Abstract photography

Abstract photography, sometimes called non-objective, experimental, conceptual or concrete photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials.

Many photographers, critics, art historians and others have written or spoken about abstract photography without attempting to formalize a specific meaning.

Alvin Langdon Coburn in 1916 proposed that an exhibition be organized with the title "Abstract Photography", for which the entry form would clearly state that "no work will be admitted in which the interest of the subject matter is greater than the appreciation of the extraordinary."

The proposed exhibition did not happen, yet Coburn later created some distinctly abstract photographs.