Looking at some of the most impressive contemporary photography, it’s easy to believe that sophisticated equipment is necessary.  Thoughts of prohibitively expensive cameras and all of the other trappings of professional photography have dissuaded plenty of would-be photographers over the years.  But amazing images have been made for centuries without any help from cameras using creatively strange pinhole and photogram photography techniques.

Photograms are, quite simply, photographs made without a camera.  Items are placed on photo-sensitive paper and the whole setup is exposed to light.  After processing, the exposed areas will be dark and the areas covered by the items will appear as negative spaces.  The method is popularly associated with the artist Man Ray, who called his images rayographs.