Keld Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer, born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1920, he achieved his international breakthrough in 1948 when he published 122 Farvefotografier/122 Colour Photographs, a collection of experiments with shapes inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch. Below are some examples of his work.
Below are some experiments that I did with my work inspired by Keld Helmer Petersen, to achieve this style of photo i used Photoshop, I began by firstly cropping the images to get rid of any negative space and improve the composition of my photos, i then used the threshold tool to make the images only two tones of white and black.
Keld Helmer Petersen was a Danish modernist photographer. Keld was internationally acclaimed for his images of structures, patterns and details found in industrial areas, city scapes and nature.
These are examples of his work
These are my attempt at editing photos in the style of Keld Helmer Petersen.
The first image was the original image without any edits or manipulations. The second image was my attempt to create a photo in the style of Keld’s.
How I created a photo in the style of Keld Helmer Petersen
Firstly, I cropped the image to make it square and to make this chosen image follow the rule of thirds.
Once I was happy with how I cropped the image I clicked on the image tool at the top of the screen where there were multiple options for me to use where I could edit my image. I then went to the adjustment option where it gave me another drop down option which I then scrolled down and clicked on the threshold option. Once I had clicked the threshold option it changed the contrast of the picture massively as well as changing the image to black and white. I played around with the threshold option until i was really happy with it. This was my Final image.
Keld Helmer-Petersen born the 20 August 1920 was a Danish photographer who got his breakthrough in the photogrpahy world when he published 122 Farvefotografier/122 Colour Photographs, this was a collection of experiments with shapes inspired by the work of Albert Renger-Patzsch and Neue Sachlichkeit. In the book was a collection of photos that he thought would only work in colour and not black and white.
Keld Helmer-Petersen was born and grew up in the Østerbro quarter of Copenhagen. He started taking photographs in 1938, when he received a Leica camera as a graduation present.[1] At an early stage, he became aware of the trends in international photography; in the 1940s he subscribed to the US Camera Annual and in this period became familiar with German inter-war photography, which had developed at the Bauhaus and in the Neue Sachlichkeit (The New Objectivity) movement. In his later life he released a series of other books which focused on a different light to other work in colour, as the books only contained black and white images.
Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who looks at shapes similarly to Albert Renger-Patzch. His work, especially his book “122 Colour Photographs” brought modernism to Danish photography and earned him a grant for a years study at the Art Institute of Chicago. He looks at the natural shapes and pattern in the world around us and creates something attention-grabbing out of it. A lot of the work he did was high-contrast and this below I have created some work in his style.
The Process
I edited the image in the style of Helmer-Petersen by firstly choosing the threshold option on photoshop.
I then edited the white and black balance using the slider to create my ideal image.
I then cropped the image to produce a square so that I could present my images in one sheet.
I looked at inverting the image to create something new but i decided not to.
I then put all four images into one page to showcase them.
I think this photo expresses Frank Hallam-Day’s theme of passage of time on works of man well. He highlights the bright colour yellow and also the brown to emphasise the weathering of the ship hull. He contrasts the work of man (ship hull) with nature (water) to express the affect nature has. The photo is split into the rule of thirds horizontally and one line vertically, creating a grid shape to show the sections within the photo of different patterns like weathering and rusting. The middle section has different levels of rust from where the sea has been, expressing that the ship hulls where once technological achievements but are now just sitting in the harbour. He contrasts the bottom of the photo with the top half, the bottom half having a lot of marks and patterns, and the top being one bold colour. The marks on the ship hull create interesting reflections on the sea and he has increased saturation to emphasise the rust in the reflection.
The bokeh effect refers to blur or a blurry quality, and in photography it is a very recognizable technique. The word bokeh translates from Japanese as ‘blur’.
Bokeh tends to appear in the areas of an image that remain outside the focal region. Because of this the most common technique used to add it is a shallow depth of field created through a wide open aperture. It is generally considered pleasing for your eyes and your perception of a photograph, because it can add softness to an otherwise harshly lit photograph.
This website shows the different types of bokeh effects that can be achieved:
The black and white emphasises the different races and the repetition of the physical bar standing between the people, and the rest of the bus, shows the segregation and categorises them individually. The photograph demonstrates the rule of third as it has vertical and horizontal lines. It also shows signs of Ansel Adams zone system, the brightest point being the white bars.
Conceptual
The idea that America in the 1920s wasn’t a great life for everyone , and racism was a apart of everyday life, revealing the cruel reality of the ‘American Dream’.
Technical
The photo has natural daylight as Robert Frank was a documentary photographer. The photo was taken on the streets so has no artificial lighting. He used a fast shutter speed as the photo is very sharp and not blurred so if the bus was moving at the time he captured all the detail.
Contextual
The 1920’s was a time of racism and prejudice and it was uncommon for photographers to tackle the issue of racism at the time.
I have taken inspiration from Keld Helmer Peterson and edited my photos in photoshop, using the threshold effect to achieve a similar appearance.
I cropped the photos and altered the threshold levels to get the effect I wanted. I put the edited photos in a square shape to show my work as whole.
I think these photos work well in a grid format as the threshold effect shows the different textures of water. Having the images together emphasises the contrast from white to black and because the photos only have two colours it makes them more powerful.
Keld Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who used the technique of thresholding in his photography.
At the start of his career, his aim was to make pictures that would only work in colour, and not in black and white. When he began focusing on architectural photography, he then used the black and white effect .
The simplest thresholding methods replace each pixel in an image with a black pixel if the image intensity is less than some fixed constant or a white pixel if the image intensity is greater than that constant.
This photo is from Keld Helmer-Peterson’s black and white photography where he looks at threshold. The photo at first glance does not look like a photo of telephone wires and could be mistaken as a drawing because of the bold solid colours displayed. He removed all mid tones so the contrast from white to black emphasises the thin lines as well as the bolder ones and also the different shapes in the photo. Because the photo only contains two colours, with no varied tones, it create a bold and striking appearance that couldn’t be achieved with mid tones.
was a Danish photographer who got his breakthrough in the photogrpahy world when he published 122 Farvefotografier/122 Colour Photographs, this was a collection of experiments with shapes inspired by the work of Albert Renger-Patzsch and Neue Sachlichkeit. In the book was a collection of photos that he thought would only work in colour and not black and white.
Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who looks at shapes similarly to Albert Renger-Patzch. His work, especially his book “122 Colour Photographs” brought modernism to Danish photography and earned him a grant for a years study at the Art Institute of Chicago. He looks at the natural shapes and pattern in the world around us and creates something attention-grabbing out of it. A lot of the work he did was high-contrast and this below I have created some work in his style.
Image Analysis:
