Photographing without a camera

No guys, I am not crazy: it is possible and not even complicated. What fools us is our habit: the word photography simply means "writing with light," and no one says there has to be a lens and a sensor or film. There are many techniques for imprinting an image, and most are older than the camera because they obviously date back to when it had not yet been invented. The results can be amazing.

I will be honest: some of these techniques I am experimenting with, others I have only studied. When I master them I will make step-by-step tutorials, don't miss the updates, and subscribe to the emails.

In the meantime, here is a brief introduction.

Photograms

Well, yes. If you are a photographer or cinephile you have heard this word before and perhaps use it to refer to individual images in a video sequence. Correct.

However, the frame is also an ancient photography technique, loved and pioneered as early as the great photographer Man Ray, so much so that his technique is called rayography.

The usual result is a negative shadow image that shows variations in tone depending on the transparency of the objects used. Areas of the paper that received no light appear white; those exposed for a shorter time or through transparent or semitransparent objects appear gray, while fully exposed areas are black in the final print.

Cyanotype

Anna Atkins was one of the first women to try her hand at photography. It was the mid-19th century, and while Daguerre was inventing a technique of his own that would lead to the invention of the camera, she experimented with chemistry to obtain printed images of her main interest: botany.

This technique uses salts of iron ammonium citrate (green) and potassium ferricyanide (red), which combined turn into ferric ferrocyanide, which gives the typical blue tint to the parts affected by the light (there are also ways to turn it to sepia), while the shadows, and thus the subjects, will appear white. These salts should be dissolved in water and smeared on paper, fabric or any other medium. The subject can be printed first on a transparent sheet that will be fixed with clothespins, or you can do like Anna and place objects directly on the support. The whole thing should then be placed in the sun; exposure time varies depending on the intensity of the sun, from 30 minutes to several days: check periodically by carefully lifting your subject. At the end wash the print under water; no fixing is needed.

Luminograms

Painter László Moholy-Nagy liked to experiment with shapes and colors, not only on canvas, but also with light.

The luminogram is a variation of the photogram, made in the darkroom directly on photosensitive paper and developed chemically and fixed normally.

While the photogram uses the shadows of objects, in the luminogram the light is modulated by varying the intensity through the distance from the photosensitive surface, the power or shape of the light source, or tempered by filters or gels, or by shifting the light (a low-power flashlight is sufficient). The paper itself can be shaped to create the desired effects in the final image.

Have you tried any of them? Tell me about your experience.