The Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive wants people to send in their photographs so that it can build an archive of portraits and observations of what it calls ‘small details that capture our current reality and show how these changes are affecting the lives of Islanders’.
The JEP is also asking Islanders to send us a selection of your images as we embark on a ‘parish portrait’ series. In the coming weeks our photographers, who will be following the current rules, will be aiming to capture life in each parish under lockdown in a series of images, which will be combined with readers’ pictures and published as a spread in the paper.
To contribute an image, please email it to pictures@jerseyeveningpost.com, including your name and the parish in which it was taken.
Meanwhile, Patrick Cahill, photo archivist and executive editor at the Société, said everyone’s experience of the current crisis is relevant, whether they or someone they live with is working on the frontline or self-isolating, or if they are trying to balance family and work life or engaging with education online.
Currently the archive has more than 100,000 photos dating as far back as the 1840s. It is known as the principal Jersey collection of 19th and early 20th century photography.
Mr Cahill said: ‘We are living in an unprecedented time right now. This virus is affecting Islanders of all backgrounds and demographics. It’s causing profound changes to how we work, relax, communicate and exercise.
‘We have a unique opportunity to archive this experience for future generations to understand how self-isolation feels, what social distancing looks like, and how the community came together to get through some of the most restrictive measures ever introduced in peacetime.
‘It’s at times like these that the personal becomes universal. At the photographic archive we have images dating back to the mid-1840s. And it is through the unique collections that we can trace the social and cultural history of our Island from the mid 19th century to modern times.’
Individual photos or personal collections can be submitted via email or WeTransfer.
Submissions should be sent to photoarchive@societe-jersiaise.org and must have a permission form attached which can be found on the organisation’s website.
For more information visit societe-jersiaise.org.
