# Subjektive Fotografie

> Black-and-white photographs that turn what the camera sees into the photographer's own picture: lamps and lights drawn into looping traces, telephone wires reduced to black lines on a white sky, chimneys printed in negative, a face set beside its own reversed image, objects laid on paper as photograms. Contrast is pushed until the middle greys drop out and depth flattens into graphic form. Each print is reworked in the darkroom and shown as a finished single image in exhibitions and books.

- Period: 1949–1958
- Where it began: West Germany after the war
- Kind: Modernist
- Also called: Subjective Photography
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/subjektive-fotografie/

## How the look is made

- Treat the subject as raw form: go close, look steeply down or up, or isolate it against the sky, until wires, lamps, plants or a face read as lines, dots and shapes rather than things.
- Push the print to hard black and white: let the middle greys drop out and set dark shapes against empty white, or white lines against black.
- Let light and time draw: expose for seconds, move the camera or the light, and keep the traces of lamps, headlights and passers-by in the picture.
- Make the picture in the darkroom: print the negative as a positive, solarise, re-copy, combine a positive with its own negative, or lay objects directly on the paper.
- Finish each picture as a single, self-sufficient print for the exhibition wall or the book page, not as a record of what was there.

## How it is lit

- Street lamps, headlights and other lights at night, recorded as traces during an exposure of seconds or while the camera or the light moves.
- A bright, empty sky behind wires, lamps or chimneys, so that they read as black lines and shapes.
- A bare lamp over photographic paper with objects laid on it, for photograms.

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

- Key: a lamp, sign or screen, from behind the subject, hard.
- Black flag: a black card, about 60° to the camera’s right, soft.

## Camera settings

40–50 mm · f/5.6–f/16 · 1/250–30 s (on 6x6), inferred. A Rolleiflex (Keetman's only camera at Volkswagen in 1953) or a 35 mm camera, about 40–50 mm equivalent. Luminograms are exposures of seconds with the shutter open on lights; f/5.6–f/16 and 1/250 s for daylight and close work are inferred, and much of the picture is made in the darkroom.

## Directing people

Most pictures have no one in them. For a portrait, bring the sitter close and still, face square to the lens and eyes into it, expression blank, hands out of frame, no props; light one half of the face hard from the side. Passers-by appear only as single blurred walkers or a foot in mid-step, never as a posed group.

## Styling

Nothing is styled: wires, street lamps, chimneys, plants and pavements are taken as found, and objects for photograms are laid straight on the paper. Sitters wear plain, dark, simple clothes with their hair as it is, against an empty dark or pale ground with no set or props.

## Before you shoot it

The photographs are in copyright (Steinert died in 1978, Keetman in 2005, Schneiders in 2006). Steinert's archive is held by the Museum Folkwang in Essen, while the rights lie with his estate: the Met credits '© Marlis Steinert, Thônex', and the Getty's prints carry the 'Nachlass-Estate Otto Steinert' stamp of Stefan Steinert. Keetman's archive is at the F. C. Gundlach Foundation. Do not reproduce or imitate named works, and label generated images as AI-generated, never as vintage fotoform prints. The movement offered German photography an artistic new start after the Nazi period, but some members had wartime pasts: Steinert joined the NSDAP in 1936, then served as a Wehrmacht medical officer in France and on the Eastern Front (1940–43) and on the Army General Staff in Berlin until 1945; Toni Schneiders volunteered for the paratroops and worked as a war reporter in France and Italy from 1942; Peter Keetman was called up as a railway pioneer in 1940 and came back seriously injured in 1944. Keep that history in view when presenting the style.

## Photographs

- Otto Steinert, Luminogramm, Paris, 1952. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council (2018.47.3). Rights: in copyright, courtesy Galerie Johannes Faber (Getty record); link only. In copyright, linked: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109NZY
- Otto Steinert, Punkte und Linien, 1953. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of Leslie and Judith Schreyer and Gabri Schreyer-Hoffman (2024.166). Rights: in copyright, courtesy Galerie Johannes Faber (Getty record); link only. In copyright, linked: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1CQWPQ
- Peter Keetman, 1001 Faces, 1956. The Art Institute of Chicago, In Chicago Portfolio Fund (1986.1392). In copyright; link only. In copyright, linked: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/66105
- Otto Steinert, Bildnis Hell-Dunkel, 1950. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council (2018.57.3). Rights: in copyright, courtesy Galerie Johannes Faber (Getty record); link only. In copyright, linked: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109NZM
- Otto Steinert, 4 Schornsteine – negativdruck, 1948. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by Trish and Jan de Bont, Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation, and The Michael G. and C. Jane Wilson 2007 Trust (2018.57.7). Rights: in copyright, courtesy Galerie Johannes Faber (Getty record); link only. In copyright, linked: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109NZF

## Sources

- Subjektive Fotografie, Wikipedia (de): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjektive_Fotografie (founded in the early 1950s by Otto Steinert of fotoform as artistic photography; not the objective reality of a situation but its pictorial interpretation; mostly black and white, abstract forms, graphic structures, lines of light and shadow, high contrast, radical crops, negative prints and solarisation; fotoform organised the first exhibition in Saarbrücken in 1951; representatives Kilian Breier, Chargesheimer, Paul Facchetti, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Peter Keetman, Siegfried Lauterwasser, Toni Schneiders, Otto Steinert, Carl Strüwe, Ludwig Windstosser; traditions reaching back to the Bauhaus)
- Fotoform, Wikipedia (de): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotoform (founded 1949 by Lauterwasser, Keetman, Reisewitz, Schneiders, Steinert and Windstosser; first appearance at the Photokina 1950; Steinert's 1951 Saarbrücken exhibition included all members; Hajek-Halke and Christer Christian joined in 1953; aim to reconnect with Neue Sachlichkeit and Neues Sehen; the 'geformte Einzelbild'; photomontage, photogram, solarisation, negative print, luminogram, selective crops, strong contrasts and extreme perspectives)
- Steinert, Otto, Deutsche Biographie (NDB): https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/11875324X.html (1915–1978; joined the Wehrmacht medical corps in 1937, on the Western and Eastern fronts 1940–43, then in Berlin; photo class in Saarbrücken from 1948, director 1952; co-founded fotoform in 1949; exhibitions subjektive fotografie 1951, 1954 and 1958 with a historical section of Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer and Man Ray; 'vom ungegenständlichen Fotogramm bis zur psychologisch vertieften und bildmäßig geformten Reportage'; rejected painterly 'Kunstfotografie'; the darkroom as main workplace: re-copying, solarisation, negative prints, calculated re-exposure; Maske einer Tänzerin, 1952; photograms of the late 1940s, luminograms of the 1950s)
- Otto Steinert, Wikipedia (de): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Steinert (NSDAP member from 1 June 1936; assistant physician in the French campaign in 1940, Oberarzt and then Stabsarzt in the Russian campaign 1941–43, then adviser to the army's chief physician on the Army General Staff in Berlin until the end of the war; teaching in Saarbrücken from 1948 and at the Folkwangschule Essen from 1959; Fahles Portrait, 1949, solarised negative print; exhibitions subjektive fotografie I–III 1951, 1954, 1958; Subjektive Fotografie. Ein Bildband moderner Fotografie, Brüder Auer, Bonn, 1952 and 1955; estate at the Museum Folkwang)
- Otto Steinert, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Steinert (light, motion and abstraction; long exposures, camera movement, unconventional framing; ideas introduced in Japan in 1954, the Japan Subjective Photography League founded in 1956 and the First International Subjective Photography Exhibition later that year, with a Steinert-curated international section)
- Otto Steinert, Encyclopædia Universalis: https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/otto-steinert/ (fotoform 1949; Photokina 1950; abstract images, often close-ups of natural motifs; manipulated negatives and prints; the 1958 exhibition announced the end of the concept)
- Subjektive Fotografie, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 November 1984: https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1105/110500.html (the 1951 and 1954 exhibitions shown in the US, Japan and Europe; the world of appearances subordinated to the photographer's choices; darkroom manipulation; Pale Portrait with the face reversed to a white pattern on black)
- Peter Keetman, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Keetman (1916–2005; called up as a railway pioneer in 1940, returned seriously injured in 1944; founding member of fotoform in 1949; Eine Woche im Volkswagenwerk, Wolfsburg, April 1953; archive at the F. C. Gundlach Foundation)
- Heinz Hajek-Halke, Wikipedia (de): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Hajek-Halke (1898–1983; member of fotoform; Experimentelle Fotografie: Lichtgrafik, Athenäum, Bonn, 1955; Lichtgrafik, Econ, 1964)
- Toni Schneiders, Wikipedia (de): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Schneiders (1920–2006; volunteered for the paratroops and was a front reporter there; war reporter in France and Italy from 1942; co-founder of fotoform; closely involved in subjective photography in the 1950s)
- Luminogramm, Paris, J. Paul Getty Museum: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109NZY (Otto Steinert, 1952, gelatin silver print, 2018.47.3)
- Streetlights on Place de la Concorde 3 (Lampen der Place de la Concorde 3; Luminogramm 2), Harvard Art Museums: https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/221464 (Otto Steinert, 1952, gelatin silver print, 1991.52; Busch-Reisinger Museum)
- Luminogram, Victoria and Albert Museum: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1059211/luminogram-photograph-otto-steinert (Otto Steinert, 1952, gelatin silver print, PH.307-1985; 'Dark lines both straight and curved'; label: 'He created this composition by capturing trails of light with a long exposure')
- Punkte und Linien, J. Paul Getty Museum: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1CQWPQ (Otto Steinert, 1953, ferrotyped gelatin silver print, 2024.166)
- Bildnis Hell-Dunkel, J. Paul Getty Museum: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109NZM (Otto Steinert, 1950, gelatin silver bromide print, 2018.57.3)
- 4 Schornsteine – negativdruck, J. Paul Getty Museum: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109NZF (Otto Steinert, 1948, gelatin silver print, 2018.57.7; 'A negative image of four smokestacks'; estate stamp 'NACHLASS-ESTATE OTTO STEINERT / Standfoto aus dem Film "Stein auf Stein," 1948 / STEFAN STEINERT'; In Copyright, courtesy Galerie Johannes Faber)
- Call, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/266349 (Otto Steinert, 1950, gelatin silver print, 1991.1056; rights: '© Marlis Steinert, Thônex')
- Forelle, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/263077 (Toni Schneiders, 1950, gelatin silver print, 1981.1169.2)
- 1001 Faces, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/66105 (Peter Keetman, 1956, gelatin silver print, 1986.1392)
- Ein-Fuß-Gänger, Paris 1950, Leitz Photographica Auction, lot 50: https://www.leitz-auction.com/en/OTTO-STEINERT-1915-1978-Ein-Fuss-Gaenger-Paris-1950/A02056 (vintage silver print, titled by the photographer; from the Foto Cine Club Bandeirante, shown in 'Otto Steinert and his students', Museum of Modern Art São Paulo, 1955, in collaboration with the FCCB)
- Japan Subjective Photography League, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Subjective_Photography_League (founded May 1956 in response to the international reception of Steinert's Subjektive Fotografie; First International Subjective Photography Exhibition, Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, December 1956, organised with Sankei Camera, Steinert selecting work from fourteen countries)
- Peter Keetman: 70 Jahre Volkswagen 1953, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg: https://www.kunstmuseum.de/en/exhibition/peter-keetman-70-jahre-volkswagen-1953/ (Keetman: 'I had only a Rolleiflex, a few rolls of film, and a tripod, but no lighting, no flash'; 'I could only take the pictures by natural daylight')
- Luminogram, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminogram (the fotoform group made luminograms from 1949; Steinert and Keetman pointed 'a camera, with shutter open, at light sources to produce light trails')
- Luminogram, Victoria and Albert Museum: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1059211/luminogram-photograph-otto-steinert (Otto Steinert, 1952; label: 'He created this composition by capturing trails of light with a long exposure')
- Rolliflex camera, Science Museum Group Collection (Kodak Collection): https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8206661 (twin-lens reflex for 120 roll film 2¼ × 2¼ in.; taking lens Zeiss Tessar 7.5 cm f/3.5–22; shutter 1 to 1/300 s, B and T)

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