For this photo, i started by folding the paper and standing it up at a ‘zig-zag’ pattern. I used artificial lighting from a phone torch to take control over how the shadows fall over the ridges. This photo stands out to me as the clean folds in the paper enhances the shadows that i was attempting to emphasize.
for this photo, I crumpled up a piece of paper, I used artificial lighting from the overhead lights in the class room, this made it harder to use the lighting to compliment the creases so once I put it into photo shop, I adjusted the light and dark tones to bring out the creases that were harder to determine in the original photo.
In this photo, I layered a paper plane over the same crumbled paper, I did this to make the photo more complex and interesting, I used a phone touch as a light source to help differentiate the two papers through directing it into the space between.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard was an American Photographer who lived during the mid 20th century. He experimented with many forms of photography by using different exposures and motion blur. In his work Meatyard captures dark and eerie scenes using people in frightening ways.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Focus
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Response
In my photographs i tried to focus in on certain parts of what i was photographing. I did this to try create the same effect that Meatyard crated in his work.
Keld Helmer-Petersen was born on August 23, 1920 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Keld Helmer-Peterseis studied at the Institute of Design in Chicago . He received a Leica camera as a present thanks to this he started taking photographs. He prefers to take pictures of industrial areas, cityscapes and nature. He is known for his abstract colour photographs but he also likes working with black and white images.
My images :
I decided to choose old images of Paris and things we can see in our daily life that i had on my gallery . I think that they will be interesting with black lights .
with BLACK LIGHTS
We can notice that the pictures of paris looks they are drawn which indeed creates a cool effect. The black lights are embedded in the details we can see it very well in the lemons.
These final images best show the exploration of surface and colour throughout my photo shoots.
The first two images of cars directly respond to Ernst Haas’s photograph of moving cars with a slow shutter speed.
The next image responds to Ernst’s water photography, while showing vibrant colours under the surface of the water. I used Adobe light room to enhance the contrast and saturation of the image to bring out the bright colours of the barrel and the leaves in the water.
The remaining two images show examples of varying surfaces and textures in photographs, along with the contrast between the bright brown mushrooms and the dark, earthy background.
The black lighting technique is when source of light in a photograph is behind the subject, usually creating a dark silhouette of the subject.
This effect can also be achieved when editing a photograph in a software such as Photoshop.
Some examples of black lighting:
Keld Helmer-PetersenKeld Helmer-Petersen
My Images
These images are similar to the work of Keld Helmer-Petersen because of the strong contrast between the highlights and the shadows, only using black and white. This creates a silhouette effect.
Keld Helmer-Petersen, a Danish photographer born in 1920, was recognised for his abstract photography in the 1940’s and the 1950’s. Helmer-Petersen’s passion for modern architecture, industrial areas and structures inspired his experimental photography, as he challenged the possibilities of the photographic image. He was a self-taught photographer who learnt from other photographers, such as Albert Renger-Patzsch. through technical manuals and photobooks. In the early days of his career, he joined amateur photographer clubs, where he would develop his photography skills further. Helmer-Petersen produced his first photobook, ‘Fragments of a city’, in 1960, which contained images of the city of Chicago. Keld Helmer-Petersen began teaching photography at the Academy of Architecture in Copenhagen until retiring in 1990.
Analysis of Keld Helmer-Petersen’s work:
Part of “Fragments of a city” series – Keld Helmer-Petersen (1960)
Light- The lighting in the image is hard to decipher as there is no highlights or shadows in the image. However I believe the image was taken in daylight, perhaps early afternoon in order to achieve the iconic shapes and lines.
Lines- There is a distinct pattern of lines in the image, as they cross over one another and create intricate designs. There is a contrast of both thick and thin lines in this image, which can be seen as a form of juxtaposition.
Repetition- There is a clear repetition of lines in this image, they direct your eyes along the screen, to the focal point of the large, black sillouette.
Shape- The shape of the image revolves around geometric shapes and lines, that are both thick and thin.
Space- It is hard to depict whether the image has a wide or narrow depth of field, as the image is simply a pattern of line and shapes in a silhouette, therefore this aspect of formal elements is irrelevant to the photo.
Texture- It is also hard to work out the texture of the image, but the repeated lines have a smooth surface, therefore I would say the overall texture of the image is rather smooth.
Tone/Value- There is no gradient of tone to the image, as it is simply pure black and white. However these contrast each other with the juxtaposition of light and dark.
Colour- There is no colour to the image, this is to signify the gloomy silhouettes of the geometric lines in the photograph.
Composition- The composition of the image is very organised, however there is no rule of thirds used in the image as the object was not set up by the photographer, the image rather focuses on the entire structure of lines instead of a singular focal point.
My Response to Keld Helmer-Petersen’s work-
Original Images Used-
Photoshop Development:
To achieve the same affect that Keld Helmer-Petersen used on his images, I used the threshold tool on photoshop to imitate the same silhouette-like appearance on the photographs.
I believe my work resembles the work of Helmer-Petersen well as it gives off the same silhouette aesthetic that he achieves with his work. It allows the shape and pattern of the object to be highlighted amongst the background behind it. However my work focuses more on natural aspects of shape, with the use of plants, whereas Helmer-Petersen often uses artificial structures for his work.
A contact sheet is a piece of photographic paper on to which several or all of the negatives on a film have been contact-printed. They were an inevitable part of the photographic process until digital photography rendered them obsolete.
Contact sheets are useful/essential as the purpose of it is to be able to quickly scan a number of images to find the keepers or the ones chosen to be enlarged.
For this photo shoot I took inspiration from Albert Renger-Patzch. I took images of industrial type buildings from different angles such as, straight on or from a worms eye view. I then changed the images to black and white so that they would fit his theme.
Renger – Patzsch was a German photographer associated with the New Objectivity. The New Objectivity arose during the 1920’s to challenge expressionism. This photography’s main focus point was to change the perspective on the objective world. Making it more ‘abstract and romantic’. His work connects to the New Objectivity through his aim of making everyday objects look beautiful.
Image Analysis
Albert Ranger-Patzch ; The World Is Beautiful Albert Ranger-Patzch ; The World Is Beautiful
Both of these pieces are from Ranger-Patzch’s collection, The World Is Beautiful, however they express very different things. In the first photo, we see a simple object found in a house which is normally overlooked. The lighting in photo one is quite low, enhancing the detail of the buttons found in the minimal shadows over the objects. The random placement of the buttons adds the the concept as it is more alike how these objects are found.
In photo 2, we can see another man made object, but more of a structure. The 2 main differences between the two photos that stand out to me the most is the symmetrical layout shown though the use of the camera angle compared to the random placing of the buttons, these show a wide variety in the movement that anything you see can be beautiful. Another is the natural light vs. artificial light and how Ranger – Patzch manipulated and used the lighting given to create shadows and depth.
Contact Sheet
A contact sheet is very useful to a photographer as this tool allows them to view the shoot on one sheet, making easier to differentiate the positives and negatives as they are put altogether.
for this project, i went around my house, finding objects that are dull to the eye in attempt to create a different and more creative perspective on the objects. similar to how Renger – Patzsch photographed glasses, forks and buttons.
favorite photos (Edited)
final photo
This is my favorite photo as it shows that an object as simple as a peg can be portrayed as a beautiful and interesting. Once I put the photo into photo shop, i played around with the color tones within the black and white adjustment to give more texture to the pegs, emphasizing the faint grains to give them more life. The lighting used in this photo was natural, the weather at the time made the light less intense, allowing me to used the positioning of the pegs to create depth and shadows without being over exposed to the sun.
