rayograph means A photogram of the kind produced by Man Ray. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
RAYOGRAPH — [Noun] A camera-less photographic image made by placing objects directly onto light-sensitive paper, specifically as pioneered and named by the artist Man Ray. From the surname Ray (of the artist Man Ray) + the connective -o- + -graph (from Greek -graphos, 'something written or drawn'), coined as a proprietary term. Unlike 'photogram' (a generic, technical descriptor) or 'photograph' (which requires the mechanical mediation of a lens), a rayograph is an authored trace, a direct signature written with shadow and light. It is the stark silhouette of a comb, the granular shadow of salt, or the skeletal tracery of a fern—a ghost-trace of contact where the object becomes the luminous shadow of its own absence, proving creation is often just a matter of blocking the light.
noun
- A photogram of the kind produced by Man Ray.“Man Ray developed a similar procedure for photography — montage and suggested the working of the unconscious mind by dropping objects randomly onto a light-sensitive surface in his rayograph process.”