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.
“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.
St Aubin was the main harbour for Jersey merchants before St Helier became the central maritime hub. St Helier harbours were proving too small for the larger ships and increasing tonnages, with both drying out at low tide.
So it was to St Aubin that the States turned when the demand for a harbour could no longer be ignored, and during the 17th century this certainly became the island’s principal port, where vessels headed to and from the cod fisheries on the Canadian coast would moor, alongside cargo vessels and privateers and their captures.
There have been a number of 20th century developments. The tanker berth was built to allow tankers to offload fuel and oil supplies near to the fuel farm. It is also the outermost part (at the southern edge) of the harbour. Further north, La Collette Yacht Basin backs onto the Victoria Pier, and provides a deep-water harbour for leisure craft. Nearby is the area for the fishing fleet.
In the 1970s, Jersey had plans to create the now called la Collette. This is where more land was added to the existing harbour for more space, ext.
Today, the company, Ports of Jersey operates all entry and exit points to the island, including harbours and airport. They have plans to re-develop St Helier Harbour into a modern commercial maritime hub – see their Harbour Masterplan here.
Above is a map view of the pier, from late 1700s to mid 1900s. in the 1970s they added a lot to albert pier, here is a google maps view:
All the stuff on the left is all new land created, called Elizabeth pier.
Mood board
For my next photoshoot I want to take similar photos to the ones already on the jersey archive. As well as try to be creative with some new photos.
Jersey is the largest of the channel islands, which is off the coast of France. The islands were separated from mainland Europe with rising sea levels in the Neolithic period; thereafter maritime activity commenced. Jersey is packed full of history, making it a popular tourist destination for holiday makers. One of the most important parts of history is its maritime. Jersey was an important part of the boat building industry and the fishing industry.
What was the involvement of Jersey mariners in the Canadian cod-fisheries and the Transatlantic carrying trade?
Cod was valuable and from 1763 when Quebec (in Canada) 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.
Up to 2000 quintals a year (weighing up to 50kg) where shipped to the Caribbean and Europe. The American war of independence saw the Guernsey fishing colony fade away as more profitable opportunities opened up, privateering.
Which ports did Jersey ships sail to and trade with?
St Aubin was the main harbour for Jersey merchants before St Helier became the central maritime hub. St Helier harbours were proving too small for the larger ships and increasing tonnages, with both drying out at low tide. Jersey added a few piers to its harbour, such as Victoria and Albert Piers.
What type of goods did Jersey merchants exchange for cod-fish?
dried cod from Newfoundland and Gaspe coast, cloth, wine, wool, leather and household goods.
To what extend, 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’s constitutional relationship with Britain has been highly beneficial in terms of maintaining autonomy while reaping the benefits of British defense and trade networks. During the Industrial Revolution, Jersey’s economy thrived on agriculture, maritime trade, and colonial connections. Although it did not develop a major industrial base, it profited from the global expansion of trade driven by industrial growth.
The island also benefitted indirectly from the slave plantation economy, through its involvement in maritime trade, shipping, and investments in slave-based colonial industries. While this role was not as prominent as in major British ports, it nevertheless left a legacy that contributed to Jersey’s wealth accumulation and modern financial prowess. it used the triangular slave trade to cure the fish and send it to countries around the world, as well as importing goods back to Jersey.
Here Is my first Attempt at InDesign, I used the rectangle frame tool to design where I wanted the pictures to go, then I inserted pictures that I thought went well in those areas. I wanted this slide to be entirely building and motor vehicles so that my next slide can be full of pictures showing the decisive moment. I saw a few picture magazines having text duplicated going across the screen so I replicated that here with the St Malo title.
Here Is my second attempt, I reogranised some of the photos but It doesnt look as good as the first so I thought I could add some colour to the image.
I reorganised the photos again and changed the title to a normal title, I think this is my best one so far.
Using New Photos:
I’m now using photos of people to present the decisive moment, I used a quirky font for the title, however I don’t think it looks French enough so I will add some next.
Here I added the French flag with a slight angle at the back of the image. The ‘st’ in the title was hard to see so I changed it to from black to white, to contrast the dark blue behind it. Next I feel like I could improve the title, and maybe experiment more with the background:
I used a picture of a wall in st malo that I took for the background Image, also decreasing the transparency. I also changed the title to something French. Next Im going to try reducing the noise in the centre by shrinking some images and removing some text:
I also added a drop shadow to some of the title and tilted some of the image a little bit but not too much where it looks wrong.
Above is my final iteration, I changed the photos and added different borders to images. I also decreased the transparency for the background image.
Above is a little mood board of various magazine and picture stories I have found online. I will be using my photos from the St. Malo trip to create a picture story of the walled town.
Analysis:
This page is apart of the ‘Nurse Midwife’ by W Eugene Smith. It talks about stories of Midwifes and the difficulties of being a midwife. I like how one side is just a single picture, as well as being the most dramatic picture. I think this was done to allow the viewer to spend time looking at the image instead of glancing at it and turning to the next page. On the left side, the photos dominate the text, likely because its easier to show emotion faster thought images than text. The font used for the title ‘Maude’s 16-hour day’ is bold, larger and different to others, making it stand out more.
Here I used Lightroom to only saturate parts of the image with the specific colour I want. Then using the brush tool (with settings that make the selected parts of the image unsaturated/black and white) I went over parts of the image which also had that colour in and turned made those parts black and white. This is a effective method as it forces the eyes to the main subject.
Motion Blur:
For the 2 top images I added motion blur after on photoshop by selecting the subjects, Inverting the selection and duplicated it. Then on the duplicated layer I added Motion blur, adjusting its angle to make it look more realistic, as if my camera was locked onto the subjects while I was moving. Since it was busy when we went, there where many other people in the background where they viewers eyes could drift off to which isn’t ideal, so by blurring the background it makes the subject(s) stand out more. For the bottom Image the person has real motion blur because I increased the shutter opening time. This also makes the image very bright so to combat this I increased the f-stop and decreased the ISO. I think this is a nice effect as it shows movement in the walls of the town, making it feel more alive in my photos.
To “crop” an image is to remove or adjust the outside edges of an image (typically a photo) to improve framing or composition, draw a viewer’s eye to the subject, or change the size or aspect ratio. In other words, photo cropping is the act of improving an image by removing unnecessary parts. Here is me trying to crop my images to improve them in different ways.
Landscape and portrait crop:
I think the landscape format crop works better for this image as the walls around the people act as a border, forcing the eyes towards the subject more and cropping the image landscape will not waste this feature. However, the pebbles on the ground that can be seen on the portrait image, leads the eyes towards the subjects, as they get smaller and smaller. I edited this photo in black and white too keep with match the style of Bresson.
Panoramic crop:
Here I did wide crops of 2 images, on vertically and one horizontally. I think the first image works well for a wide, horizontal crop because there is a lot of empty or unimportant detail that does not add to the overall image so I cropped it out. It also makes the main subject take up more of the image. The second image works well with a vertical crop because it keeps only one subject in the photo, and creates an interesting photo with all the windows behind taking up the background of the image.
square crop:
With a rectangular crop, the eye has a tendency to move across the image until it finds its focal point; with a square crop the eye moves around the image. This shift in the dynamic, from fluid to static, presents you with a great setting for capturing the serene. Striking still lives with plain backgrounds and posed portraits work a treat in a square frame.
Centred subjects have a tendency to look flat and dull in a rectangular frame, but that circular eye motion that we make with square-cropped images means that they don’t lose their impact. This is clearly being show in this image of the car, as its headlights take the centre stage and stand out. All the people before now being cropped out further adds to the impact this car has. (I have edited this image in black and white to further stand out the little Renault).
circle crop:
Here I cropped this image in a mostly circular format in photoshop. I did this more for the contrast as most circle cropped images are happy and exciting but this one is the complete opposite, with this young kids parents having a fag.
Our school travelled to St Malo for street photography. St Malo is a walled city on the English channel coast and is a popular tourist centre and has a lot of historical value. We where trying to capture the ‘decisive moment’, coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson. This is where there was little planning involved (the furthest I planned was waiting at specific areas where I think an interesting moment could happen). I was looking for photos that looks classically ‘French’ as we where in France after all. I also did a few photos of just the French architecture, with their colourful French shutters and bright doors. Here are a few of my favourite photos with a small amount of colour editing:
Biuldings:
These photos would go very well together in a topology so I have edited them with similar settings so I can do this later on. I tried to capture the unique buildings in St.malo, that maybe had so moss growing, old paint, graffiti, and more to give the images more life.
People:
Here I mostly cropped to keep to the rule of thirds, making the subject more prominent, However with some cases I thought it looked better to forget about the rule of thirds, like when the subject is moving quickly off the scene. I have a few strong images that I will edit further and try a ‘Bresson style’ B&W photo.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a very influential and famous photographer, born in France in the earth 20th century and considered a master of candid photography (every aspect is unplanned). He harnessed the idea of the decisive moment, which is, with little planning, waiting for a moment which is interesting to capture. His photos set in motion a transformative wave that resonated throughout the photographic community. It symbolized a shift from planned, staged and seemingly perfect composition, to more real, spontaneous photos that tried to capture the truth in his subjects within the frame.
He saw his camera as an extension of his eye due to his understanding that the most appealing candid images are created when the subject is completely unaware they are being photographed. He also saw photography to be like ‘hunting’ your subject. This is because he never planned his photos, so he would walk around ‘hunting’ for the perfect photo.
“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder.
How he took photos and the camera used:
Bresson took photos in the photography genre called street photography, which is a form of documentary but it is decidedly not reportage and rarely tells one story. He would sometimes capture something very unexpectedly (like a crime, or an funny looking face), however most of his photos where seemingly normal yet extraordinary at the same time. This is due to his perfection in composition and finding the perfect subject.
Too take his street photographs, he used the Leica handheld camera, commercially available as of 1924. This was the perfect camera of the time to allow quick photographs on the move, as well as adjustable exposure time to capture more of less movement. It was a 35-mm film camera with a wide aperture, as well as being able to advance quickly, allowing photographers to take photos of the subject in quick succession. This meant the photographer had lots of choice to find the best photo.
Below are some famous photos from him:
his background:
he grew up in a wealthy family in France and originally had a passion for art, until he discovered photography, seeing it as an extension of his eye in the 1930s. This passion for photography steamed from seeing the work of two major 20th-century photographers, Eugène Atget and Man Ray. Making use of a small allowance, he traveled in Africa in 1931, where he lived in the bush, recording his experiences with a miniature camera.
He also visited many other places like Europe and America, expanding his knowledge of cultures an the world, allowing his to find a true meaning to photography, the decisive moment. This is where you consider everything like anticipating a good shot and the connection with the environment and the subject.
Photo analysis:
This photo is very good in many ways. Firstly, the rule of thirds are heavily in use, with the main subject running off the scene (in the centre right third), making the image compositionally more appealing. This also allows the viewer to see where the subject came from, and how he got over to the right (by leaping through the water). There are many structural lines that bring the eyes over to the this subject, like the fence in the background, the reflection of this fence, and the wood on the floor that the subject used to get across. The negative space in this image helps the subject to take over the image, especially his shadow witch completely contrasts the bight water.
The image is in Black and white, removing the distraction of colour, allowing the essence of the image to be captured, instead of realism, of course this was only due to a limitation of 1930s cameras, but it still positively impacted the image. the texture of the image became more pronounced as well, with the smooth, shiny water contrasting the the rough and worn out walls in the background.
He used a smaller aperture to achieve more depth of field (focus in the foreground and background), and a medium film speed to get the a clear photo with enough brightness in his image. His shutter speed was short to capture the subject jumping without them being to blurry.
mid day sun is very difficult to take photos in, however Bresson embraced the negatives of mid day sun. For example the harsh shadows created deep shadows, and high contrast. It also added texture to the image, especially the puddle, making more defined ripples.