What is cameraless photography?

Can you be a photographer without a camera? Would you believe that some of the first photographers in human history never owned cameras? Well, it’s true! There are many cameraless photography techniques that have been out there for you to try out over the years!

What is cameraless photography?

Cameraless photography is a process of creating images without using a camera, often by placing objects directly on light-sensitive paper and exposing them to light. This technique reduces photography to the basic interaction between light and surface, producing images through methods such as placing objects on light-sensitive paper (photograms) or manipulating chemicals (chemigrams) or cyanotypes on the paper itself. These often produce only abstract and representational images, and not at all the detail found in normal photography.

Cameraless photography is a process of creating images without using a camera, often by placing objects directly on light-sensitive paper and exposing them to light. | Photo Credit: National Gallery of Art via Wikimedia Commons

Many argue about how this breaks down photography and what the term literally means: phos, means light, and graphyMeaning to draw or write, which in Latin means “to draw with light”.

Types of cameraless photography

There are many methods when it comes to cameraless photography. From the use of light-sensitive paper to the use of chemicals and machines, cameraless photography runs on the concept of light and chemical manipulation. Some techniques are as follows:

photogram

The objects are placed directly on a sheet of light-sensitive paper. When exposed to light, the area blocked by the objects remains dark, while the rest of the paper becomes sensitive to light. This process can be done with a sun or darkroom magnifying device, and artists such as Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy have used it extensively for artistic purposes. The resulting image depends on the objects used, their position, transparency and the type of light source, leading to diverse and creative results.

Materials needed: A light-sensitive material (such as photographic paper), objects to place on the paper, a light source (sun or dark room magnifier), chemical developer, stop bath, a fixer, and clean water for washing.

chemicals

To create images, chemicals are manipulated directly onto the paper, often in a darkroom. This process uses elements of traditional darkroom photography such as developer and fixer, but combines them with resists and other materials in a unique and often unexpected way to create an image. Thus this image is a unique, one-of-a-kind image created by chemical reactions on paper that cannot be replicated. The term was coined by Belgian artist Pierre Cordier in the 1950s.

Luminogram:

A luminogram is created in a dark room by manipulating light to expose light sensitive paper, often using objects to filter or project the light. Unlike a photogram, which places objects directly on the paper, luminography uses the light source as a tool to shape or interact with the objects before they hit the paper.

Cyanotypes:

Cyanotype uses UV light to create a distinctive cyan-blue print on surfaces such as paper or fabric. The process involves coating a material with a light-sensitive solution, placing an object or negative on top, exposing it to sunlight, and then washing it with water to reveal the white-on-blue image. Originally invented in 1842, it was historically used by engineers to create blueprints and has since been adopted by artists for both creative and scientific purposes.

History and Art

Cameraless technologies such as photograms existed even before the first cameras and were used for scientific and artistic purposes by pioneers such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Anna Atkins, and László Moholy-Nagy. The idea behind cameraless photography is often that when photography is given the freedom to explore itself, it can reach its potential as an important, remarkable medium.

They often create only abstract and representational images, and do not create detailed images at all as in normal photography. | Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

As Batchelor says: “Photography has been freed from its traditional supporting role as a realistic mode of representation and has instead been allowed to become a searchable index of its own operations, so that it can become genuine art.”