Artist Study: Keld Helmer Petersen

The photographer that I chose for my artist study is Keld Helmer Petersen, who uses a lot of bright backgrounds and dark silhouettes to create shapes and contrast in his photos. This makes the viewers focus on the way the shapes interact with one another instead of their textures or any other such details in the photograph. A lot of his images are related to architecture or other similar human-made structures, with lots of straight edges and sharp angles instead of flowy lines and organic shapes. I chose this artist because this style of abstract photography is very similar to my red selection set, and it conveys a sense of abstraction and emptiness that I want my red selection to convey. Some of Peterson’s work also has more neutral grey tones as well, which matches the first set of my green selection photographs.

This image is interesting to me because of the ways the different lines interact and intersect across the white background. The dark silhouettes of the light posts are throughout the image in a way that they don’t appear too cluttered, while still breaking up the negative space. They make a bold statement and provide a place for the viewer’s eyes to rest, as well as support the many lines from the electricity wires. Speaking of the wires, I find the way they move to be very interesting. Although they are non-organic in nature, the way they are almost messily positioned across the image makes them feel a lot more lively and real compared to if they were all perfectly straight and in line with one another. They create flow and movement throughout the image and break up the negative space lightly in a way that the solid silhouettes of the light poles cannot.

Yellow Selection:

Intro To Digital Photography Abstraction Contact Sheet 798

These are my yellow selection photographs. These images range from a greyscale, dreary atmosphere to being warm and colorful and full of life and vibrance, which is something that I find very intriguing. These images are an exploration of how a gloomy day can still hold a plethora of pleasant surprises, and how there is something special to be found in these moments in a drab grey world. Some of these images were taken outdoors, under the pale light from the sky, which gave them their faded colors and soft shadows. In comparison, the indoor images are more colorful, vibrant, and deep in their shadows, and the two types of images together create an interesting contrast. However, it would be good to reorder these images in the contact sheet to create some sort of gradient, as right now the images are all scattered around the contact sheet, creating a sense of discord and chaos. Putting similar images together would achieve some visual harmony, which would help the themes of the images stand out more.

Green Selection:

In my green selection, I will be using three sets of images to tell a story. A story of metal giants dominating the skies, of warmth caged away behind interlocking chains, of life eventually blossoming into light. Although these images could stand alone as individual sets, I feel that they are more compelling when united together for this narrative, which is why I chose them for my green selection instead of my red selection.

Metal Giants

I chose this set of images for my green selection because of its sharp contrast and its dark, serious mood. These images feature various metal structures, with the editing focusing on accentuating their shadows and the silhouettes they make. The buildings take up almost all the space in the images, blocking out the sky and looming over the viewer, creating a dark, heavy, and almost oppressive atmosphere – hence the name, “Metal Giants”.  I want the viewer to feel the somber power of the metal giants, the way they stand sharp and steely (pun unintended) against the blinding sky. The lack of color helps accentuate this point, as it removes distractions and turns the shadows and shapes of the metal giants into the main focus of the piece. It also helps add to the atmosphere and emotion, as saturation and vibrance are usually associated with life and light, while these metal giants are completely devoid of it.

Caged

I chose this set of images almost as a follow-up to the Metal Giants, because I felt that the theme of these images will have a heavier impact after witnessing the heavy weight of the giants. The repeating interlocking element of the chains creates a sense of being trapped – caged, if you will (*ba-dum tss*) – and has a very similar vibe to the oppressive atmosphere of the metal giants. Like the giants, they fill up the entirety of the photographs, filling the view with gray, gray, gray. They are the first things that the viewers see when they look at these photographs; they are separating the viewer from the objects behind the chains. Moving on to these objects, the warm orange colors of the light and the leaf create an interesting contrast against the gloominess of the chains and the previous Metal Giants set, but instead of reinforcing the stark shadowy existence of the Metal Giants, these images add a dash of color and hope into an otherwise dreary world. This could also be seen in the way that although the chains are restricting the warmth and life, they are looping and curving, flowy in their rigidness in a way that the metal giants do not exhibit. These are chains you can bend and climb, chains that allow you to see through to the other side – which brings us to the next installment in this narrative:

Light

I chose these images as a follow-up to Caged, as the hopeful warmth from Caged bleeds out from the darkness of the Metal Giants, and eventually blooms into Light. These images are warm and saturated, full of organic subjects like flowers and wood. The metal and the chains are gone, replaced by these vibrant subjects. The order of these images has meaning too – the flowers are first, full of sunlight and life, to create a striking impact from the bleak but hopeful mood of Caged. They are an explosion of color, almost blinding in their radiance, the flood that finally broke through the dam in a torrential downpour. The brightness of the flowers contrasts against its shadows, overpowering it – and in fact, the shadows actually help accentuate it. Without the dark, the light will be pale in comparison and will not hold as much power and impact as it does here. The next two images are less organic in comparison, but they both possess their own unique sense of life. You can see the light reflecting off the liquid in the second image (is it ink? an image of a freshly-printed book? The page is full of words, words about celebrations, about life. Words come from language, and language comes from life), and the third image purely focuses on the soft glow of the ceiling lights. The final image is rather pale, of a wooden stump full of cracks. The lines and grain of the wood guide the eyes of the viewers throughout the image, creating a vague flow of movement. And despite the tree itself being dead, cut away by a dull world and surrounded by concrete, there are still resilient bits of life clinging to the tree – the fungus and the grass on its sides, accentuated by the soft splash of warm brown that stands out against the rest of the image. And with this final photo of the tree stump concludes the story of this world, where life will soon thrive under the light once more, free from the shadows of metal giants and their cages.

Red Selection:

Sky

I wanted this image to invoke a feeling of bleakness and emptiness in the viewer – the dark silhouettes create a stark contrast against the bright sky, and there is very little tone variation, creating a heavier impact. The lines of the silhouette are very sharp, and there are very few soft objects or outlines in the photo. It is all very, very sharp. There is also a lot of negative space, which helps convey the sense of terrifying emptiness that I want the viewers to feel, and also emphasizes the silhouettes of the birds. The sky is wide open, larger than we might be able to comprehend. If you had total freedom to go wherever you wanted in a vast, empty world, would you? Or will you lose your tether to the earthbound land below amongst the winds, never to return? The camera looks up to the infinite sky and the birds flying above, free to soar in a way that we cannot be. They do not fear the skies, for they have their nests and their flocks grounding them to the earth. And so they fly. There aren’t a lot of significant improvements that may be needed for this photo – I like how the branches and leaves on the trees create a bunch of complex, interweaving, and messy shapes, combined with the different textures of the walls contrasts with the simplicity of the sky and the birds, and helps show that they are very different in nature. Overall, I am quite proud of this photo.

This image is similar to the last one – a bright sky, contrasting against the silhouettes of the structures on the ground. However, unlike the first photo, this image has less sky and more ground. There is a stronger, wider silhouette in this image compared to the frail and thin branches of the tree in the previous image, which helps the photo feel more grounded. It also contrasts against the sky in an almost defiant way, the branches reaching out and encroaching into the bright light. All the branches and the lines in this image are pointing towards the empty negative space in the top left corner, directing the viewers’ eyes. Under these reaching branches, a bird flies below. This image is more about returning to earth, leaving the vast embrace of the skies. Ideally, the silhouette of the bird would not intersect as much with the silhouettes of the trees – some strong lighting would be able to create an outline that separates the shapes – but considering how hard it its to photograph birds in flight, I think I did quite well.

This is an image of home. The birds have returned to their nests, and now the sky is back to being bright and empty. The contrast isn’t as high in this image as in the other images, with a lot more middle tones instead of being completely dark or completely light. This image is the most grounded, with the strong shape and silhouette of the house providing a stable base to the photograph in a way that the other images don’t have. The tree in this image is also sturdier, with thicker branches – it reaches out towards the sky, but is much more like a place to roost and rest. The tree and the house also collectively break up the negative space in the image, so that the sky no longer looks so empty and terrifyingly infinite. The diagonal lines of the house also help direct the viewer’s attention around the photograph, and the different textures make for an interesting image to look at. For further improvements, there would ideally be some birds roosting on the house or the tree to keep with the theme of the set, and I also wonder what would happen if this photo was taken with the same perspective as the others (as although this image is still looking up, the upwards slant isn’t as intense as the other images), which could potentially change the mood.

Yellow Selection:

abstract set 1

I chose these photos for my yellow selection because of the ways they play with color, reflections, and contrast. Some of these images are from the photo studio, with the differently colored lights interacting with the objects in interesting ways. Some of these images were from the outdoors, under the high exposure and sunlight, creating many bright spaces and contrasting with the pops of color. More importantly, these images are all taken in ordinary locations of ordinary things – a simple set of DnD dice, a piece of paper on a table, a snapshot of a hallway or a leaf on the sidewalk – that have gained new life and vibrance under a set of different lens that was willing to take the time to capture their beauty.

Green Selection:

I chose this image because of its vivid colors, and it was an interesting experiment in how I could use them in editing to shape my images.

This image was taken with a high exposure from the sunlight outside, and the brightness helps bring out a hard sort of clarity in the colors, and the entire image feels cold.

This image has a lot of interesting colors and contrast between the bright and the dark, and there is also a sort of gradient from red to blue and draws the attention of the viewer.

This image and the editing helps bring out colors in a place where we normally would not expect there to be any, and these colors are very pretty too! Editing this was like opening a mysterious box, because you never know what secrets could be hiding inside such a normal object.

This image has a very unique angle, and the tilt helps set it apart from the other images by giving it some more movement.

This image was an interesting experiment in low exposure, and the darkness and the light have a nice contrast and creates some interesting shadows.

This image shows the different colors that are reflected on the planes of the dice, and the way these colors interact with each other is very different from what you expect it to be like.

This monochromatic image is intriguing and has a serious, mysterious mood, which the darkness and low exposure also contributes to.

This image is full of geometric shapes and negative space, broken up by the analogous color palette and straight lines.

This image feels dark and dull, which is a very interesting contrast compared to the rest of the photos in this set.

Red Selection:

I chose this image for the final 3 photos because of its vivid colors, which was something that I focused on accentuating during editing. This image was another one of the photos with the high exposure from the sunlight, which might have helped bring out the sharp contrast in this image between the colors and the white spaces, creating lots of interesting shapes. Combined with the colors, it is definitely one of my favorite photos out of this collection. Some room for improvement would be to tweak the settings during editing some more to take away some of the pink blotchy shapes, which breaks up the colors and contrast in the image in a strange way. Another potential improvement would be to turn down the brightness of the image just a little bit, so that it doesn’t burn your eyes as much.

I chose this image for my final 3 photos of this set because I liked the ways the colors interacted with each other without being overwhelming, and it has that “otherworldly” feeling that I was aiming for in my photos, despite depicting a bunch of rather regular dice. The limited color palette, bright colors, reflection of the dice on the flat surface, and the way the colors swirl around inside the dice all add to the overall effect. Some room for improvement or change would be potentially adding a soft (mostly unnoticeable) glow around the dice (maybe with another small light source) to add to the otherworldly feeling, but aside from that, I’m pretty happy with this photo.

I chose this image for my red selection because of its bold colors, and specifically the ways they interact with each other. The bright yellows blends nicely with the reds and pinks and purples, with the green providing a pop of color. The different colors also move in very interesting ways, making a lot of cool shapes and flowing lines in the image. For further improvements, it would be interesting to change the color or brightness of the gray areas so that they match with the rest of the image better.

There are many photographers and photographs that I would like to take inspiration from for my triptych.

One of the main ones is Jackie Ranken’s Other Realities series – I like how otherworldly and almost ghostly the images seem, and I also really like the sentiment behind the photos, which is “the finding of beauty in everyday objects.”

Some key characteristics of these images are the fact that they are all black-and-white/monochromatic, there is often a lot of bright empty space, the subject is usually in the center of the image, the images are usually rather low-contrast, and there is a slight vignette effect around the edges of the photographs.

Another inspiration would be the works of the photographer Ola Kolehmainen:

This is a particular one of his photos that I like – Kolehmainen’s photos often include vibrant colors, which is definitely something that I want to try and include in my own photographs, but what caught my attention about this photo in particular is the reflection of the tree in the glass. To me, this image appears as if it could be from a random building on a random street, when the photographer walked by and decided to capture the moment, and I think that’s a really nice sentiment. Some common characteristics of these photos are the vibrant use of color (often ranging from a variety of warm and cool tones), as well as the focus on shapes and lines formed by the objects in the photos – often in geometric shapes.

Another photographer whose works I’m inspired by is Frances Seward:

Some key characteristics of Seward’s photos that I am inspired by is the way the colors and shapes flow together to create these images that look like scenes that might exist in real life, but are so unreal and so not grounded in reality that they could also be anything else. Seward’s images often have a rather pleasing color palette, with a lot of analogous, complementary and split complementary colors, and the colors are very vibrant as well.

I chose these photographers to reference for my own photos, because of all of these characteristics that are present in their work. I want to combine the otherworldly feeling of Jackie Ranken and Frances Seward’s photos with the interesting colors from Ola Kolehmainen, and I want to capture the way these photographers all find beauty in simple, ordinary things – Jackie Ranken’s “finding beauty in everyday objects”, Ola Kolehmainen’s architecture, and Frances Seward’s glass.

Out of all the photos above, I find this one particularly interesting. I am drawn to its bright colors and the nice contrast between the vibrant orange and the calmer blues and greens near the bottom of the image, and how it uses the shapes and forms of the objects to create overlapping rectangular shapes, and the darker sections also creates clear divides between the spaces of bright colors. One of the formal elements that are the most integral to this image would, in my opinion, be shape. The dark shapes break up the image and creates divides between the warm and cool tones, and the colors themselves also form some interesting geometric shapes as well – for example, the series of repeated arch-like pointy shapes, or the series of overlapping rectangular shapes that is quite reminiscent of a bunch of highlighter strokes. This repetition of elements combined with the interesting shapes really makes a unique image and plays a large role in making this picture more abstract.

Small Moments

In my opinion, a core aspect of photography – and especially abstract photography – is to share different perspectives and ways of looking at the world. Through my triptych, I want to capture small moments and things that people may not take the time to properly notice and enjoy in their day-to-day lives, and I want to show the beauty and tranquility in these small moments. I want the viewers to see these small things (or big things – sometimes, small moments can be made up of big things, just like how small things can hide in big moments) that bring me joy, and I want to hopefully inspire them to start noticing and finding their own small moments as well. For inspiration, I will look for photographers who explore the atmosphere and emotions brought by seemingly mundane scenes or objects – like Saul Leiter’s rainy photographs, or Jackie Ranken, whose photographs bring magic and mystique into the everyday. I want to explore color and focus to bring my photographs out of the realm of reality and into the imaginary, to show how something ordinary can also be truly extraordinary at the same time. In conclusion, I want to convey the sense of wonder that I feel when I look upon the world, and how I believe that there is significance in taking notice of these small moments. Our world is more magical than you might think, as long as you are willing to look for it.

These simple images all demonstrate at least one of the formal elements:

1) Shape, as the main focus in this image is the balance between the dark and the light rectangles filling up all the space.

2) Shape, as this image uses the positive and negative space in the image to draw the viewer’s eyes to the clear shape of the square.

3) Pattern – it could be argued that this image also qualifies for texture, but this really looks more like a sprinkle pattern wallpaper than an actual tangible thing that you could touch, so this image would be more of a pattern than a texture.

4) Pattern – This image might qualify for line or shape, and it really could be all three. In the end though, the alternating dark and light colors are the most defining feature of this image, so pattern it is.

5) Line. The two lines clearly divide the image into distinct sections and are the most prominent element in the image.

6) Shape. The singular circle at the center of the image is the clearest defining feature of the image, and thus this image is best representative of shape.

7) Line. The three straight lines divide the image into several different sections, and is a very defining feature of the image.

8) Repetition & Pattern, from the repeating circles forming a constant throughout the image.

9) Again, Repetition & Pattern. Although the lines could also qualify for line, the repetition is really more important and noticeable in this image than if the lines were the main focus.

10) Line – although it could be argued that this image also qualifies for shape, the clear cut lines that is created by the shapes guides the viewers eyes and creates a sense of perspective, which is a very important part of the image.

11) Again, Line, for the same reason.

12) Texture, as demonstrated by the straight lines of different weights, almost like a fuzzy surface like a carpet.

Here are the images that I took to imitate these compositions!

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6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

11)

12)

Some of the images that worked well, in my opinion, would be 4, 10, 11, and 12. 4 and 12 both accurately capture the original image, with the horizontal stripes for 4 and the grainy texture for 12. 10 and 11 also worked well in my opinion, as they not only capture the original composition, the various colors allowed me to edit the images into something that is more interesting to look at. 6 also could have worked well, if not for the random strip of lighter color on the left – I think that just a plain bright circle on a dark background could have made for quite an interesting picture. However, if I can edit out the white strip, 6 would also be up there in the successful photos category.

Some of the images that don’t work quite as well would be 1 and 9 – both images are not particularly interesting to look at, and the weird focus and camera angles don’t really make it better. 1 does have an interesting checkers pattern on the right side, and the way the checkers are positioned could lend itself into an optical illusion, but aside from that, these two images doesn’t work as well as the others, in my opinion.

This is a photograph taken by the photographer Uta Barth, who uses the focus of the camera lens to create these soft, blurry images. Some of the things she might have been trying to capture in this particular photo could have been the way the different colors create interesting shapes and forms in the photograph. The dark shape on the left side balances the large brown shape on the right, balancing the composition, and the warm colors – especially the splash of orange near the top of the photo – also add to the element of cohesiveness in the image. The range of different warm colors and values makes this image very satisfying to look at, and although the viewer cannot clearly see the subject of the photo, it still radiates a feeling of warmth. This is why if I were to name the photo, I would choose a name somewhere along the lines of “Warmth” or “A Warm Feeling”, as it conveys the way I feel when looking at the photograph without taking away the element of the charming mystique from the blurry image. Uta Barth uses several techniques when taking this photo: the diagonal lines radiating from the center of the composition guide the viewer’s eyes around the image, and the different values create positive and negative spaces despite the unclarity of the image. The use of focus in this photograph also creates a soft, almost fuzzy quality to the image, prompting the viewer to focus more on the general shapes and colors of the photo instead of any concrete, sharp detail – which makes the scene all the more extraordinary.

The Pictorialism movement in photography was a movement where photographers would attempt to make their photos resemble drawings or paintings. This was achieved through a variety of methods such as painting chemicals over the photo to imitate brushstrokes, or using a soft focus on the lens to imitate the blurriness of some paintings.

On the other hand, the straight photography movement was a movement where photographers would make a photograph as distinctly a photograph as they could by emphasizing the characteristics that only photography possesses. Straight photography is characterized by a sharp focus and the capturing of detail. However, straight photography could be used for abstraction as well, as the direct and straightforward presentation of objects can also show the underlying structures and forms of the object through a more abstract lens. Straight photography was likely popular due to this unique property, which allowed photographers to explore a new way of creating abstraction in photography.

Edward Weston and Aaron Siskind were two prominent photographers who were influenced by the Straight Photography movement, which is shown clearly in their works.

Here is Edward Weston’s Cabbage Leaf, which is a great example of how straight photography impacted his work. At first glance, this appears to be a simple, clear and distinct image of a cabbage leaf, but upon further inspection, the viewer could see how the folds of the leaf flows across the image like a piece of fabric, contrasting with the solid black background.

Another example is this image by Aaron Siskind. This photo is abstract in the way that although it has very clear-cut and distinct details, the intent of the photo is for the viewer to observe and focus on the texture and the forms of the shapes in the image, instead of trying to discern exactly what it is that the photographer has taken a photo of. This reflects the different ways abstraction can be achieved in straight photography.

Andreas Gursky’s work is abstract in that it focuses on broad shapes, forms, and repetitions in pattern, toying with the viewer’s sense of scale and often creating a feeling of being dwarfed by the big wide world around us. The viewer is not meant to focus on one specific subject, but the wider picture. This means that his works would be classified more as straight photographs.

On the other hand, Uta Barth uses the focus of the lens to create soft and blurred images instead of sharp and detailed ones to focus on the shapes and colors of the images, creating a quaint feeling that suddenly makes ordinary, everyday scenes feel so much more special. In this way, these photographs are much closer to paintings than photos, and would likely classify more as pictorialist photographs.

Formal Elements:

Line

Shape

Pattern & Repetition

Texture

Value/Tone

Focus