For this photoshoot, we walked around the jersey harbours. I took pictures of the infrastructure of the piers and the buildings because they have a significant meaning of history behind them and therefore I figured that it would be a good photoshoot. I also took pictures of the boats in the harbour because I liked how they were all lined up together and there was multiple of them. I think this photoshoot went well because I was able to achieve some good picture which I can edit.
Photoshoot 2
I edited these images on Lightroom and turned them black and white. I like how these images turned out because they look dramatic and eerie which creates the idea of mystery which links to the harbour because there is so much history behind it.
Jersey is the biggest island of the channel islands, and was separated from Europe because of the rising sea levels which commenced the start of maritime history. Jersey started to trade with other countries and therefore they learnt new skills to earn money and to invest the money into maritime businesses. Jersey traded multiple things such as dried cod, wool, wine, leather and household goods.
Jersey cod merchants also traded cod-fish to other British colonies in the West Indies. Jersey also ended up trading cod-fish to brazil in exchange for sugar, rum, cotton and tobacco. Jersey benefitted from trading because it made them lots of profit to enable them to invest into the business.
In the 18th century Jersey became popular for ship building business. Jersey was required to build big ships to allow the merchants to take part in the Atlantic carrying trade. Great Britain was at war for 36 years in the 18th century which resulted in affecting the maritime trading and caused dangers. In the late modern period World War 1 and World War 2 occurred which saw the introduction of iron ships, steam and oil powered ships. However, the wooden ships that Jersey were building were extremely useful and enabled them to trade to South America, Hong Kong, and America and this also allowed people from Jersey to immigrate to Australia or New Zealand and other places. By the 1850’s Jersey had built 300-400 ships.
For the first shoot, I visited Societe Jersiaise researching old photos of the harbour with archivists. Having done some research I went on a guided walk, with a former harbour master, learning about the new and old harbours. I then took photos of the harbours and everything in and around them, capturing the details of the harbour to the the harbour as a whole.
I then went onto upload and edit the photos, starting by going through the photos, colour coding each one, ether red, green or yellow.
I then went through the green flagged photos and selected the best from those, this allowed me to have a small selection of good photos to then select a few good ones that go well together to edit.
First Edit
For this photo I cropped it to centre the buoys, this fits the photo into the grid lines (rule of thirds).
By making small adjustments to the colour I brought out the colour in the faded buoys and the sea, this also helped bring out the texture of the sea.
Edit Two
I liked the diagonal line the boats create in this photo so I then edited the colours to reduce the highlights as the glare on the boats was quite harsh form the lighting. I cropped photo to highlight the line and frame the photo better, this also removed the cars as in the frame it was distracting.
Edit Three
Edit Four
For this photo I sorted the slight angle and also cropped the image down so background wasn’t as visible. This helped create a further ambiguous effect, not revealing the background or context.
Edit Five
Edit Six
For this photo there was spots that were distracting so after the colour editing I used the spot heal tool to neaten up the photo.
Edit Seven
Edit Eight
Edit Nine
Edit Ten
Edit Eleven
Final Edits
Final Evaluation on this photoshoot
This photoshoot was the bas of my ideas, capturing everyone and everything at the harbour to create a style of images. I particularly liked the detail shots, or otherwise known as abstract shots. I think these help add emphasis on how brutal the harbour can be with the constant soaking in salt and open windy area. I also picked some with the boats and also the trucks, shipping containers to show how the sea a natural thing has been industrialised through the years with constant improvement on the harbour as not only times progress commercially but as industries die out. By using the 70-200mm lens I had many strong, high quality photos however I think it would be great to revisit these areas with a wider angle lens to add deeper context on the areas with broader shots now I have gotten the smaller details and started to understand the harbour around me. Particularly having done the research on the harbour before hand it gave me a strong base to capture the essence of the harbour. I chose not to change the colours as I actually think the bright colours make up a huge part of the harbour and highlight the development over time of the harbour from dull steel and wooden boats historically to bright cheap plastic dingy to carry people to the new shiny mechanised boats of the modern day.
We are going on a photography trip and during this trip we will be doing 2 photoshoots, one at the Old English and French Harbours and the other at Albert Pier. During these photoshoots, I am going to photograph the harbour to show how it has changed over time. I am also going to find some old images of the area and try to recreate them, showing the new surroundings.
For this photoshoot, we visited Jersey’s Maritime museum to learn about the history of Jersey’s Harbours, and capture it’s evolvement with our cameras. We also walked around 2 piers, Victoria pier and South pier. On Victoria Pier, we took some photos of the fresh fish from the ocean, and the fishermen at their job.
For these images, I colour coded and rated them out of 5 stars so I knew which ones were my favourite, the worst ones and the best ones to edit.
Before vs after: editingand experimenting
Photos I will use in my zine:
Evaluation:
Overall, I really like the photos I chose to edit because they are clear and show the reality of Jersey Harbours. Initially, in this photoshoot, I found that I wasn’t really interested in the harbour, but I loved visiting the maritime museum. I found that using photography to explore the harbour made the visit more exciting and engaging. I’m very happy with how the images came out, I focused on the colours of the images so I created negatives and positives using the intensity of the saturation.
The processes of making changes to images or text, deciding what will be removed and what will be kept in, in order to prepare it for being printed or shown.
a photo sequence means putting a bunch of pictures in the order the viewer will receive those images, it can be for a book, an exhibition walking tour, or just the reading order of a few photographs displayed on a wall, sequencing is ordering the visual flow, some will say storytelling.
Why?
I want to edit my images so I have both black and shite images and coloured images. This is so I can show the historic values of the St. Helier harbour and also the modern values.
I wanted to sequence my zine in a way that it would flow, almost like a time line.
Creating nostalgia for the viewer but also something or there time so they can relate too it, something they walk past everyday and take no notice of.
What Is The Difference Between Story And Narrative?
A story is a format, almost like a genre, whereas narratives are forever changing. For example if a big event happened and the police came to ask about it the event would be a story and the way that the witnesses’ describe it would be the narrative. You can tell narratives of the same story. It is very subjective and hybrid, with different people telling different narratives, or some people even having the exact same way of thinking.
Narrative can start to be constructed when two and two go together, your titles of your zine has to flow with the images within, which each have to flow with each other. For example you couldn’t have a zine that’s half birds and then half apples. The way that you select your images and how you sequence them within the zine will construct your narrative.
Your title plays a big part in identifying what you are trying to tell, it creates the story line, a base and format leaving the mind to link the connotations between your images and your text.
What Is A Zine?
The word ‘Zine’ is a slang word for magazine. Zines are short informal magazines, created to more entertain rather than educate. Magazines are paid productions of media, created by media conglomerates that create revenue by advertising and selling, whereas zines are more personal and hand made, they do not aim to create money so there are generally free and do not contain any adverts.
What Will Be My Story?
My zines story is going to be about the St. Helier harbour. I wanted to create something that shows the trade and exchange in Jersey, something that portrays how useful our waters and quays are.
Describe In Three Words
Jersey Trade & Communication
Describe In A sentence
An observation of the essentiality of Jerseys harbours and relationships.
Describe With A Paragraph
I want to tell a story about how important Jerseys trade and communications is. Jersey is a very small island, which means we are heavily dependant on other people. Although Jerseys harbours are seen as historic, just a maritime museum, I am going to portray how important they still are. We need trade to survive, without it we would collapse as a whole, that’s why keeping communications up is so important.
How Will I Create A Narrative And Tell My Story?
Anchorage with the title.
Use black and white images to portray history.
Use colourful images to create liveliness.
Use images with people in to observe communication.
Have images that flow, and all relate to trade and communicating.
Use images from different sections of the harbour to show trades impact.
Use images that portray wealth so I can show how trade has impacted our island.
Use an image of the trade being sold for goods (Quayside Café)
Use create fonts and words to tell a unique story.
Maybe include some images from the photographic archive to show the history of trade.
Use some image captions to add a signified meaning.
Maybe add a short introduction to let people know what I want them to interpret.
The channel islands were separated from mainland Europe, due to rising sea levels in the Neolithic period. After maritime activity began, they desperately needed start trading so over time they became more advanced, built up skills, started earning money and investing capital in maritime businesses.
Roman hoards had later been discovered, however people were unsure of the reason for being on Jersey. Evidence of Roman settlements on the Island show intricate trading networks.
1950 in Canada, After Charles Robins arrival permanent fishing stations were established, having had a com-mission he was given the privilege of trading cod/ other types fish.
What was the involvement of Jersey mariners in the Canadian cod-fisheries and the Transatlantic carrying trade?
Between the 15th to the 18th century, technical and navigation improvements were made enabling ships to have the ability to sail out of sight from land for days. This meant that trade could increase across the channel, and so became involved in the Canadian cod-fisheries. Cod Merchants from Britain were beginning to set up fisheries on the Gaspe coast. The islands were given concessions which were then traded, including dried cod from Newfoundland and Gaspe coast, cloth, wine, wool, leather and household goods.
Jersey’s maritime history of trade and cod triangle links with South America, Newfoundland and Gaspe. Trading mahogany and cod reveal toe between Jersey and the transatlantic slave trade.
Which ports did Jersey ships sail to and trade with?& What type of goods did Jersey merchants exchange for cod-fish?
Jersey cod merchants traded cod across the channel, where the islands were given concessions.
Jersey Merchants were heavily involved in the Atlantic trade, otherwise known as the ‘merchant triangle.’ They traded with concessions such as agricultural or manufactured goods/ products, in which were exchanged in the British Empire, as well as other European colonies in the Caribbean, South America and the Mediterranean.
In the 18th century Charles Robins was one of Jersey’s premier cod-merchants, who later formed markets in Canada, producing two types of cod suitable for where they were later exported too.
Salted cod otherwise known as ‘green’ cod was more ideal for selling on the markets in the Caribbean or North East Brazil as this was fresher which was a shorter run in the triangular Atlantic trade. This type was now called ‘West India Fish,’ which was sold to planters to then feed to its enslaved populations in hope to increase the productivity in the plantations, as it was protein rich. In exchange, Robin would load his ship with plantation produce such as sugar, rum, molasses, cotton, coffee and tobacco before sailing across on the third leg of the Atlantic triangular trade route to the Mediterranean, England and Jersey.
Dry-cured cod, also known as ‘yellow’ was marketed as a premier product and sold to markets in Europe, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy, with their large Roman Catholic populations, fish was in great demand. From ports in Lisbon, Cadiz and Naples merchants traded cod-fish for other products such as salt (used in the curing process), wine, spirits, fruits and spices which they brought back to Jersey and British ports before returning to Canada.
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).
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.
