Our task was to make 16 abstract images just using a plain piece of paper and light. We were told that we couldn't cut or tear it but we could do anything else to it. For this task we had control of the light and aperture for the camera therefore could manipulate the amounts of light we wanted in the photograph. I started out by doing a basic fold and using the flashlight light from my phone to create shapes from the shadows. I then experimented with shining light through different clear objects like glass/coloured glass to create a more textured and interesting light on the paper.
Abstraction in Photography
Jaroslav Rossler
From 1917 to 1920, Rössler studied in the atelier of the company owned by renowned Czech photographer František Drtikol. When he was 21, he began collaboration with the art theorist Karel Teige and while working on these tasks, Rössler deepened his knowledge of photographic methods. In his works he utilized and combined the techniques of photogram, photomontage, collage and drawing. The beginnings of his photographic work were influenced by art forms like Cubism and Futurism, but eventually he attempted to create the first abstract photographs. In the 1950s, he resumed his previous activities and again began experimenting with the camera and photographic techniques, he also created so-called "prizmata" (prisms), photographs taken through a prism. He also experimented with 'solarisation' and explored the possibilities of the 'Sabatier effect'. Jaroslav Rössler is today considered an important exponent of Czech modern photography and art.
James Welling
Throughout his career, Welling has experimented with different photographic mediums, including Polaroids, gelatine silver prints, photograms, and digital prints. Having studied under John Baldessari at CalArts and exhibited with Sherrie Levine at Metro Pictures, Welling began his career in the so-called 'Pictures Generation'. He emerged in the 1970s as a post-conceptual artist for whom photographic norms and the representational field itself were and remain contested and problematized.
Francis Bruguière
In 1905, having studied painting in Europe, Bruguière became acquainted with photographer and modern art promoter Alfred Stieglitz (who accepted him as a Fellow of the Photo-secession), and set up a studio in San Francisco, recording in a pictorialist style images of the city after the earthquake and fire. Throughout his life, Bruguière experimented with multiple-exposure, solarization, years ahead of Man Ray, original processes, abstracts, photograms, and the response of commercially available film to light of various wavelengths.
Minor White
Minor White was an American Photographer, theoretician, critic and educator. He combined an intense interest in how people viewed and understood photographs with a personal vision that was guided by a variety of spiritual and intellectual philosophies. After serving in military intelligence during World War II, Minor White moved to New York City in 1945. He spent two years studying aesthetics and art history at Columbia University under Meyer Schapiro and developing his own distinctive style. He became involved with a circle of influential photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams; hearing Stieglitz's idea of "equivalents" from the master himself was crucial to the direction of Minor White's mature post-war work.