What is Identity politics?

Identity politics, put simply is the tendency for people from certain religions, ethnic groups, social backgrounds and other groups to create exclusive political alliances, rather than choosing on the brood-based party politics. With the term made in 1977 by the Combahee River collective, its usage went on to become more popular in the 80’s, where events based on identity became more prevalent. Such as with the social activisms of People from The Feminist, LGBT and Civil rights groups. The most recent case of this term can be seen with the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Black Lives Matter movement is a decentralised political and social movement that strides towards showing the highlighted issues around racism. Being an international movement, it can be throughout many countries where black people have experienced racism and oppression. Due to the numerous reported cases of African Americans being killed by white police officers such as Breanna Taylor, the situation grew larger and larger with riots being held in protest. The most significant riot was held when A man called George Floyd was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck. After this, city’s in the US developed into chaos as members of their black community’s and people who supported them, rioted against the police about the unfairness law enforcement had treated them, with the issue becoming so widespread celebrities became involved in the marches held In major cities across the world.

(Such as: John Boyega in London and Jonah Hill in Los Angeles).

(Police and protesters: Clashed amongst the rioting, with fires, tear gas and batons).

With the cases of rioting however, unnecessary violence and property damage, causes harm to both people in and outside the cause. In some cases black business owners found their stores looted and destroyed during the BLM riots despite being supporters of the cause. This raised a question to at what point did it stop becoming about the actual objective of the movement and instead became an excuse for greediness and senseless violence.

Due to foundation of many areas being built on the backs of slavery, the movement found itself originating in America, with one of the major events in history for the cause being the civil rights movement. Spanning from 1954 to 1968, black people held a campaign to abolish Racism, discrimination and segregation in the US. Key figures arose from this such as Rosa parks’ and her bus boycotts as-well as Martin Luther King Jr, speaking out on behalf on creating a world where Black people could be treated equality to other people. 

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”

“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.”

On a local level, The Black Lives Matter movement can be found amongst the Channel Islands. One example being the push by protestors to remove the George De Carteret statue in June of 2020 due to his strong links to slavery after the death of George Floyd Sparked a worldwide debate on who should be immortalised in the form of statues.

Since 2020, 168 statues of historical figures who had links to the slave trade have been removed. One of these statues who sparked controversy was the one of George de Carteret outside the George de Carteret Pub we’re it was vandalised for his links to the slave trade.

(White paint was seen to thrown of him in the early stages of the protest, with later protests having ‘blood’ on his hands and bound in chains).

Identity politics can be seen to spark conversation about the issues faced by certain members of our societies. However with the rise of demonstrations amongst different groups it seems that people are at a culture war to make themselves standout amongst each other. However with actions of hardship publicly shown and protested about by these groups, it goes to show how much it is relevant in the world and how it needs to change to make it a better place for everyone to live in.

Using my Mullins photos, I experimented more with the types of Headshots I could create.

By overlaying images, cutting them out from their individual layers and lowering their opacity I was able to create some edits I liked the outcome of:

(Example of what the cuts look like)

(Layer 3 – 40% opacity, layer 1 – 50% opacity = helps create overlapped effect)

By adjusting the Hue and saturation, this is how I got the multi-coloured image with each layer having a sperate colour.

(For example, this is how I adjusted my images to get the colour I wanted)

Edits:

I like how these images came out, In future, more photos would be better as I would be able to further experiment with my images.

With Juxtaposition, A comparison can be made of my attempt images to same type of headshot Style, Henry Mullins took in his photos.

Using the same angles I was able to recreate some of his photos.

Comparisons:

Using the lighting techniques I learnt prior I was able to add more detail to these headshots. In conclusion I like how these images compare to the originals and believe I have replicated these images well.

For my edits I wanted to recreate the diamond Cameos Mullins did during his later work. Playing around with the saturation and tone of the image I was going for the Old-timey looks his images had on his Carte-de-visite’s.

Edit settings:

Going for a grainy effect, I tried to replicate the vintage aesthetic of Mullins photographs with the following settings:

Using from what I have learnt from my studies into studio lighting, I enhanced the shadow on my Chiaroscuro lighting with these edited images.

Since Mullins photographs were taken pre-colour film, I decided with my edits to have a low saturation to have that same visual composition of his images.

(Further use of studio lighting, here I used Rembrandt and made it more prominent with white settings)

Going for a very old looking photo, I attempted this by Increasing the size and roughness of the grain. Additionally by adjusting the exposure and contrast, it made a more brighter image and tonal difference amongst the light and dark parts of the Image.

(Using Rembrandt lighting again, I used grain to give it a more prominent appearance).

Diamond Cameo edits:

Using the eclipse tool, feathering and a use of alternative backgrounds, I edited my images further with photoshop.

Sticking to the idea of Diamond Cameo, I experimented further by alternatively adding a background of an old photo of Jerseys king street.

With This Diamond Cameo, I matched the background image of my photos to an old image of a newspaper I found. To me this creates an interesting composition as the headshots almost merge into to the newspaper.

Going for that old card effect, I used photoshop textures to make this image more interesting with its visual composition.

These images are from my Henry Mullins Photoshoot.

My Intention with this shoot was to recreate the headshots Mullins used to create his Carte-de-visite’s and Diamond Cameos. With editing I will make my images look like his.

Camera Settings:

Green coloured:

These photos are rated 4 – 5 on the star rating, and are flagged meaning I believe they had a decent outcome.

These matched the angles I would like to use for my Diamond Cameos. Additionally the composition of these image came out well, as the contrast of shadows makes a good tonal effect for that vintage look I am going for.

Red coloured:

These photos aren’t rated as they did not conform to the idea I was going for. Some weren’t taken properly, as they were over exposed or too dimly lit.

These were unable to be used, due to not matching what I was going for. This was because I did not think they had the same angle types I was looking for with my work.

Best Photos:

Info:

Henry Mullins, a photographer who arrived in Jersey in 1848, lived in the parish of St Helier. During his time here he owned a studio near the royal square where he would take professional Carte-de-visite’s of wealthy middle class of Jersey. With his most active amounts of work being around 1867 to 1872, This was due to the Royal family having their portraits taken on Carte-de-visites. Inspired by the monarchy people came to him in St Helier from his advertisements to get their picture taken. During this period he took numerous headshots of Jerseys ruling elite as can be seen from the Military styled uniforms worn by most of the men in his photos.

(From right to left, Cpt C de Quetteville, Mr Anley and Lt Egre)

(Cpt – Captain & Lt – Lieutenant)

(Advertisement for Mullins photography in the royal square)

From the period of 1852 to 1873, he produced 9,000 portraits of Islanders when the population of jersey was around in the 55,000s. Creating multiple Albums of the people of Jersey, this documentary photography formed a sort of ‘who’s’ who’ on the types of people in Jersey at the time (during the 19th century). This included examples such as Jurats, figures in the government and other people of a wealthy status.

(Part of Jerripedia’s list of names of who had been photographed by Mullins, note the Jersey last names, familiar to some locations)

(One of his portfolios filled with his portraits)

Now stored in the Societe Jersiase photo-archive, his work contributed largely into understanding the historic past and atmosphere of the people of Jerseys past. With around half of the population today, his achievements on capturing a large majority of it, helps show Jersey’s social classes at the time. And with Local last names possibly trace back, identify and visually see their ancestors.

His Experiments:

Using the whites from egg yolk, Mullins was able to create a faded effect on his portraits, this isolated the rest of the body until it was just the shoulders neck and head in the frame, this process of early editing created an interesting Headshot, and became more apparent in some of his portfolios in the mid-late 19th century.

Another one of his experiments can be seen with Diamond Cameos, where by having 4 angles of headshots placed in a diamond shape created a unique way of capturing his subjects.

Taking influence from Mullins, In my next blog post I will attempt to recreate this edited style with some of my own images.

Headshot – A photograph of someone’s face, head and shoulders.

Developed from portraits, they find there origins, traditionally from passport photos, résumés for actors musicians etc.

This style of portrait helps to clearly define the subjects facial features as well as provide a clear basis for people to make assumptions on someone’s character, possibly based of appearance (like how they dress).

The classical origins, find themselves dating back to 1839, where photographer, Robert Cornelius was one of the first to experiment with the ideas of headshot portraits.

In 1854,  André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri  produced a more cost effective way of producing these headshots by cutting up full-sized plates into 4 separate small portraits. These photos soon became known as Carte-de-visite, translating to visiting cards.

These grew in popularity across both Europe and the US, where families of wealthy class got them to exercise their wealth. With some people such as queen Victoria getting one to flex her status.

In the 20th century, they soon developed into a secondary purpose of being used as promotional material.

(promotional photo of Katherine Hepburn in the 1940s)

The modern headshot is now used as an art form, used for exploring different ways of portraying the face. Some elements of the classical headshots can be found in Professional headshots, used for marketing purposes, someone’s influential status and image, such as a celebrity can be sold for their likeness.