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Andrew Helmer (@andrew.helmer.photo), Instagram profile photo
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Andrew Helmer

Fotograf
@andrew.helmer.photo
Software engineer and enthusiast landscape photographer, based in Los Angeles, CA. Sorry I haven't posted in a while! But I'll be back.
  • Technology
  • Following 1.3K
  • Followers 5.8K
  • Engagement 12.79%
  • Avg comments 54

About Andrew Helmer

Andrew Helmer (@andrew.helmer.photo) is a Fotograf creator on Instagram, also filed under Technology. The account has 5,779 followers and 80 published posts. Recent posts average 723 likes and 54 comments, an engagement rate of 12.79%.

Andrew Helmer belongs to the nano tier, the band usually drawn between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. Andrew Helmer follows 1,310 accounts, so the audience is roughly 4.4 times the size of the list followed. Andrew Helmer uses an Instagram professional account. Flinque files Andrew Helmer under Fotograf, with Technology as a secondary category.

The Instagram bio for Andrew Helmer runs to 22 words. The latest activity Flinque has on record for Andrew Helmer dates from May 2022.

Story Highlights

Unlocking shows the title and cover image of every story highlight this creator keeps pinned to the profile.

80 Posts

Of the 10 most recent posts shown for Andrew Helmer, 6 are single images and 4 are carousels. That mix leans toward single images. 80 published posts give Andrew Helmer a moderate archive on Instagram. Against the audience, that is roughly 72 followers for each post published. Andrew Helmer also keeps 5 story highlights on the profile. All 10 carry captions, averaging 246 words each. The captions are written mainly in English. Words that recur across them include really, i've, been, still and trip. The captions tag #globalcapture, #earth_shotz, #explorearizona, #ig_arizona and #ig_myshots.

Well, it has been quite a long time since I posted a photo on Instagram. The world has changed a lot. My life has changed a lot, too. I won't talk too much about that, except how it relates to my photography and my long absence from Instagram. Like other hobbyist photographers, the pandemic postponed some the biggest trips I'd ever planned the last 2 years. Oddly though, this was something that I actually needed in my life. It allowed me to refocus on my career, and to shift into work that I was far more excited about (although my last job before the pandemic was a good job, with amazing people, the work didn't excite me as much).

Long-story short, I ended up landing a job working on the graphics (rendering) of a videogame that I play many days of the week, which I *also* love the art direction for. And now I find that much of my creativity and passion that used to be directed almost entirely into photography (especially in editing photos after a trip) is going into my work instead. This is great! But the downside is that it's very hard to find the time to edit photos!

Anyway, this was one of the trips that got postponed in the pandemic, 3-weeks guided by, but Marc was able to make it happen this year, and it was worth the wait. The highlight was the portion we spent in the remote fjords, where I took this photo. These fjords were the most beautiful area I've ever been in my life, with enormous glaciated mountains, emerging from South American rainforest going right up to the water. And it's complete untouched wilderness, without even trails anywhere. I wasn't really happy with the compositions I found during this part of the trip, but still, it's hard for me to not look at the photos and be awed by the place.

Despite that, it's been over 3 weeks since I got back, and this is the first photo I've fully edited. This is partially because Photoshop and Lightroom seem to have gotten SO slow for me, I can barely use them. Doing almost anything hangs for a few seconds. I really need to fix this before I can edit more. In any case... you can expect my photos from this trip be a VERY slow drip, but I'm happy to be back with something new!
I'm sorry that I haven't posted new photos for a while. Photography has taken a backseat in my life so far this year - in part due to the pandemic which cancelled photography trips, due to the long multi-stage process of moving across the country, and due to other (good) projects that have been keeping me busy. But I felt the need to share this along with the other nature photographers sharing it today, because it speaks so much to my own values. I also encourage you to read the full post of today, who says much more that I agree with, including the importance of the scientific process and our relationship with nature.

There's nothing really I can add to this, other than that I don't emphasize the long-term goal of my photography enough, which is the third point here. A large part of my love for nature, especially for the wilderness, came from photographers inspiring me, and I hope to do the same for others. Too often I'll scroll mindlessly through Instagram, maybe appreciate the pretty pictures, but don't internalize that what I'm seeing is a real thing. But the very best photos snap me out of that, remind me that I'm not just seeing the talent of the photographer but also the beauty of the world. I have a long ways to go artistically before I have that effect on other people, but I hope that when I do post more photos in the future, some might remember why I'm doing it.
#blackouttuesday
I think it's crazy that I had never been to the Owens River Valley and Eastern Sierra until this past December, despite living in California for 20 years, and even going to college in Southern California. This is the deepest valley in US! The valley is at 4,000 feet, and both the Eastern Sierra on the west side and the White Mountains on the east side rise to over 14,000 feet! Even the best photos I've seen don't really capture how beautiful and expansive it is, especially with the mountains covered in snow like this.
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Anyway, while I still have a ton of photos from the Southwest that I'm excited about (and some from Colorado and other trips!), I also need to take a bit of a break from processing and IG in order to focus on some other things. All good stuff, just more important to me right now. So I apologize if I don't see any comments or messages for a while (except I'll be on for a couple more days). Most likely I'll be back in March. Hope everyone has a good February! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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#visitcalifornia #westcoast_exposures #wildcalifornia #rawcalifornia #visitbishop
I used to work on Computer Graphics software and raytracing, and I've always loved trying to understand the way that light creates the appearances of things we see. A fancy term I learned in those days is "anisotropic scattering". An-iso-tropic means not-equally-directional. It describes the way that light gets scattered when passing through translucent materials, and rather than being dispersed in all directions equally, gets scattered more in some directions. One example that many know is backlit clouds, where the edges look really bright when the sun is directly behind a cloud. But if you look at a cloud with the sun behind you, the clouds look flat, and the edges actually appear slightly darker than the middle of the cloud. Clouds, like many translucent media, scatter light forwards, away from the source of light, much more than they scatter light backwards.
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My favorite examples of anisotropic scattering are materials made of fibers or thin tubes, like hair or the spines of cacti. When light is hitting a vertical strand of hair, the light will scatter only a bit vertically, but much more horizontally. This is where that sheen of straight hair and fur comes from, with a highlight that seems to "spread" perpendicular to the strands, like a lathed piece of metal (which is anisotropic reflection!). But cholla spines are thicker than hair, they spread out in chaotic directions, and their spines - unlike of some other cacti - are hollow. So they have less sheen, but more of their amazing glow. Still, with backlit cholla, you can see a bit of that anisotropic sheen.
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Special thanks to for giving some really helpful feedback on the processing.
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#ArizonaIsGorgeous #CaptureArizona #ExploreArizona #ig_arizona #see_arizona
I have plenty more new images from the Southwest coming, but now something old... and some news. News first: after not updating my website for years, my new website is up! (link in bio too). It's not really a huge deal, there isn't any new work there, but if you want to see my images in higher quality or on a bigger screen, check it out. If you head over to the Blog section, there's a post with some high-resolution images that I think make nice desktop backgrounds, including this one (and frankly, this is the worst image of the bunch).
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Something old: this self-portrait panorama from 's tour in Greenland in 2017, a trip that really got me excited about photographing remote places in the world. I actually posted this on Instagram a long time ago, but I've been meaning to repost it since IG introduced "swipe-o-ramas".
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#GreenlandPioneer #VisitGreenland #ExploreGreenland #earth_shotz #globalcapture
Well I have to say, the response to my last post, both to the image and to what I wrote, was really amazing and brought me a lot of joy. It was actually my most commented on post on Instagram, ever! So thank you, everyone.
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Okay, on to this one! This past summer I wrote a story and explained a bit about how, in my hiking backpack, I keep a "backup" bag and a "quick access" bag, the former usually being buried deep in my pack and the quick access bag always in the outermost pocket. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Well on this trip, I moved one item from the backup bag into the quick access: tweezers. Because the needles of these cholla cacti are AWFUL. They're as nasty as they are beautiful to photograph. They will attach themselves to almost anything they touch, go through some tough materials, and once they get stuck in you, you cannot remove them with your hands. Hence, the utility of tweezers, since I think every person on this trip got stung by them, except for.
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In fact, while setting up this shot, a little ball from one of the cacti attached itself to my hiking shoes, some needles went through the shoe and my sock and into my foot. Only a few millimeters, not a huge deal (they're not poisonous). The shot was definitely worth it.
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I have a little behind the scenes video from here, before this shot was taken, check out my story if you want to see it. Also I had to do some squashing and warping and cropping for Instagram, and this version still feels weird to me, so I'll post the full version in my story too.
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#divine_deserts #earth_shotz #ExploreArizona #globalcapture #ig_arizona
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all have a great 2020, but I wanted to share a little bit about my 2019. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
From the outside, I think many people would think I had an amazing year, but actually it's been difficult. There were a lot of reasons for this, but my "funemployment" is a big part of it. I left my (great) job in June, in order to pursue personal growth. I thought that I'd get additional time and energy, but instead the space left by my job became filled, and then some, by a lot of instabilities, personal responsibilities, and unfortunate circumstances. Over the last six months, I didn't achieve anything that I'd set out for. For one example, I'd intended to ramp up my exercise, but instead I lost fitness and gained weight to my highest level in over a decade.
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So I felt (still feel tbh) like I had thrown away so much of an amazing opportunity I'd been given, and I became really unhappy.
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I'm not posting this for catharsis, nor am I looking for sympathy. Overall, the circumstances of my life are good, I'm a very lucky person and I'm grateful for a lot. I learned some from my failures of the last year, and 2020 is looking like it will be significantly better. But I just want to say that, certainly on Instagram, and even in real life, people's lives can seem great on the surface, but internally things can be a lot more complicated.
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That being said, I made a lot of great memories in 2019, and this sunrise in Central Utah was certainly one of them. Shooting in Utah was my favorite part of the Southwest trip, with landscapes unlike those I've seen anywhere else. This was an aerial panorama using a DJI Mavic Pro, 7 images in portrait orientation. Funnily enough, I'd planned for this flight to be more "scouting", and for the next flight to be shooting. But while I'd remembered to charge my drone batteries, I forgot to charge the remote controller! I was barely able to eke out this one flight, but I'm glad I did! The light wasn't as good afterwards, anyway. Check out my IG story if you want to see it a bit bigger, using your phone's height.
On Sunday I got home from an incredible 12 day tour in the Southwest, led by, on which I had the pleasure to meet and shoot with,,,,, and. I learned a ton on the trip, most of all about the weather. Our focus was on reading the weather and going where the conditions were best, driving hundreds of miles each day, often backtracking or making drastic changes to the trip itinerary. Over those 12 days we drove over 3000 miles in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and California, and as a result got a pretty ludicrous amount of great sunrises and sunsets.
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Even with so much great light, I can't say I love every shot I took on this trip, but I am really happy with a few, including this one. I've seen a lot of photos of mud cracks in Death Valley, and usually I'm not super enthusiastic about shots that aren't very unique, but this was one of the best sunsets I've ever seen... and almost certainly the best I've ever photographed.
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Also I want to give a special thanks to, who gave me a great suggestion for how to process this image, and although most photographers I love have great Southwest photos, I want to mention whose SW photos have been a particular inspiration to me.
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#earth_shotz #globalcapture #ig_myshots #ig_shotz_dec19 #igworld_global
Trying out something a little bit different here, maybe slightly more "minimalist" than my usual? I shot this last Tuesday, and as many of you know, the day before we'd had 11 inches of snow in Ann Arbor, breaking the previous November record for snowfall in a day. Any time some "unusual" weather comes up (which is happening far more frequently these days...), my gears start turning about whether the conditions could make for a unique photo. Honestly, 95% of the time I'm too lazy to leave the house, and I've done an embarrassingly little amount of scouting around where I live, but this time I decided to drive around and see if I could find a nice shot. It's rare in Ann Arbor to get significant snow on the ground while some of the trees still have fall colors, so that's what I was hoping to capture, and I had a couple of ideas for compositions that I wanted. In the end, I didn't find the shots I was looking for, and I didn't really get any good shots contrasting the leaves and the snow (although it was really beautiful just to drive around), but I ended up liking this one!
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I should also say that I was somewhat inspired here by the exceptional work of Benjamin Everett. I couldn't hope to ever get anything close to what he's done, but I was really thinking about some of his compositions and color palettes with this image, so I wanted to give credit.
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#globalcapture #ig_myshots #ig_shotz_nov19 #ig_shotz_trees #igpodium

Andrew Helmer's engagement

Andrew Helmer's engagement rate on Instagram is 12.79%, over 6%, more than 6 likes and comments per 100 followers. On a typical post that comes to about 1 like or comment for every 8 followers. An average post collects 723 likes and 54 comments, close to 13 likes for each comment.

Engagement rate

12.79%

Avg likes
723
Avg comments
54
Interactions : followers
1 : 8

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Frequently asked questions

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Who is Andrew Helmer?

Andrew Helmer (@andrew.helmer.photo) is a Fotograf creator on Instagram, also filed under Technology. Andrew Helmer uses an Instagram professional account. The Instagram bio for Andrew Helmer runs to 22 words.

How many followers does Andrew Helmer have?

Andrew Helmer has 5,779 followers on Instagram (5.8K). Andrew Helmer follows 1,310 accounts, so the audience is roughly 4.4 times the size of the list followed. 80 published posts give Andrew Helmer a moderate archive on Instagram.

What is Andrew Helmer's engagement rate?

Andrew Helmer's engagement rate on Instagram is 12.79%, over 6%, more than 6 likes and comments per 100 followers. On a typical post that comes to about 1 like or comment for every 8 followers. An average post collects 723 likes and 54 comments, close to 13 likes for each comment.

What does Andrew Helmer post about on Instagram?

Flinque files Andrew Helmer under Fotograf, with Technology as a secondary category. Of the 10 most recent posts shown for Andrew Helmer, 6 are single images and 4 are carousels. The 10 recent Instagram captions Flinque holds for Andrew Helmer repeatedly use the words really, i've, been, still and trip. Andrew Helmer's captions carry hashtags such as #globalcapture, #earth_shotz and #explorearizona. Andrew Helmer writes those captions mainly in English. Andrew Helmer keeps 5 story highlights, which open with a free Flinque account.

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