What are the differences between photograph’s that are WINDOWS and MIRRORS.

The difference is windows can be seen as less personal to the photographer, almost as if the photographer is looking down at someone else’s life. A Window is described as an exterior world that is explored in all its presence and reality. Where as mirrors is a photograph of a something you can relate to, something that reflects who you are. In other words a mirror is a romantic expression of the photographer’s sensibility as it projects itself on the things and sights of this world. It’s almost like putting it as a window is something you look out of therefore its not something related to you, its what is outside the window that matters and a mirror is a reflection yourself, how you could portray yourself as in a photograph, what the photo reminds you of. “Mirrors” were images meant to mirror the photographer’s own sensibility. “Windows” were photos meant to act as a window for the viewer to see something that is primarily factual and external to the photographer’s own sensibility.

Words and quotes for mirrors and windows:

Binary opposite: Two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. Windows (exterior) and mirrors (interior) are completely different to each other. Windows are seen as being truthful and honest they show you the true colour of an image and help the viewer open there eyes to see a new perspective to the image. Whereas Mirrors are seen more as lies and staged.

 “A window is a story that sheds light into the other’s experience whereas a mirror is a story that reflects your own experiences and helps you build your self, your own identity.”

John Szarkowshi

John Szarkowshi wrote this book as a way of understanding himself the difference between windows and mirrors throughout the years. He stated that windows were seen as an direct observation whereas mirrors were an introspective narrative. although Szarkowski does state that photographers can not be categorized as purely one or the other and that you can find aspects of both in the many photographers work, this helps me understand that each image can have a factor of both windows or mirrors if the image is analysed correctly. The thought that an image can be categorised only into one category makes it challenging to see which one as there are counterargument’s depending on each persons perspective. argues for the importance of looking carefully and bringing to bear every bit of intelligence and understanding possessed by the viewer states that students should read his book to help identify the importance of looking carefully and bringing to bear every bit of intelligence and understanding possessed by the viewer looking at an image, arguing that each photo has a deep meaning to it, some which is hidden and some that is very well seen by the viewer. Another thing by Szarkowsk stated was argues for the importance of looking carefully and bringing to bear every bit of intelligence and understanding possessed by the viewer.

window: This image would be seen as a window due to the fact that its not personal to the photographer, its not really showing a specific identity or portraying a specific story it shows us the basics of the photo where an older man is standing still with a younger girl next to him, this image shows us the perspective of looking out a window down onto the exterior of peoples lives. This image clearly is showing someone’s else perspective and not the photographers experience, However some could argue that this image is a mirror as it could portray the life of the photographer’s family which makes the image quite personal and sincere. You could say that the man is looking in the direction of the camera almost as if he is looking at himself and his reflection. It could be a self portrait of the people and the camera is set up which makes the image direct to these people. The girl could be posing knowing the photo is being taken making it a staged image or it could be a hidden camera taking the photo and the girl is expressing her happiness without realising she is being photographed.

Mirror: This image is clearly a mirror as it could be seen as a reflection of this ladies mind, she is laying on the floor looking quite helpless, this could be a reflection of the ladies mind, she could be depressed or maybe missing something. Although her house might not be looking really messy, she is laying on the floor looking vulnerable and quite weak. The room is still quite lit up and looks quite cleaned up, which could reflect the idea that there is something making her still content to an extent. People could suggest that this image is a window almost as if the photo was taken through a window looking at someone’s else’s perspective.

Photos used:

Final Outcome

This was the final outcome for my zine, i really liked how it turned out as at the beginning I didn’t have a vision in mind, When collecting my photos together I tried to put the colours that matched the best together. Also when considering putting certain pictures together I tried to mix what side each photo look best on, which did have an impact. As my photoshoots didn’t go too well I didn’t have many pictures that I liked and wanted to use therefore made some of the pictures take over the whole page. This made these pictures show a great importance. I also tried to get a picture of the surroundings and then next to it a picture of a person doing their job to show what surroundings each person could be in, although this could not be the case for every page for example the last page with the man opening his truck wouldn’t be near some stairs leading the the sea but I thought that the colours and concept of these photos look good together.

Evaluation:

Overall the St Helier topic was quite off putting at the beginning as I didn’t have much interest in it, though after the photoshoot i started to use my imagination to create ideas of what to take pictures, also when creating my zine I started to develop certain story lines, although this topic still hasn’t grown on me it still is interesting to see what people who work around the see do, when doing my first photoshoot I just took pictures of what looked interesting and didn’t have a specific idea or reason for taking what I took. For my second photoshoot, I started observing more of what was around me and what could be a good representation of the sea. I started having more ideas of what the St Helier harbour was and how it had changed throughout the years when given photos and information about when and why it was created. Throughout my research I found it quite difficult to get the right information to look at and this made the topic even more repetitive and dull. I had managed to find some details about the harbour but not much which was quite irritating and made it hard for me when it came to the photoshoots and I didn’t have anything specific to look for. I would say the best photoshoot I had done would have been the maritime museum as it has many funky items inside that explained a lot and helped with my research. There were many examples of what a boat sounded like and what each sound represented and meant, there were interactive activities which helped all of us to engage with the topic and the idea of why we are researching all these things about the harbour. I did like making the zine for this project as I did manage to capture some good pictures to use, I had captured a good set of images that worked well with each other, whether it was the colours or the representation of the images. Although I didn’t quite enjoy this topic it was still a good topic to explore and gain some knowledge on. I did find it hard to capture some good quality images as the harbour isn’t something that I have great interest in, I feel like if I were to do this again I would try and get some inspiration on photoshoots such as using different angles to portray different meanings and find different textures to capture that represent the harbour. I did manage to capture some good quality images but a plan would have helped out more in which direction I was going with these images.

Here I’ve selected more photos from my harbour photoshoot however I created a whole new page just for the people I’ve captured. All of the people I have captured each have a story of what they are doing in the moment and why, each person has a story, a reason to why they are doing the thigs they want to do an say. I really like the way each photo came out as everyone seems to be occupied, either by themselves or someone else interacting with them.

I’ve turned these photos into black and white as I believe it gives a more modern look, it almost helps to give the whole focus on the persons facial features, their pose and what they are holding. The photo on the right is a full view image of the man standing holding a roar , this tells us that the man in the image does rowing, his surroundings also suggests that he does rowing with all the roars in the background.

This photoshoot was quite a good experience to see how the life at sea is like. Every single person in this photoshoot seem to be busy at work, ether working on the boats or working with the sea life such as fish and lobsters. I chose to make a separate blog post just for people to show the difference of the meanings of each person in each photo.

Overall i really did enjoy this photoshoot as it helped me look at all the different jobs surrounded by the ocean, although this topic isn’t one i would voluntarily choose it does still an interesting aspects to it, for example I did enjoy walking around and seeing occupied doing their daily job that is so different to what we do as students in school, it was also really nice to see how things have changed throughout the years such as new inventions for boats and how they can go faster and collect more fish at a time, although there are still boats that collect fish as it till is good to see fishermen doing their jobs or even just their hobbies.

This would be one of the best photos I took at the museum as not all the photos I took looked good enough to present, I turned this photo into black and white as it stopped the colours from distracting the view of all the patterns and texture. I took this photo from a slightly lower angle than a straight view point to show that all the item are above me almost as if they are looking down on me which could help represent their importance. This photo hold a lot of importance s it has historical items in one place. The reason I chose this photo being my best is because in some of my photos the angles of the photos don’t match the photo and this photo has the most important object in the centre with all historical images in the background. I do quite like the mages of the rocks with an image underneath as they would look good together to create a row of photos with meaning. They have framed a specific rock , maybe due o the fact that it is going extinct or the rocks have a great significance to jerseys history. Even thought the image is quite busy it still shows the purpose of each item being placed in that specific place, possibly each photograph links in with the submarine suit. The wall in the background is quite textured but also helps to make everything else stand out and be its own independent photo.

Going to the maritime museum helped open my eyes and get a perspective of jerseys past, there were many interesting interactive item in the museum which made it fun and entertaining to explore. There were many picture of important people with little descriptions to help identify and understand how and why they were important to jerseys history. the museum also had many boat models that we could look at and identify the main reasons they were used and what they looked like. I really enjoying exploring the museum and understanding how each of these items have a historical meaning and representation. This photoshoot helped me learn songs and stories of the sea, and investigate the island’s myths and legends. I would say that this was a really good experience even though not all of my photos are usable but they do show some historical and important pieces that represent an important factor to the museum.

links I used to help me write about the maritime museum:

Here these images are very bright and colourful compared to the rest, the sky is a shade of green that almost gives off a disastrous look almost as if a storm is coming. I made the sky looks more colourful so that the image itself would stand out. However I highlighted the area I wanted to make bright and simply copied the layer, I then proceeded to brighten the colour and made it look more green, I felt as though the green makes the photo looks really ready to explore The thought that our world is slowly getting destroyed with all the carbon being released and the plastic being thrown around creates this unpleasant image, the world is dying and no much is being done to save it.

All of the photos that I selected in big to present are the best images I took. Through out all the photos I took these were best one I could analyse and use in my work as they had bod colours and all represent a story whereas some of my other photos don’t have the right lighting or angle to use or don’t have the right story to tell. Most of my photos are pictures of boats but not really the big luxurious boats more like small boat that u would stay close to the haw with which tells us a lot, possibly the p[person who owns the boats like to do fishing close to the island or likes to have a small paddle around the island in their bot however it doesn’t necessarily tell us if they don’t have the money to buy as its not a factor we can judge and asses. The colour of each boat can tell us a story as it can show each personally identity.

Doing this photoshoot was quite successful as I got many photos of different places surrounding the harbour. For many of these photos I had zoomed in with the camera to get a specific area of the surroundings, Like with the pictures of the boats I had make sure that nothing else is in the background and only the boats were in focus. For many of these photos I had used Photoshop to add Ai effects and get rid of any distracting directs effecting the image. Firstly in the image with the two boats I asked AI to remove anything I the sea to make it look like there are only boats floating and nothing else around. To get the basic editing I levelled all the colours and made some of my photos in black and white as helped to stop the colours from distracting the main idea of the photo. I believe this photoshoot went really well as I was able to interact with some people along the way and understand why they do what they do for a living how it is impact in their lives. For example, I was able to see people who took care of all the lobsters and fish. I was also able to see all the boats that were left on the side. These boats were all different colours and can each represent different personalities and how people look like and the way they are portrayed.

Overall, I believe this photoshoot went well and I managed to capture quite a good bunch of photographs that portray the importance of the st Helier harbour and how its history ha impacted it. Most of the pictures I took of boats are quite small and show how in the past they didn’t really have really high tech boats and almost shows us ow people used to travel across the seas, and of Couse they have other boats with high tech and more protection but it does help us view the evolution of the boats and how each boat can help a person achieve different things.

Popular myths
It is a popular myth that the slave trade was invented by the
Europeans; the reality was that when the first Europeans
reached West Africa in the 15th century slavery was already
long established,

Popular myths
It is a popular myth that the slave trade was invented by the
Europeans; the reality was that when the first Europeans
reached West Africa in the 15th century slavery was already
long established.

Museums have a central role in creating a more equal, diverse and inclusive society. Through the objects that represent us, the stories we share and the historic places we look
after, we hold the collective memory of our community.

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

It has been more than 400 years since the first Islanders crossed the Atlantic in search of pastures new. They went to plunder the cod-rich seas of the American and Canadian coast.

A family pose in the Point St Peter shop: Charles Le Marquand seated between the two women while standing behind are Thomas Alexander Le Gros, John James Le Gros and his wife Edith Emily Le Gresley. All images supplied by MUSEE DE LA GASPESIE.

Which ports did Jersey ships sail to and trade with?

Jersey has been an island for approximately 8,000 years: therefore, apart from the last 60 years, the only way for people to come to or leave the island has been by sea. Over the centuries the way in which boats have been powered has changed – muscle power, wind power, steam power and now diesel power. The largest island is jersey, followed by Guernsey, Alderney, sark and a number of smaller islands, islets and rocky outcrops. The islands were separated from mainland Europe with rising sea levels in the Neolithic period

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

They traded molasses and rum for cod fish

Fishing:

Oyster Dredging became important and started in 1828 centring around the Chausey oyster beds, where the French also wished to fish. News of these beds brought 300 fishing boats from the south of England, Gorey pier was rebuilt to assist them and after ten years, the beds were shown to be over fished.

Manufactured goods:

Knitting in the Islands as a trade had early origins, the quality was so good that Queen  Elizabeth I wore Guernsey stockings. Large quantities of wool being imported to the Islands from Southampton by special licence, where a major cottage industry turned the product into desirable high value goods. Stocking were in high demand in France,240,000 pairs a year being exported there in the 1660s.

Entrepôt:

Being free ports, as the British Parliament had no right to levy taxes in the Islands and the Islands themselves not wishing to levy taxes on goods brought to and then exported again from the Islands, The Channel Islands could import goods from anyone who was not an enemy of Britain, free of British taxes. The local merchants would buy up and supply goods at favourable prices, especially goods taken by privateers. There were no restrictions on whom the goods were sold to, and no liability on the Islanders if the ship subsequently landed those goods without declaring them and paying taxes at their destination.

Cod and North America:

The Channel Island fishing industry took to the opportunities offered with the opening up of the Grand Banks Fisheries. Cod was valuable and from 1763 when Quebec was ceded to the British, colonies were founded by both Jersey and Guernsey in Newfoundland. The people in each colony undertook the fishing and drying, waiting for the company ship to arrive with trade goods they could exchange for the fish. Barrels of dried cod, 1,000-2,000  quintals a year, each weighing roughly 50 kg, being exported by ship to the Caribbean or western Europe. Sometimes there was a three-way trade with ships returning to the Channel Islands where the ship chandlers and merchants benefited.

Horticulture and agriculture:

In Guernsey the introduction of glasshouses resulted in a growth on eating grapes and then tomato production from Victorian days, when in the 1880s 10,000 tons were exported annually until the 1970s, with 60 million tomatoes exported each year in the 1960s to England.

Quarrying:

During the 19th century quarrying of granite for use in England became a valuable trade good from Guernsey, adding value by creating cobblestones for London streets, although after 1847 gravel was exported for macadamizing roads. In 1861 St Sampson’s harbour saw 142,866 tons of stone loaded in 737 ships, it became very crowded and required piers to be rebuilt and repaired, by 1913, annual tonnage had risen to 453,947

Links used:

St Helier harbour hasn’t changed massively between the years, although there are some clear changes, the area has stayed homogeneous. Saint Helier Harbour is named after Helier (or Helerius), a 6th-century ascetic hermit from Belgium.

This picture, by a Mrs Slater, one of the earliest female photographers whose work in Jersey survives, was taken in 1860, or soon after, and shows the La Folie area of the original harbour, with the French Harbour in the foreground and the long, thin, North Quay lined with sailing vessels in the background.

This painting by John Shepherd dates to the 1870s or early 80s and shows clearly how close the top of the Old Harbour came to the original weighbridge, which was in front of the Royal Yacht Hotel

This picture was taken in about 1886-7 and shows the work under way on some initial widening of the North Quay behind the weighbridge. A new cargo shed has been constructed.

A rare photograph showing the Old Harbour infill from the other side, with the row of Commercial Buildings properties showing very few similarities to what survives in the 21st century

An aerial view of the harbour at high tide in 1934

1950, and nothing has changed

links:

Picture stories are meant to show a story through pictures and not actually the words therefore the writing shouldn’t really be a source to rely on, the naked eye should be attracted to the picture, figure out which photo is the main source of information.

here are some samplers of picture stories, these examples looks very differed from one another as they all have different stories behind them, they all represent a different meaning. Each one has a different colour that can symbolise different things such as emotions, a countries flag colours and what colour makes there chosen photos to stand out. I really like the black and white photos with a brown and yellow background, it has a strong powerful meaning and really helps to engage the viewers eyes onto those photos. I don’t really like the stories that have many different colours and shapes in the background as it distracts the viewers attention away from the photos, it make the photo look less important. However some could view it as the colours attract the naked eye towards the photos, makes them look noticeable especially if they are in black and white as there isn’t any other colours to direct the eye towards.

Here I used AI to try and add some more details to my photos, I highlighted the spot I wanted to add more and typed in what I thought would look the best, for example I had a blank space to work with therefore I just added some different posters and a plant to fill the space.

Here, I used AI to add more details to my photo, this allowed me to add people, different objects and change the perspective of the photo. For example, the original photo is an alley way that has graffiti and no people, when I used AI I was able to add children to make it look like they were drawing the graffiti, I also added cans of spray paint on the side to make it look more believable and also adds more colour and details to my photograph. In the back of the photograph I added a person in the back to make the picture more full.

Here I did the same thing as the photo above, i added people and also changed some of the people in the background to make the photo look different, I tried to change some small details such as the bag on the lady sat on the bench. I also added a dog which I don’t really like but kept in to show the differences in the original photo and the edited photo.

Here, I added a different effect to the colour, I selected the area I wanted to change and pressed (CTRL U) this allowed me to add a brighter colour or a more faint colour. I wanted to make my photo to stand out therefore made the colours bright and bold, I kept selecting different areas in the photo to see what looked right and what looked wrong. I really like how this photo turned out as the photo looks really vivid.

For this experiment I tried to make one person stand out as you can see the green person is more bold than the other people. Here I had to duplicate the photo and then move one of the photos either to right or left.

These photos were taken in st Malo, and the aim of this photoshoot was to get a perspective of what French people look like on a busy day, what they get up too, it also shows us how differently they are dressed. Most of the time you wouldn’t see anyone in Jersey or England wearing this type of style as it is quite European. However, it also gives us an insight of what st Malo looks like in general and how different it can look to where we live and what we see on a regular day. There were flags all around the towns which is something we could see in jersey, but they are places differently and represent different things, but in jersey we do have some string lights around the avenue which lights around the places. 

The aim of these photos are very different as some of them have many people scattered around the photo and some tend to have less or no people, I really like have some of these photos turned out, for some of the photos I used different angles to see if I could get a difference in perspective an how different the photo would look to the rest, we have a hip angle which would make the photo look lower, I also tried to put my camera further u to try and get a birds eye view perspective which didn’t turn out too well as I couldn’t really see what I was taking but it was fun to try and experiment with and see what different views people tend to see on a daily whether they were higher up looking out a window and just walking through the town. 

These photos were taken in France, st Malo. The aim of this photoshoot was to take candid photos of strangers roaming the streets, it was to captivate what st Malo rally looked like without making it look staged. These pictures are very different to what we would see in our everyday life in Jersey, as we don’t have access to everything. Here we were changing the shutter speed lower and higher when cars and people were walking and some photos turned out better than others, for this photoshoot we tried to get a close up of people to see what they were doing, some of these photos were taken of only buildings with no people in the surroundings. Both those photos give a very different effect and create a sense of humanity, how the world is seen. I turned some of my photos into black and white to show that I have included some of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s ideas and his decisive moment. Henri has a theory of the decisive moment which meant that every picture he took had to be perfectly positioned and timed. Henri would always search for the perfect people to take a picture of, as they would most likely be walking or moving slightly making it challenging, therefore Henri would have to change the shutter speed to capture the perfect photograph. All of these photos are candid and not staged which helps to get a perspective of the real world around us, although these photos don’t define the whole world as there is war around us but there are still peaceful places which need to be kept and preserved. 

This photo shows the decisive moment as we are capturing a picture that isn’t staged and have the right shutter speed added. Although a lady is walking into the frame making the people less visible due to the umbrella, I really like the way the man is still in focus of the photo and isn’t looking at the camera but still looking in the same direction of me, this gives me a perspective of what the person may be looking at. I really like the way the lady is walking into the photo almost leading us to look at the man, the dimensions in this photo. 

I feel the photo looks good in black and white as lighting works well. There aren’t many colours to distract you from the view and it helps to see the details more clearly. The black and white effect makes the photo look nostalgic and adds a saddened look to it almost as if something was going on, but only the people in the photo would realize. This makes the photograph look mysterious. I also really like how the plastic looks in the photo, it gives off a vibe as if it was rain falling, it would make sense if it was rain as the lady in the picture is holding an umbrella. It also looks like the lady is covering the man with her umbrella due to the dimensions of the photograph. The umbrella makes a good prop in the photo as it takes over a big amount of the photo without blocking anyone’s face. The older man’s face is slightly covered by the bottom of the umbrella, but it is still clear to identify who the person is and what he looks like. 

Evaluation:

Overall, going to St Malo was quite successful as when going round St Malo I was able to see a big difference from jersey, the people were dressed differently and it was really lively. The was music playing all over the place and there were loads of food stands. As St Malo was so different from jersey I found it quite easy to take pictures as everything was quite unusual to me, my aim was to take some landscape photos around St Malo as the architecture is different, the culture in general creates good images. When taking pictures of people, it wool have been best to take pictures of them not knowing but a lot of the time they would look up at my camera and feel quite disturbed. I do feel that as the cultures are so different, people are doing different things, for example I saw a man sat outside the shops drinking his coffee, he seemed to be a worker at the shop he was sat at, which is something you wouldn’t see in Jersey, I also saw homeless people all over the place sat outside shops with dogs around them, this is definitely something I wouldn’t see in jersey and helps to have a different perspective on life. I do like how most of my images turned out and when I edited them they looked a lot better as I had levelled the lighting. However when taking my images I should have had different view points to show the that view points matter a lot when taking pictures.

One thing I wish I had done would have been going into random shops or shops that attracted my attention and asked the people in the shop to pose with their shop, although this wouldn’t have been a candid image, it would have been very different from other peoples work as we all followed each other and went to the same places, which made out photos very similar. However, when editing my images, I did try and find new ideas to make them more unique and different from everyone else.