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.

 

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 successful technical elements. 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.

The visual 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 technical elements 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 visual elements 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My final 3 outcomes

This image contains many technical elements. 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 visual aspects 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 technical elements. 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 technical skills 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 visual composition 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.