Keld Helmer Petersen– introduction

Keld Helmer-Petersen is one of the most influential Danish photographers in the 20th Century. He was an international pioneer in colour photography and was a central figure in not only Danish but also European modernist photography. His career spanned 70 years and he had strong interest in modern architecture, industrial areas and structures. He was very prolific and continuously experimented and challenged the many possibilities of the photographic image.

He experimented intensely with various photographic techniques, such as camera-less images or photograms which were created in the darkroom. He created pure abstract image creations ongoingly from 1949, but especially in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Process– I chose four of my images that I liked the most and edited them on Photoshop in the same style as him. I went onto Image> Adjustments>Threshold. I then adjusted the threshold as to how I wanted it. I wanted the a mix of completely dark tones and white tones without any mid tones to get the same contrast as Keld gets in his images.

Evaluation- personally I like how how the top two images turned out because by turning the photo completely black and white you can see all the small details on the trees and branches that you couldn’t in colour and it really defines the shape of the trees as it contrasts from the white .

I like how the bottom two turned out but not as much as the first because there’s still some uneven mid tones around the photos and it doesn’t create that sharp effect of black and white next to each other.