objects. It was the initial functional method of photography and marked the beginning of a fresh era of visual potential.. Daguerreotypes are commonly stored in small cases with hinges, which are constructed from wood and wrapped in leather, paper, fabric, or mother of pearl. Unlike photographic paper, a daguerreotype is rigid and heavy.
Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype
William Henry Fox Talbot, his research in the 1840s paved the way for the development of the phytoglyphic engraving technique, which eventually evolved into photogravure. He owned a contentious patent that influenced the initial growth of commercial photography in Britain. He was a recognized photographer who also played a role in the advancement of photography as an art form. Talbot developed a method for producing moderately light-resistant and long-lasting photographs that was the first one accessible to the general public; nevertheless, it was not the initial process of its kind invented or publicly disclosed.
The calotype looked like a mouse trap. It was an improvement of the daguerreotype. A sheet of paper coated with silver chloride was exposed to light in a camera obscurer. The areas that were hit by light became a dark tone yielding like a negative image. He discovered gallic acid could be used to develop the image on the paper, basically accelerating the silver chloride’s chemical reaction making the process speedy.
Robert Cornelius & Self-Portraiture
Robert Cornelius stood alone in the yard of his family’s Philadelphia gas lighting business. . In front of him was a makeshift camera, its lens fashioned from an opera glass. He’d already determined the daylight was adequate to expose the carefully prepared metal plate within the camera and take a photograph of himself. Last but not least, he had to remain motionless and gaze forward for 10 to 15 minutes — no easy task .He managed Cornelius & Co. (later known as Cornelius & Baker) and had great success with his invention of the “solar lamp”. At the time, whale-oil was used in lamps but had become very expensive. Cornelius revised a British lamp design which forced additional air into the burner and allowed for the burning of lard rather than whale oil. He applied for and received a U.S. patent for the “solar lamp” in 1843. The lamp proved extremely popular and was sold in the U.S. and Europe. Two large factories in Philadelphia manufactured the lamp.
The study of self-portraits, known as self-portraiture or auto portraiture, focuses on the history, methods, distribution, reception, styles, and interpretations of self-portraits. The growth of language is ever-changing and factual. For instance, the word selfie was only coined in the 1980s. Robert Cornelius took the first ever selfie. He pathed the way, selfies and self portraiture is still used today by billions of people all around the world, it has developed to be as easy as just turning your phones camera on.
Julia Margeret Cameron & Pictorialism
“From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,” she wrote, “and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.” Photography became Cameron’s link to the writers, artists, and scientists who were her spiritual and artistic advisors, friends, neighbours, and intellectual correspondents. “I began with no knowledge of the art,” she wrote. “I did not know where to place my dark box, how to focus my sitter, and my first picture I effaced to my consternation by rubbing my hand over the filmy side of the glass.” She was indefatigable in her efforts to master the difficult steps in producing negatives with wet collodion on glass plates. Cameron had no interest in establishing a commercial studio, however, and never made commissioned portraits. Instead, she enlisted friends, family, and household staff in her activities.
Pictorialism was a global movement and aesthetic movement that was prevalent in photography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A style where the photographer alters a regular photo to create an image instead of just capturing it. Usually, a visual image seems to have a blurry focus, is produced in colours other than black-and-white, and may display brush strokes or surface alterations. A photograph was a means of conveying emotional intent to the viewer, much like a painting, drawing, or engraving. Pictorialism flourished from around 1885 to 1915, with certain individuals advocating for it until the 1940s. Pictorialism lost its popularity slowly after 1920, but it remained popular until the conclusion of World War II. In this era, the trend of Modernist photography became popular, and people became more interested in highly detailed images like those found in Ansel Adams’ work.
Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit
Henry Mullins was the most productive among the initial Jersey photographers in the mid-1800s. Between 1848 and 1873, he created numerous portraits of locals at his thriving studio in the prestigious Royal Square, St Helier. As a professional photographer, he always welcomed the fast technological advancements that coincided with his career. Despite the establishment of several photography studios in St Helier during the 1850s and 1860s, Henry Mullins remained the preferred photographer for prominent individuals in Jersey society and prosperous local and immigrant families. Mullins’s work quality matched his productivity level, as demonstrated by the detailed portraits of Victorian islanders found in his photo albums.
Carte-de-visite was originally a visiting card, particularly one adorned with a photographic portrait. Highly favored during the mid-1800s, the carte-de-visite was promoted by Parisian portrait photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, who patented the technique in 1854. Disdéri employed a camera with four lenses, producing eight negatives measuring 3.5 × 2.5 inches (8.89 × 6.35 cm) on a single plate. The big print created from the plate was divided into small portraits and each one was individually placed on cards sized around 4 × 3 inches (10 × 7.6 cm). These cards were cost-effective compared to other portrait options, as they allowed for eight different poses in one session and needed no editing.
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 b Ports of Jersey, a company wholly owned by the Government of Jersey.
Facilities include three marinas for berthing private yachts on pontoons, drying harbours and facilities for commercial shipping including roll on roll off ferry berths, a tanker berth and a dock for lift on lift off cargo ships.
Photoshoot 1
For this photoshoot, it required a trip to St Helier Harbour. We walked around the harbour and took many shots of the view around. Following that, we got a guided tour filled with history of jerseys harbour.
Edited Photos of Jerseys Harbour.
To edit my images, I used Adobe Lightroom classic and adjusted exposure, brightness, contrast, colour balance etc. For all 10 images, I did half in colour to half in black and white. I wanted to go from romanticising the harbour and its ‘beauty'(being shown by the colour) and how Jerseys harbour is advertised now, to getting back to the reality of everyday life and how it was back years ago(being shown by the black and white). For the black and white images, i focused on the presence section of developing my images on adobe Lightroom, this made an older looking effect for these images. For the coloured images, i looked at all the effects and adjusted them, making the colours stand out to attract the eye.
To final down all my images, I went across all the photos, and found all the ones that were very similar. After this, I colour coded them so I could take my zine pictures.
Evaluation
How successful was your photoshoot?
My photoshoot was pretty successful. I think that having an idea of a final outcome proceeded to having a successful photoshoot. I like all my images, they went exactly how I wanted them too. To develop my photoshoot images from here, I am going to create a 16 page photo-zine in InDesign.
Photoshoot 2
For this photoshoot, we went on a trip to Jerseys Maritime Museum. We walked round the museum capturing interesting things, as well as a talk from Doug Ford.
He taught us a bit about jerseys maritime history and his own experiences.
Overall I took mostly landscape pictures of St. Helier’s harbour, my reasoning for that was because a portrait shot just wouldn’t be able to capture it all. The lighting of all the photos are general daylight, on a cloudy day, but you can see the sun peeking out at certain times, allowing me to capture images in different lights. There is quite a lot of repetition within my images, because I really wanted to capture the right angle of things, such as building’s. I wanted to be able to get all three buildings with the red doors in one image. I have mainly led the eye with objects being in the foreground in most of my images, rather than having things hiding and making people really look to find an object, this is because I wanted to show the historic simplicity of the harbour, for example those buildings have been there since forever and will continue to stand, so I wanted to portray how bold they are.
Editing In Lightroom
Reasoning Why
I have edited my images with a lot of light dark contrast, the reason for this is because I wanted to portray the bold seas against the light breeze. I have used a lot of anchoring to portray my images, for example the image of the van being the main object at the front of the foreground, this helps lead the eye to the words “Channel Seaways”, to make people wonder about what was in the van, and where it was going. It also makes people realise that although the harbour seems to be very historic and out of use it is still indefinitely in use, people are spending their whole days there working 9 to 5s. I think a lot of my images have good harmony, all aspects of the image correlate with each other, for example the image of the RNLI lifeguard mural, and with the rocks around the path that state different boats and there weights and what they’re made of.
Favourite Image Analysis
This image was taken within natural daylight, it was a cloudy day which makes the sky look darker, looking like the image is taken in the evening or night when really it was the start of the day. This image has a overall dark tonal range, with a lot of blacks an browns apart from the white of the truck it is overall neutral tones. This was taken with a wider lens, zoomed out and landscape to capture the whole vehicle, the road, pavement and the buildings behind. This image is a bit over exposed, but I have done this to portray the boldness of the modern vehicle against the old brick buildings. The image is very textured, being able to see each stone used to create the buildings and the pavement. Also being able too see the clouds with a lot of texture, to create a darker feeling, like the camera has taken a photo so clear that you would’ve seen something more blurry if you were there. I have confined this image to have the truck in the main depth of field, drawing you to that straight away, and then having the poles and pavement in the foreground an the buildings in the background to create a nice harmony, using a rues of third’s, the truck, the pavement/poles and the buildings. My idea between this image was mainly contrast, I wanted to create multiple different types of contrast, for example the colour contrast and the modern vs historical contrast.
Overall Evaluation
I overall think that this photoshoot went very well and I was able to capture multiple different elements of the harbour, trade, lifeboat’s and fishing. This allowed me to edit my images in a creative way to dictate contrast and historical presence. One thing I would do next time would aim to go on a nicer day, with a clearer sky, whether that be in the evening or a day just a less foggy environment, to create better lighting.
