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AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 1 Abstract

Keld Helmer-Peterson Response

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Keld Helmer-Peterson is a Danish photographer, who took inspiration from Albert Ranger-Patzsch (who I previously researched). Peterson began his passion of photograph in 1938, where he received his first camera as a gift for graduating. In 1940 Helmer decided to try out and become familiar with war photography // new objectivity as it was a recent concept at the time

The aim of the images in this series was to get rid of mid tones, He took a normal image, which usually images of industrial machines and places, and turned it completely black and white, making the images more in contrast. In his images there is also a lot of negative space, which has allowed he structure of the metal work to really stand out to us and helps to create a sense of emptiness. The clear formal elements which are presented in this image are tone, shape and line, which are all clearly shown through the structure. The lines are also used to guide the viewers eyes around the frame of the image, starting from the bottom and then making our way to the top.  The lighting is most likely to be natural as industrial images are usually taken outside, as you can not place the tall machines inside. The ISO is not sensitive to the light, as there is no visible noise in the frame of the image, which suggests that the ISO is low. Moreover, the shutter speed is likely to be quick as the whole frame seems to be in focus, with no blur. Due to the whole frame being in focus it also means that this photograph has a large depth of field. The aperture of the camera is likely to be high, which helps makes the whole frame more in focus. Due to the nature of the image being completely black and white, it creates a cold temperature adding to the mood of the image. Peterson has cleverly used inspiration from Patzsch but has still managed to add his own ‘twist’ to make his images more unique. I really like the idea of getting rid of the mid tones as it makes the structures seem more isolated, which allows it to stand out more, captivating the viewers.

My Response

In order to recreate Peterson’s work, I went through previous photoshoots 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>adjusment>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 hight 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.

 

Screenshots

 

 

Final Outcome

 

AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Homework, Unit 1 Abstract

Keld Helmer-Peterson – Threshold adjustment experiments

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Keld Helmer-Petersen is a photographer, using various formats, shows in his photographs “a strong leaning towards extreme simplicity and graphic clarity in carefully composed compositions, often silhouetted, but more often than not containing subtle greys in contrast to pure black and white.” He leans more towards simplicity, wanting there to be obvious contrast between the black and whites of the photo.

Image result for keld helmer petersen

 

I went and created my own photos by taking pictures and editing them using the threshold adjustment option, which will change the photos to black and white and will make it look like they’ve been inspired by Peterson’s works.

Original images:

These are the original photos which I chose to use for this assignment. I chose these because they are something I can turn into an abstract photo, and I also think that they would suit with Peterson and his work.

 

 

Edited final outcomes:

With these pictures all I used was the threshold adjustment option, and played around with it until I liked them. I like how they came out, however I don’t think they would be something that Kelm would produce. Most of them seem a bit too dark and don’t have near to equal black to white balance.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation

Aperture photo shoot

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I took a photo of a lamp in the street which was all in-focus, then I artificially blurred it using the ‘iris blur’ tool. This helps achieve the proportions you want to have in and out of focus without moving your camera around for 10 minutes.
I made this photo a lot darker as the original was over-exposed, this helps bring out shadows, and the roundness of the poles. I also applied a warm photo filter and adjusted the light levels. All of this helps bring out the detail of the chain and the dirt on the poles.

In this photo I have only decreased the brightness to make the photo easier to see, and increased the contrast to make the details in the asphalt more visible.
This photo was taken at midday but I have applied an orange photo filter, decreased the brightness by a lot. I have also made the midtones darker by adjusting the light levels of the photo. These effects make the photo look as if it was taken at sunset or ‘the golden hour’. The background and foreground of the photo are out of focus which puts more emphasis on the branch tips and the leaf.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Component 2 ESA, Unit 1 Abstract

exploring Keld Helmer-Petersen’s photography

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KELD HELMER-PETERSEN:

The pioneer of Danish Modernist photography, Keld Helmer-Petersen (1920-2013), is internationally acclaimed for his images of structures, patterns and details found in industrial areas, cityscapes and nature. He started photographing in the late 1930s and first made his name with 122 Colour Photographs in 1948. This book is especially well known due to its innovative use of colour in thoroughly composed photographs of patterns in landscapes and buildings. During the 1950s and 1960s he established himself as a photographer of architecture and design. Simultaneously, his artistic work shifted towards the more abstract, as he found inspiration in German and American photography as well as international abstract art.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

The contrast in this image is very high creating a very dramatic and overexposed photo.  It is composed of geometric shapes and lines which crisscross each other in regular, sometimes patterned shapes and forms. It is very difficult to create this type of photo purely through camera work therefore I believe that Petersen used heavy editing in his photography in order to create this highly overexposed image whilst in the dark room. It is hard to distinguish between the foreground and the background in this photo as the lack of tonal range merges them together. As the only colours in this image are black and white, they flow and create the appearance of one large structure.

PROCESS:

This is the most successful set of images based of the work of Keld Helmer-Petersen who focuses on over exposure of images creating simplistic line work in his work. I applied this same technique to my work through the use o threshold on Photoshop, as the example shows down below. By decreasing the threshold, the image becomes more exposed and white, by increasing the threshold, the image becomes less exposed and black. I tried to keep all my images to the middle of the scale which prevented them from becoming too overly over exposed or underexposed. The images which I chose to include in this work were ones which contained a lot of strong, geometric, line work. I found that the more busy, and packed a photograph is, the more messy the threshold filter looks on it, therefore i chose to stick with fairly simple photographs.

This is the threshold tool which appears on Photoshop, adjusting the scale from one extreme to another makes it over or under exposed.

This is the before and after the threshold has been applied to the image, clearly showing the extreme contrast it has between the different geometric shapes in the picture.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS: 

In terms of the technical aspects of this image, the light is coming in from the top left hand corner of the image, creating a lot of exposure making it more white whereas the right bottom corner of the photo has less light hitting it, creating more shadows. In this photo I used a fairly long lense as the subject  the image was high up and could not be phothraphed without the aid of zoom, giving a fairly small field of view. In the original photo, the ISO was set to 600 as it was a bright room and I felt that in order to combat the possible overexposure I should decrease the ISO.  The grain on the original photo is quite fine therefore the image is detailed and sharp.

After applying the threshold filter, the image has been totally flattened out due to the lack of tonal range, only being composed of black and white. It is difficult to distinguish between the background and the foreground in this image. The photograph is mostly composed of very strong and bold line work. There is also a sense of pattern in this image due to the repeating lines and triangles. There is no real sense of space in this image as the abundance of line work fills every part of the photo.

I created these images with the intent of capturing as many  geaometric shapes as I can because I knew that this would work best when applying the threshold filter. More organic shapes tend to look too busy and messy in a sense as they have too many tonal ranges and shadows.

 

My final pick of four successful photos, which have the threshold filter applied to them.

ORIGINAL IMAGES: 

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Component 2 ESA, Uncategorized, Unit 1 Abstract

Successful Photos From Photo shoot

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ANALYSIS AND APPROACH: 

These four photos were the ones which i felt were the most successful out of the Photo shoot I personally did. I really focused on the formal elements which I had to cover such as exposure, shutter speed and focal length. In the first and fourth photo I mainly focused on exploring exposure, changing the ISO speed to 200, resulting in a very dramatic and dark photo. I captured these photos with the aid of a tripod as I found that lowering the ISO speed resulted in shaky photos that distracted away from the main formal elements which I attempted to capture. In the fourth photo, the glass bottles were in  a very dimly lit room therefore i changed the ISO setting all the way to 16000, which allowed the colors to pop and stand out.

In the second photo, I experimented with changing the focal length. I zoomed into the piece of broken glass and used manual focus in order to focus on it, this resulted in  a very blurry backdrop which was the main aim of this shoot. I had the same approach with the fourth photo, the radio post was quite far away from me which forced me to zoom in. The backdrop is not as blurry as compared to the first photo as I used the infinity focus setting on my camera to see the type of effect it would have on the focus.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 1 Abstract

Threshold Adjustment

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Keld Helmer Peterson was a Danish photographer who spent most of his working life as an architectural photographer. He was inspired by Albert Renger Patzsch, the experiments at the Bauhaus in Germany, Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Although he was best known for his coloured photographs, he also published several books of black and white images that explore dramatic contrast of tone. Some images are purely black and white since all the mid tones have been removed. He created and found these images using both cameras and flat bed scanners to have the effect he wanted. He encourages us to consider the space around the image and to use high contrast to create abstract photos.

My Response

To respond to Keld Helmer photography work I will use four abstract images that I have already taken and experiment with the threshold adjustment on photoshop to adjust the black and white contrast. I will then merge them together so different formal elements can be seen in one image. Using Keld Helmer Peterson’s style of photography will make me consider the negative space around the objects.

Adding threshold effect to the image
Adjusting threshold level

On each photo individually, i adjusted the threshold level to create images in black and white with different contrasts.  When increasing the threshold level the negative space became darker and  decreasing made the negative space brighter. Afterwards on powerpoint i grouped the images together so the black areas would merge together and connect to create one image. The formal elements line, shape and pattern can be seen in these images. The most dominant formal element that can be seen is line as they appear in different widths and different directions (horizontal, diagonal, vertical). The formal elements would regularly appear in Keld Helmer photographs. What i like about Keld Helmer photographs is that the negative space is the main feature. Although his images appear simple and reject colour and form, they are visually effective. I think my response was a success since I have incorporated his style into my photography and have experimented with the threshold adjustment for the best final outcomes.

AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 1 Abstract

In depth Image Analysis

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Image Analysis of my interpretations of  keld helmer petersen 

These are my two favorite images from my edits because i feel the the back ground being light creates a focal point on the main dark section of the of the image and the object. The negative space being white created contrast much like in Helmers work because that was his main intentions to create images with negative space that is white, so your main attention if drawn to the the object that is portrayed in dark/black. Using the threshold on Photoshop i managed to discard all of the mid tones within my images creating a contrast on depth and light, dark. The image with the triangle, i really like how the refection is portrayed as a section with a triangle and therefore shows the little scratches and details on the triangle which to me makes the triangle look more in focus and the background blur our much like the camera technique of depth of field. This was unintentional but i feel like it brings more depth and technical value the the image. In the second image, the background being light contrasts the metal cage and it stands out and all most pop out from the back ground much like a 3D IMAGE. The light and dark detailing of the rust on the cage adds the aspects of photograph technique and getting an images correctly in focus and creating a focal point that the audience is instantly drawn to.

 

 

 

 

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Homework

Albert Renger-Patzsch Project: The World Is Beautiful (New Objectivity) (in progress)

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Introduction to Albert Renger-Patzsch:

Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer who took a liking to the New Objectivity ways of photographing, and helped to develop the movement with his own work. New objectivity focused a lot on taking photographs in a bold, documentary like manner, showing the subjects in a simple yet striking form. Renger took a forward approach to photography, using his camera almost like an eye, simply photographing what was seen in the way that an individual would see it. Albert’s photography matched the movement of New Objectivity well, and through the use of black and white tone contrast, his work drew attention to the new way of photographing subjects the way that they were seen in everyday life. Albert focused on subjects that could be found in everyday life, making his photographs more relatable to the viewer. He often focused on nature, taking close up photographs of plants and flowers, showing the details of nature in a simple yet eye catching manner. A lot of his photographs take advantage of natural shadows and patterns, exaggerating them by editing the colour to grey-scale.

Introduction to New Objectivity:

Renger-Patzsch focused a lot of his work around the “New Objectivity” expression of photography, which gained popularity during the 1920’s as a reaction against expressionism. New Objectivity focused on depicting subjects of photographs in a more scientific, documentary style manner. Photographs taken during the surge of New Objectivity often maintained sharp focus on an obvious and well framed subject, and depicted the subject how it was seen with the human eye, rather than distorting or abstracting it. As a whole, New Objectivity presented photographs as precise, literal, and scientific in appearance, which greatly contrasted it’s predecessor, Expressionism.

Exploration of the formal elements:

Albert Renger-Patzsch experimented a lot with lighting, shadows, form, lines and texture. His photographs often take advantage of the contrasting tones in gray scale; using the contrasting colours to emphasize the details of the images. Renger also experimented a lot with texture, using close ups to emphasize the texture of the subjects he used, while positioning his lighting to highlight the contrasting textures that can be found on a single image. The final images that Albert produced were sharp and bold, and the dark and light colours that he edited into the images helped to emphasize this bold photography. The position and settings of Albert’s camera were also important in creating his photographs. Albert made use of the zoom feature of his camera, taking close ups of plant life and everyday objects to show their details. A lot of Albert’s subjects include more harsh objects, such as thorn covered plants or telephone wires, and the way he positioned his camera helped to frame the image in a bold way, drawing the viewer’s attention directly to the center of the photograph. This technique helped to add to the harshness of the photographs he took, along with the use of harsh subject matters. The combination of gray scale, closeups and bold subjects helped Albert create an overall eye catching and striking style that matched the wave of New Objectivity.

Further Analysis:

Renger-Patzsch looks for the details in his subject, zooming into the more complex areas and drawing attention to the complexities of everyday objects. Albert focuses a lot on industrial hardware, including cranes, machines and factory spaces, and draws attention to the detail found there. This often helps to add to the objectivity of Renger-Patzsch’s work, as it allows for the viewer to see these machines as they would usually see them with their own eyes, but allows them to concentrate more on the details that they would normally miss. Examples of where Renger-Patzsch has payed extra attention to the detail present in the frame of his photographs can be seen below.

My Response:

After analyzing his work, I have taken inspiration from Albert Renger-Patzsch, and will be using his style of photography to create a photo shoot of my own, keeping in mind his use of camera settings, subjects, and his frame of mind in reference to New Objectivity. Below are the contact sheets I have produced after taking photographs inspires by Renger-Patzsch:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Response Analysis:

As can be seen in the above photo-shoot, I have focused on aligning my photography with the New Objectivity movement that influenced Renger-Patzsch with his own work. I have focused on using subjects including both nature and machinery, where I have been able to mimic the style of Renger-Patzsch. I feel that, by taking very front facing photographs of subjects, that are not altered or abstracted, I have been able to capture the style of the New Objectivity movement in my images.

———-individual (x3)———

In order to allow my photo- shoot the appear to have taken inspiration from Renger-Patzsch, I decided that editing the images would be the best way to emphasis the shape and contrast of the images. Renger-Patzsch often used grey-scale when editing his images, in order to draw attention to the subject of the image, rather than the color, and to present the subjects in an even more scientific, almost clinical way. In order to mimic this effect, I have selected the images that I feel are the most relevant, and have edited them to mimic the colour pallet of Renger-Patzsch’s work. The products can be seen below: