Keld Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who spent most of his time working as an architectural photographer, who also published books of black and white images that use dramatic high contrast. He was inspired by Albert Renger-Patzch, the experiments that took place at The Bauhaus in Germany, as well as Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied. In his photos, we are presented with images that have had their mid-tones completely removed, leaving only black and white. He used cameras and flat bed scanners to create his images. He isolates details and his aim was to capture our modern life by eliminating colours and bringing the focus back to the fundamental elements of the photograph.
My Response.
In response to Helmer-Petersen, I took a series of photographs and below are my favourite ones. I took my photos with the idea in mind that the photos should be as easy to manipulate as they can be, to remove mid-tones and just keep black and white tones. My favourite of the images I have selected are of the metal basketball net, the lamppost and the bicycle wheels. I think that the solitariness of the lamppost and the basketball net, with the lack of background detail, will mean that the black is stronger and bolder and will have a really clear outline, making it obvious as to what the items are. I also think that the bicycle wheel will be interesting because of the lines and the patterns that they will create, in general i think that the photographs with lines and abstract shapes will be the better ones as the finer details of the object I chose to focus on will be highlighted, and the background noise will be eliminated.