V & A- Camera-less photography

While at the V & A we had tickets to an exhibition called "Shadow Catchers: Camera-less photography." At first, I just couldn't comprehend how photography without a camera would exist. I thought the camera was the vital tool in making something a photograph. But, this exhibition clearly proved me wrong. There were a number of techniques that were used by the artists: chemigram, digital C-print, dye destruction, gelatin silver print, luminogram, and photograms. Honestly, I don't really grasp how most of these work, because I've never taken a photo class, and dont have much knowledge other than putting my camera on "shaky hands" setting and turning the flash off.
These prints were astounding. I've never been so captured by abstract work before. Like, an abstract painting, you know, the kind without recognizable objects, has never done that to me before. These abstract images presented through photographic means were able to completely grab my attention and bring me into their realm, instead of giving me the distance to critique. It said somewhere on the wall, that this kind of use of the medium was doing something other mediums cant-- representing objects and spaces, therefore realities, that could never exist on our plane. It's a strange feeling knowing that. I think the reason the photographic medium is able to accomplish this better than painting is because we culturally understand painting to be a fabrication-- photography is understood as truth, as documentary.
In class, someone brought up the idea that these works were photographic casts. I liked this a lot.
My favorite from the show were Susan Derges, who made beautiful depictions of natural environments, and Adam Fuss--mostly because of the things he said about art. He centered his art on the question, "Is there a spiritual element to being alive?" I find myself touching on this concept in my own recent work, but have often been too embarrassed to say so in critique. He also understood my drive for making, saying, "You don't create, you die... It's about survival really."