Redefining Photography: The Art of the Photogram
British photographer Adam Fuss’ works are not conventional photographs, yet they are photographic. Using the earliest camera-less techniques such as photograms in which objects are placed directly on light sensitive material then exposed to light, Fuss encourages the viewer to think more broadly about the medium and its possibilities. Photograms, invented by William Henry Fox Talbot in the 1830s and later popularized by artists such as Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy, have significant historical precedents, but Fuss’ unusual subject matter imbues his contemporary renditions with a deep psychological intensity. Some of his most well-known body of work includes images of christening gowns, rabbits, snakes and babies. His contemporary, evocative and ethereal interpretations of the technique explore the complexity, mystery and transience of life.
Rooted in Nature, Drawn to Process
Adam Fuss was born in 1961 in England and mostly grew up between England and Australia, often spending time alone and outdoors. Nature was where he found solace and it provided him with what he describes as a ‘world of revelation’. Unbeknownst to him at the time, Fuss’ fascination with nature would later become one of his greatest influences and the touchstone to his practice. In 1980, he began working as a photographic apprentice at the Ogilvy & Mather Agency. Two years later, he moved to New York and began experimenting with a pinhole camera, which later led to its abandonment altogether.
Originally trained as a commercial photographer, Fuss’ decision turn away from modern technology and photographic processes was a reaction to the banality of mass produced generic images;
“I was consciously trying to make photographs I hadn’t seen before. I’d probably seen billions of photographs and they were all produced by the same mechanism.”
It was when he began experimenting with the photogram technique that Fuss came to the realization that he did not want to take, but rather make images; ‘Photograms let you see what has never been in a camera.’, he says, ‘Life itself is the image.’
A Familiar Subject, Reimagined
Flowers have been one of the many subjects Adam Fuss has favorited throughout his career. Alluding to the early photograms of Talbot, which served to record the fleeting, Fuss’s contemporary study of this familiar subject presents a deepening internalization of photography. He says,
“The goal is to create something that is unfamiliar, through a photographic language that is unfamiliar—to create something that has qualities to draw you in. It may be a play of light, an idea of beauty, an incredible subtlety of tonality.”
In his quest for the essence of things and conscious effort to search for the essence of photography, Fuss’ presentation of flowers emphasize their overwhelming fragility. Although the subject is familiar, its associations to the metaphysical, the spiritual, and even the emotional are heightened through the camera-less technique. And through this process of simplification and distillation, the object becomes a greater metaphor, a symbol.
Light as Memory, Image as Presence
Using an etching press, Adam Fuss flattens spring flowers onto paper, creating delicate, ephemeral compositions that reflect the fragility of life. He then photographs the pressed arrangements, capturing their subtle textures and tonalities. The resulting images are printed as pigment prints onto gesso-coated aluminum sheets, a surface that lends a luminous, painterly quality to the final works. The crushed petals, for example, seem to regain volume and depth, almost sculptural in appearance. Fuss has said that he would,
“much rather have people look at (his) photographs as if they were paintings. Because when we look at paintings we look only at the image; we experience it.”
In preserving the fragile remnants of nature, these works act as both memento mori and meditations on transformation—visual echoes of what once was.
A Lasting Legacy in Contemporary Photography
Throughout his career, Adam Fuss has gained critical acclaim for his unconventional approach to the photographic medium. By focusing on the most essential elements of photography, he has not only refined but has breathed new life into the medium’s earliest practices. In 2000, Fuss was awarded the 16th Annual Award for Art from the International Center of Photography. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many others, and has been exhibited in major international museums such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the FotoMuseum in Winterthur, and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. The work of Adam Fuss He resides and works in New York, NY.
By Tuana Pulak – April 2025