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.
Keld Helmer-Petersen (20 August 1920 – 6 March 2013) was a Danish photographer who 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. Keld Helmer-Petersen’s 122 Farvefotografier was published in 1948, it is a photobook of great singularity. The book gained an idea of just how unusual it was to use color for art photographs at that time. However, as well as Helmer-Petersen’s innotive work in colour photogrpahy he also has explored some creative and abstract black and white photography.
Inspired by his work I used Photoshop to re-create photos similar to his black and white ones. I used the threshold tool to create a similar look and then adjusted the slider to add more or less black and whites.
These are the unedited images I used to create my work influenced by Helmer Petersen.
Helmer-Peterson produced large bodies of work in which he presented his images as the black and white extremities of the tones of his subject. This gave his work a bold and considerably minimalist style. Many of his subjects were based around a theme of industrialisation and architecture. The lack of any tones between black and white mean that the viewer is able to quickly interpret what the image is putting forwards without any unnecessary distraction.
Helmer-Petersen Exhibition
My Response To Helmer-Petersen’s work
I produced this response simply in Photoshop using the threshold tool and adjusting it to a point where i believed it looked as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Then compiling the 4 edited images into 1 document in which the compliment one another.
This image is taken from Robert Frank's book 'The Americans' which focuses on post war American photography and society at that time. This image named, 'Trolly' which was taken in New Orleans, 1955 focuses on the citizens of New Orleans. The subject of the photo, the people, is made clear from the composition and framing in the photo, Frank's has made a deliberate choice to crop out any other surrounding objects that may distract from the subject, another factor is the way that the windows frame each of the intended subjects which makes them more focused, the use of the rule of thirds also creates an interesting composition. At a first glance the photo seems as if it is just showing people going about their every day lives, but there is much more of an intention than that, during the 1950's there was a clear racial segregation between white and black, this is shown through the seating on the trolly, with the white people at the front and the black people at the back and I think that it was Frank's intention to show this. Frank's has used a fast shutter speed to capture all of the detail and to create a clear image of the people and trolly, the image is also has a high contrast and deep depth of field both of which add to the atmosphere of the photo.
Trolley, New Orleans, 1955, Robert Frank ”The Americans”
The analysis of photographs consist of 4 elements these are:
-Visual
-Technical
-Conceptual
– Contextual
Analysis of Robert Frank’s ‘Trolley’
Visual: This photograph consists of various visual aspects. One of these aspects is the tone of the image due to the time it was taken. The monochrome tones allow the viewer to focus more on what the photograph is trying to capture rather than it’s details, and also shows a contrast between the races in the photograph. The photo consists of various natural frames, these natural frames surround the different goings-on within the photo allowing the viewer to look at each part separately without the distraction of another. The window frames of the train represent a separation between different classes and races, showing the hierarchy of power at the time, from the left to right. The rule of thirds is present in the image as it is split up into 3 sections from top to bottom, which gives the image extra focusses other than the main one in the centre. Although the image does mainly consist of foreground (the train) There is still an even depth of field as Robert Frank still keeps the background of the image clear.
Technical: The image has been taken using a natural light source, this could be a contrast between the nature and the unnatural social and racial issues of the time. There is a low aperture that is used to capture the background of the image sharply and to ensure that the entire image is focussed. The image would have probably been taken with a considerably fast shutter speed in order to capture the movement of the train sharply rather than the motion being evident. The image overall has a large tonal range, with the top of the image containing mainly light tones the centre containing a balance of tones and the bottom containing mainly dark tones, which could also represent the racial hierarchy of the era with white people believing they were above people of other race.
Conceptual: The white man is separated from the other passengers on the train as he is covered by the transparent window, this represents how he would’ve been protected by society at the time. The order of power at the time is shown from left to right which links in with the contextual side of things. The white bars between the separate frames/windows represent the power of white at the time, and how it was them who were separating themselves from black people during that era.
Contextual: This photograph was taken in the 1950’s. At this time the US was suffering from massive racial issues of segregation. This is due to the fact that equal rights hadn’t been introduced and racism was heavily influenced by the general public through political and governmental actions. This caused a segregated system on public transport, which is why in this image the African-American people are situated at the back of the train and the White-Americans are situated more forward. There was also issues with gender equality, as at the time of this photograph the US was a patriarchal society, that is why the males are situated in front of the females within each gender. So overall the image shows the massive social changes in society since the 1950’s.
The zone system was a technique that was created by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in the 1930's, the technique can be help determine the correct exposure for any lighting conditions that you may encounter when taking photographs. The zone system consists of 11 different zones ranging from 0, pure white tones, to 10, pure black tone.
