Photograms, or cameraless prints, were a favorite medium of both Man Ray and Laszlo Moholy Nagy, two photographer/artists whose work I’ve always admired. Simple to execute, photograms were made by placing objects on photographic printing paper under the enlarger and exposing to the light for a brief period of time and then processing in the usual way. By varying the translucency of the objects used a variety of effects could be obtained.

To update the process for the modern digital age it’s possible to use an ordinary scanner with objects placed on the glass and covered by fabric, paper, card etc. As you’ve probably realised the effect gained is not totally like photograms - in fact you have more possibilities with the scanner method. Naturally, depth of field is limited (basically, if it’s touching the glass it’s sharp, if not then forget it!) and the light falls of very rapidly away from the glass. Still, a large variety of interesting effects can be had and I’m just beginning to find more as I experiment with subject matter, placement and post processing.

Here are 3 examples I’ve just produced as a first foray into this image making method. Scanned in color and then converted to B&W in LightZone I deliberately edited the images to be contrasty and let the highlights burn out somewhat. The reason for that was so that the images would fit the look I wanted to achieve by applying a Cyanotype split tone with a deep blue for the shadows and midtones and cyan for the highlights.

Click here to buy this print at ImageKind

Click here to buy this print at ImageKind

Click here to buy this print at ImageKind

There will definitely be more to come for this project as I intend to revisit some of my earlier themes using the same method and treatment.

Why not try it for yourself?