Abstract photography
An abstract photograph may isolate a fragment of a natural scene to remove its inherent context from the viewer, it may be purposely staged to create a seemingly unreal appearance from real objects, or it may involve the use of color, light, shadow, texture, shape and/or form to convey a feeling, sensation or impression.
Alvin Langdon Coburn in 1916 proposed that an exhibition be organized with the title "Abstract Photography", for which the entry form would clearly state that "no work will be admitted in which the interest of the subject matter is greater than the appreciation of the extraordinary.
[6] The prints he made had no reference to the reality of the visible world that other photographers then recorded, and they demonstrated photography's unprecedented ability to transform what had previously been invisible into a tangible presence.
Another early photographer, Anna Atkins in England, produced a self-published book of photograms made by placing dried algae directly on cyanotype paper.
About this same time Swedish author and artist August Strindberg experimented with subjecting saline solutions on photographic plates to heat and cold.
[11] Beginning in 1903 a series of annual art exhibitions in Paris called the Salon d'Automne introduced the public to then radical vision of artists like Cézanne, Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, František Kupka, Albert Gleizes, and Jean Metzinger.
By 1910, in New York Alfred Stieglitz began to show abstract painters like Marsden Hartley and Arthur Dove at his 291 art gallery, which had previously exhibited only pictorial photography.
The first publicly exhibited images that are now recognized as abstract photographs were a series called Symmetrical Patterns from Natural Forms, shown by Erwin Quedenfeldt in Cologne in 1914.
In Europe, Prague became a center of avant-garde photography, with František Drtikol, Jaroslav Rössler, Josef Sudek and Jaromír Funke all creating photographs influenced by Cubism and Futurism.
Man Ray, Maurice Tabard, André Kertész, Curtis Moffat and Filippo Masoero were some of the best known artists who produced startling imagery that questioned both reality and perspective.
Inspired by the work of Moholy-Nagy, Susan Rankaitis first began embedding found images from scientific textbooks into large-scale photograms, creating has been called "a palimpsest that has to be explored almost like an archeological excavation.
Photographers such as Thomas Ruff, Barbara Kasten, Tom Friedman, and Carel Balth were creating works that combined photography, sculpture, printmaking and computer-generated images.
Among the most well-known of the early 21st century generation were Gaston Bertin, Penelope Umbrico, Ard Bodewes, Ellen Carey, Nicki Stager, Shirine Gill, Thomas Ruff, Andrew Prokos, Wolfgang Tillmans, Kim Keever, Harvey Lloyd, and Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.
