Keld Helmer-Petersen was a danish photographer who achieved a wide spread recognition in the 1940-1950’s, he was known for his color abstract photography. But in this project I focused on his black and white contrasting images. In his black and white photos there is a lot of empty space in the photos and he focuses on lines, texture and pattern. Petersen ended up opening up his own studios.
In this image Peterson has sued the natural light as the image has been take outside, but he has edited this image by changing the threshold and making the images more distinct with more empty spaces, shown by the block of either black or white in the image. The range of tone is limited in this image this is because of the way Peterson has edited his image and made it bold and simple. He also has a range of focus and depth in this image, the things at the front of the image are more focused and bold, but as you look further back into the image things become less clearer and less bold. Visually this image looks like a cold image because of the bold black areas taking over the photo, and the lines in all directions give it a chilling feeling.
I then decided to responded to Keld Helmer-Petersen’s work, I did this by using images I had previously taken and then editing them in Photoshop. When editing the images i mainly focuses on changing the threshold of the images, to either increase the amount of white or black in the image, and making the represent the work Petersen did.
I firstly started with the original image in Photoshop and took these steps in order to change the threshold.
I did these step for each of my 4 images, I then copied them all over onto one page and created a gallery of these 4 final images. These are my 4 final images.
Each of these images were originally taken in natural light. All images have a range of depth and focus. The image in the top left hand corner is mainly focused on the black blocked line across the upper part of the photo and them the majority of the image is in white, where as the bottom right hand image has many more white blocks in the images and there is no real focus in the image, but there is depth, the text is at the front of the photo and then the vague lines behind the text really show off the depth of the image.
After observing and analyzing the work of Keld Helmer-Petersen, I took 4 images that I think best suit the style of his work, and used Photoshop to mimic the silhouette-effect that he produces in his work, in order to respond to his work successfully.
The following images are the images that I decided were most like the work of Helmer-Petersen:
In order to give my images the silhouette effect, I used the Threshold option on Photoshop. The following images explain the process I used to achieve the image above:
Step 1) First, I opened the image that I wanted to use for the project. I decided on photographs that had clear boarders and contrasting colours, that way when i edit the image with Threshold, the boarders will remain more obvious.
Step 2) Next, in order to edit the image, I chose the image option on the top toolbar, and then selected Adjustments, and then Threshold. Clicking this option immediately opens the threshold level adjuster.
Step 3) After clicking threshold, the option to adjust the threshold is made available. By sliding the arrow left and right, the image changes from containing more black, to containing more white. I adjusted the image so that the outlines of the subjects were clear, but there wasn’t too much black in the image.
The image above is an example of how an image looks after the threshold has been adjusted in Photoshop. This editing tool is very useful when editing images to look like the work of Keld Helmer-Petersen, as it allows for the image to show as simply black and white, and emphasizes the shape and detail of the image due to it’s simplicity.
Barth is a contemporary Photographer who was born in Germany and lives and works in Los Angeles. She focuses a lot on the nature of vision. She enjoys exploring the way humans see things, compared to the way a camera sees things. A lot of her work is purposely captured out of focus, and some of her work also creates a bokeh effect. This is when light appears in images in a type of spot formation, as it is not sharp and in focus. This means that most of her work is abstract.
Barth Mood Board
Analysing Barth’s images
This image uses a variety of successfultechnicalelements. For example, her image looks to be taken outside in natural daylight. This image is also very bright and almost unnaturally white. This could be due to many elements. For example, she could have used a high ISO making the camera allow more light into the image. She could have also used a slower shutter speed which would make the image look overexposed. Lastly, she could have also used a White Balance setting that made her image have a lighter tint.
Thevisual elements are also very interesting. Although the image is highly unfocused and not sharp its clear that the scenery the photographer was standing in front was very aesthetically pleasing. I like how this image has captured a bokeh effect, as it helps add a more interesting visual point to this image. I like the composition of the image because there are many successful elements to it. It is interesting how you can vaguely make out some distant buildings in the background, a long road with symmetric tyre tracks through the snow in the ground, and also some snowflakes falling in front of the lens.
Firstly, there are many technicalelements that make this image a success. The lighting in the image is interesting, it seems to be taken in daylight outside. This image is also very blurred, and not sharp or in focus. The ISO of this image seems to be quite high as the image is very bright, as due to the high ISO the lens is allowing a lot of light into it. As the image is very white it is possible that the photographer used a type of White Balance setting like daylight, for example.
The visualelements are also helpful when making this image successful. The color of this image is attractive to the eye because it is very white and plain, and the tonal contrast in this image is also very high due to the present black and white tones. I really like the layout of this image as the trees fill the entire frame in the background, and I like how the photographer has captured this image with random people in the frame.
There also may be an underlying concept in this image. The photographer has chosen to capture street photography in this unclear manor. She may be trying to voice her opinion on everyday life. Because she chose to capture the photo unclearly, she may be trying to portray life as being unclear.
Mood BoardMy response to her work
2nd photo shoot
Editing my images
This my my original, unedited image.
This is my final, edited outcome
This is my original image
This is my final, edited piece.
This is my beginning image.
This is my edited outcome.
My final 3 outcomes
This image contains many technicalelements. This image was taking at night, when it was dark. This helps make my image successful as it meant that the lights coming from the town were even brighter in contrast to the black sky. The image was taken using manual focus, which allowed me to purposely make it blurry in order to achieve the bokeh affect. The ISO was set at 12800. This helped make the lights in my image stand out even more because the higher ISO helps to make light more noticeable in the image.
The visualaspects of this picture are also interesting. This image contains a lot of light. All the colors seem to blend in together nicely, as they are similar shades and tones. This means that the photograph is very pleasing on the eye, as it all seems to go well together nicely. Because the photo is also blurry and out of focus, it has an interesting overall “soft” looking texture.
This image also includes many technicalelements. Like the other images, it was taken at night in the darkness as this helps to emphasis the small specs of light as it highly contrasts with the darkness. I also used manual focus on this, to be able to blur everything within the frame.
This image is very visually simplistic compared to the others. This is due to small amount of light captured. In a way, although there is less light, this image almost stands out more than the others due to the darkness surrounding it. I also cropped this image on Photoshop so that the object pictured was on the first third of the image. I think the rule of thirds helps to make this image more successful as it will attract more of my audience’s attention.
The technicalskills used to take this image really help to make is successful. To begin with, I took this image using manual focus, this allowed me to focus my lens on the rain drops, while creating the Bokeh affect in the background. My ISO was set at 6400, as it was dark outside, and I wanted as much light to be seen as possible. I also had an f/5.6 for this image. This helped let a medium amount of light it, and also helped slightly blur the background. The shutter speed was set at 1/60 meaning that it didn’t have much of a long exposure, which allowed the image to come out focused.
The visualcomposition of the photograph is also very interesting. The colors captured in the photo are very captivating, as they are bright and they stand out. This makes my image successful as it is eye catching, and will attract peoples attention. There is also a contrast in colors within my image due to the colorful lights and the plain, dark background. This further helps the colored lights stand out. The rain on the glass is also very helpful in making the light more prominent.
Keld Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who achieved widespread international recognition in the 1940s and 1950s for his abstract colour photographs.The pioneering effort with 122 Colour Photographs brought Helmer-Petersen a grant from the Denmark–America Foundation to study at the Institute of Design in Chicago. During his stay at the school, he both taught and studied under (with others) the American photographer Harry Callahan. Helmer-Petersen began to experiment with the contrast in graphic black and white expression influenced by constructivist artists and their fascination with industry’s machines and architecture’s constructions.A selection of the photographs that Helmer-Petersen created in Chicago was published in the little book Fragments of a City (1960). This offers a portrait of the city in thirty five tightly composed graphic images and is a radical example of Helmer-Petersen’s graphic and formal experimentation.
My Response
Editing process
In order to recreate Peterson’s work, I went through previous photo shoots and selected four images which I thought would go well with this mid tone idea. I then opened them all up on Photoshop and went up to image>adjustment>threshold. I then adjusted the slider until I was happy with the final outcome (These steps are shown below through the screen shots taken). I then changed the image sizes, in order to make them all the same size. Then on one of the images I doubled the width of the canvas sized and dragged another one of my images next to it. I then doubled the height allowing me to place the other two edits onto the screen, creating a grid of four. I then saved this edit to the size of an A4 paper, allowing me to print it out.
To start, I opened my photo in Photoshop and cropped the photo to my desired size.
Go to image ~ adjustments ~ threshold. The picture should adjust to black and white and a window with adjustments should pop up. Using these levels I played around to achieve the effect I wanted, which was the majority of the picture being made up of negative space.
I find negative space can add an eerie, obscure manner to the photograph. Normally we associate a busy, noisy picture with being the best image out there, but we never really stop and pause to appreciate minimalism in all its content glory.
I used the steps above with all the photographs to create my final works.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard was born on the 15th May 1925, in Illinois. At the age of eighteen he was forced to join the Navy, at the time of the Second World War. Lucky the war had ended before he was sent on an overseas assignment. Soon after the war he dedicated his studies into becoming an optician, but still continued with his passion for photography.
His photographic series ‘No Focus’ has combined his occupation with his hobby, showcasing what he was really passionate about. In this series the photographs are completely out of focus, reveling what it is like for blind people seeing the world. This powerful photographic series changed the way people captured photographs, as it went against the stereotypical techniques we would use to capture an image. His work within this series is very inspiring to photographers as it shows that experimentation with the camera is vital part of photography, and that breaking the stereotypes can actually result in effective images.
My main inspiration from his work was this composition from his ‘Zen Twigs’ series. I took a liking to this due to the fact that within the frame, only one thing is in focus with the background out of focus or ‘blurred’. Within my interpretations, I utilized this skill but used it focusing on objects in the foreground and the background.
Keld Helmer Petersen was a Danish abstract colour photographer. In the 1940’s and 50’s he captured an array of images which were purely in black and white, without any mid tones. Two books, Black Noise and Black Light, would then be published featuring these images.
I have tried to capture the essence of Petersen’s images by editing my images in Photoshop and primarily using the ”Threshold” image adjustment tool.
To Convert the image into black and white, I would first use the ‘black and white’ colour altering tool (this would still keep mid-tones). Afterwards I would use the ‘Threshold’ tool to remove mid-tones.
A couple other images I have altered in the same way are:
White balance is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the “color temperature” of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. For my experiments I simply edited the lighting so that neither of my images were too dark or too light. By doing this some of the colours have been enhanced due to the how bright the background colour is. However the temperature of the photo has also been changed therefore has caused the image to be more dim.
This is the original image:
Depth Of Field
The depth of field of the image is the zone where the sharpness and focus is based on one area of the image. Weather this means the background is blurred or simply toned down the focus will only be on a specific area. Again by simply adjusting the light and darks on the image i managed to focus it on one area.
Task
