# New Vision

> Photographs that make the camera a new eye: a square seen straight down from a radio tower, a mast climbed from below, bridge cables slicing a tilted landscape, a steel transporter bridge printed in negative. Diagonals and bold crops break the level view, and hard sun, cast shadows and girders flatten depth into pattern. Photograms made without a camera, negative prints and superimpositions sit beside quick small-camera shots, in contrasty black and white made for magazines, books and exhibitions such as Film und Foto (1929).

- Period: 1922–1939
- Where it began: The Bauhaus and Berlin around László Moholy-Nagy
- Kind: Modernist
- Also called: Neues Sehen, Neue Optik
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/new-vision/

## How the look is made

- Climb up or crouch down: shoot straight down onto the street or steeply up a tower, never from the comfortable height of the chest.
- Let lines run corner to corner: tilt the frame until girders, stairs, cables and shadows become diagonals that drive the picture.
- Turn the world into pattern: use hard sun, cast shadows, grids and repeated structures to flatten depth into graphic shapes.
- Use every photographic means: lay objects on paper for photograms, print negatives as positives, superimpose exposures, go extremely close.
- Crop hard into the subject and print in strong black and white; a small, quick camera is an advantage.

## How it is lit

- Hard midday sun throwing long, sharp cast shadows across pavements, balconies and walls.
- A bright open sky behind girders, masts or figures seen from below, almost in silhouette.
- A bare bulb over photographic paper in the darkroom for photograms.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: the sun, about 45° to the camera’s left, high, hard.

## Camera settings

35–50 mm · f/4.5–f/11 · 1/500–1/50 s (on full-frame), inferred. Rodchenko's 9 × 12 cm plate camera, 4 × 6.5 cm Ica and Leica, Moholy-Nagy's 6 × 9 cm Ernemann: normal lenses, about 35–50 mm equivalent. Exposures are inferred: hard sun at f/4.5–f/11, 1/50–1/500 s, within the Leica's 1/20–1/500 s. Photograms need no camera.

## Directing people

Treat people as figures in space, not sitters: from far above as they walk across a square trailing shadows, or from below as they climb a ladder, lean over a balcony rail, leap or lift their face to the sky. Bodies are bent into angles and cut by the frame; people rarely look at the lens or pose for it, and groups march or exercise in step.

## Styling

Nothing is styled: people wear their own everyday clothes, swimwear, sports kit or uniform, and streets, roofs, bridges and machines are taken as they stand, with no backdrop, props or make-up. For photograms, ordinary things (glass, wire, combs, strips of paper) are laid straight on the paper.

## Before you shoot it

New Vision's means also served state propaganda: Rodchenko was sent to photograph the building of the White Sea–Baltic Canal in 1933 and designed an issue of USSR in Construction from his pictures, celebrating a canal dug by Gulag forced labour in which, by official records, 12,000 to 25,000 workers died. Use the steep angles and diagonals for their form; never restage propaganda imagery of real forced labour, parades or leaders, and label generated images as AI-generated, never as vintage prints.

## Photographs

- Jaromír Funke, [Wooded Hills and Lake, Seen from above on a Diagonal through Suspended Bridge Cables (?)], 1920s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987 (1987.1100.408); image released by the Met as CC0 via Wikimedia Commons. Shown on the page: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/265474
- László Moholy-Nagy, [Climbing the Mast], 1928. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, several members of The Chairman's Council Gifts, 2004 (2004.275); image released by the Met as CC0 via Wikimedia Commons. Shown on the page: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/285429
- László Moholy-Nagy, From the Radio Tower, Berlin, 1928, printed ca. 1940. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Purchase, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, by exchange, 2005 (2005.100.444); image released by the Met as CC0 via Wikimedia Commons. Shown on the page: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/285731
- László Moholy-Nagy, Fotogramm, 1925–1928. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987 (1987.1100.159); image released by the Met as CC0 via Wikimedia Commons. Shown on the page: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/265198

## Sources

- Neues Sehen, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neues_Sehen (1920s movement tied to the Bauhaus; the lens as a second eye; unexpected framing, high or low camera angles; Rodchenko, Moholy-Nagy, Peterhans; Film und Foto 1929 with about 1,200 works; touring to Zurich, Berlin, Danzig, Vienna, Tokyo and Osaka; Franz Roh's foto-auge)
- Film und Foto, Wikipedia (de): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_und_Foto (Stuttgart, 18 May to 7 July 1929; Deutscher Werkbund; country organisers including Moholy-Nagy, Steichen and Weston, El Lissitzky, Piet Zwart, Man Ray; foto-auge and Werner Gräff's Es kommt der neue Fotograf!)
- Neues Sehen, Wikipedia (de): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neues_Sehen (extreme upward and downward viewpoints, light and shadow; Rodchenko and the Bauhaus; Lucia Moholy, Germaine Krull, Umbo, Andreas Feininger; growth out of straight photography's objective approach; criticised by New Objectivity photographers)
- László Moholy-Nagy, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946; photograms from 1922 with Lucia Moholy; coined Neues Sehen in Malerei, Photographie, Film, 1925; 2nd edition 1927; photography editor of i10, 1927–1929)
- Alexander Rodchenko, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Rodchenko (photographs from 1924; high and low viewpoints and diagonals to postpone recognition; LEF and Novyi LEF; charged with formalism; the Pushkino pine trees criticised as aesthetic)
- Родченко, Александр Михайлович, Wikipedia (ru): https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Родченко,_Александр_Михайлович (sent to Belomorstroi in early 1933; designed issue 12 of USSR in Construction in December 1933; upper and lower viewpoints)
- White Sea–Baltic Canal, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sea%E2%80%93Baltic_Canal (built by Gulag forced labour; between 12,000 and 25,000 deaths by official records; propaganda showcase)
- From the Radio Tower, Berlin, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/285731 (Moholy-Nagy, 1928, printed ca. 1940, gelatin silver print, 2005.100.444)
- Berlin, Radio Tower, MoMA Object:Photo (Thomas Walther Collection): https://www.moma.org/interactives/objectphoto/objects/84043.html (Moholy-Nagy 'took this photograph of the Berlin radio tower with his medium-format Ernemann 6 by 9 centimeter camera', 1928; a view down through the girders, not the Met's snowy view)
- Aleksandr Rodchenko, artist chronology, MoMA Object:Photo: https://www.moma.org/interactives/objectphoto/artists/4975.html (the 1924 Mayakovsky portraits made with a 9 × 12 cm plate camera; in summer 1925 he buys a 4 × 6.5 cm Ica plate camera and two 35 mm Sept cameras; purchases a Leica on 25 November 1928)
- Leica 1 camera, Science Museum Group Collection: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8939083/leica-1-camera (non-interchangeable Elmar 50 mm f/3.5; focal-plane shutter with seven speeds from 1/20 to 1/500 s and Z)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/new-vision/#sheet