by Editor Wicher Bos 

Recently I read a book of one of my favourites, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946). The book “Vision in Motion”, “presents a broad and general view of the interrelatedness of art and life.“ In this book Laszlo presents his view on
(a new education of) visual arts.

In the section about ‘Photography’ he mentions eight varieties of photographic vision. This appealed to me because of its logic and because it matches our “seeing” to a categorization of photography.

And… of course… my next idea was, are there examples of each of his classification items in the 1x gallery.
Well, this is what I found…
The bold items are Laszlo’s category, below each of them (indented) you see my findings…

Abstract seeing by means of direct records produced by light; the photogram which captures the most delicate gradations of light values, both chiaroscuro and colored.
I could not find a true Photogram, but for me, this ‘smoke’ gets close

 

'Silk' by Aida Ianeva

Delicate gradations of light values

'As green as grass.....!' by Huib Limberg

Abstract illusion of a spiral – not truly a direct record of light though, just beautiful

'Spiral illusion' by Jacqueline Hammer

 Exact seeing by means of camera records; reportage.

 

'Innocence' by Vincent chung

'Eagle Girl II' by Rui Pires

'Blue' by Burak Senbak

'The road to the future' by Francesco Fratto

Rapid seeing by means of fixation of movements in the instantaneous snapshot, stroboscopic photography, an instantaneous photograph with rhythmical interruption of motion flow.
Mind the bullet...

'Stop global warming' by Lex Augusteijn

'High speed squirrel ;)' by Mircea Costina

'This dog can fly!' by Claudio Piccoli

Slow seeing by means of fixation of movements spread over a period of time, prolonged time exposures; e.g. The luminous tracks made by headlights of cars passing along a road at night; virtual volume.

 

'Super, eclipse, blood red moon' by David williams

'Headlights and Brake Lights' by Karl Klingebiel

 
Prolonged time

'TIMELESS' by Paulo Dias

'Slow motion' by Larry Deng

'Silence' by Santiago Pascual Buye

Intensified seeing by means of:

* Macro and microphotography

 

'Phantasmagorical' by Thierry Dufour

'Daddy Longlegs' by Victor Mozqueda

'African devil' by Jimmy Hoffman

* Filter photography which, by chemical variation of the sensitized surface, permits photographic potentialities to be augmented in various ways, ranging from the revelation of far-distant landscapes veiled in haze or fog to exposures in complete darkness-infrared photography.
Also a difficult category as it is hard to see if filters like a polarizer were applied but these infrared will at least give a good impression:

 
'Lapland' by Vaans Ruijten

'Iribas water mill' by Martin Zalba

* Bird, frog and fisheye view.

Bird’s eye view:

 
'Birds eye view' by MikeC

'Follow the path' by Gunarto Song

'Drain pipe' by Radu R.

Fisheye view:

'Santiago shapes' by Henk van Maastricht

'the tower II' by Bildwerker Freiburg

'Santiago Bernabéu' by Jesús M. Garcia

Frog or bug’s eye view:

'Stars' by Massimo Della Latta

'Palazzo Pubblico – Siena – Italy' by Frank Smout Images

'The Portal for Pillar Agmina Mk.II' by Dr. Akira TAKAUE

Penetrative seeing by means of x-rays; radiography

Couldn’t find a real X-ray either – no surprise – but to show some example, here is a well to known x-ray of a hand

Free stock image

 However, this beauty is almost as good:

 

'Spoons Abstract: X-ray' by Jacqueline Hammer

 
and should you be more interested in more true x-rays images, just google for photographer Nick Veasey to see some stunning x-ray art.

Simultaneous seeing by means of superimpositions; a process of automatic photomontage.

 

'manipulated …' by Esther Margraff

'golden memories' by mehran chitsaz

'Where Books Come From' by Michael Delman

'viewpoint' by Adrian Vrican

 
Distorted seeing – optical jokes that can be automatically produced by:

* Exposure through a lens fitted with prisms, of reflecting mirrors or the distograph.

If any one of you knows what the “distograph” actually was, I will be grateful.
(It can’t be the MacMillan distograph in my view, that would not make any sense.)

'Blue window in a red frame' by Harry Verschelden

'I believe I can fly' by Anja Buehrer

 
'polarized' by Manfred W.

'I' by Oren Hayman

Mechanical and chemical manipulation of the negative during or after developing, using oil drops, suds, soaps, etc.; lighting, heating or freezing, resulting in distortion, reticulation, solarization, etc

In digital times the hit you get for Suds is this:

'Suds' by Cathyt

 
modern version of this approach: added texture and double exposures:

'Eye Catcher' by Delphine Devos

'Soulmade part II' by Stefan Eisele

'City' by Zsóka Lorincz

 
I hope you enjoyed the selection and although some elements of Laszlo’s categorization seem a bit outdated, (like the chemical manipulations), they presently have found a new shape in the digital era (in all kinds of software manipulations) – in my opinion.

I like to end this contribution with a quote from Lazlo
“The enemy of photography is the convention, the fixed rules of 'how to do.'
The salvation of photography comes from the experiment.” (Laszlo Moholy-Nagy)

As always, I just express my personal views and feelings… also in selecting these specific 1x iimages.
Let me know your favourite examples or if you disagree, why…
Your response is always appreciated!

Wicher Bos

Source: Vision in Motion – 1946 – Laszlo Moholy – Nagy (publisher Paul Theobald, Chicago)