Keld Helmer-Petersen's new book 'Black Noise' features a collection of high contrast images reminiscent of his work from the 1960s. The book contains negative scans of black and white negatives, ink drawings, cut up line negatives, even dead spiders, plants and misprinted supermarket receipt. Keld has adjusted the contrast to create purely black and white images.
He is now regarded as one of the pioneers of colour photography after he achieved his international breakthrough in 1948 when he published his book '122 Colour Photographs' - a collection of experiments with shapes inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch and the poetic realism of the 'new objectivity' movement. In his book his aim was to create a series of images which would only look good in colour not in black and white. he achieved this by focusing on the mundane of the everyday. His book brought modernism to Danish photography and it earned himself a grant for a years study at the Art Institute of Photography, Chicago in 1950 where he was able to study under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind.
Gallery of Keld Helmer-Petersen's images:
Gallery of my own images in response to Keld Helmer Petersen's:
To create this Helmer-Petersen inspired effect I used photoshop. All I did was edit the image using 'threshold', changed the level of contrast, and created these beautiful and surreal looking photographs. They look like inked prints because of the harsh contrast and the rough edges. I liked this task because it forced me to seek images which would look good with this high contrast. For example, the best ones happened to have the least range of tones - 'flat images'.
Aaron Siskind
Aaron Siskind dedicated himself to photographing details of nature and architecture, with a focus on the texture, lines and patterns. I am drawn to these gorgeous close-ups of textures because I like to take similar images. I love patterns which I find created by shadows, texture, colour, lines or accidental spillages (for example) without my interference. I like to find the beauty in the everyday rather than changing things to make it 'ideally' beautiful. This is why documentary photography appeals to me so much more than portraiture.