Man Ray first used photography in 1915 as a means of documenting his paintings, and became rapidly aware of the artistic potential of the medium. On his arrival in Paris in 1921, he was introduced to the Dadaists by Marcel Duchamp. He first achieved the camera-less photographs he later called 'Rayographs' in 1922, combining qualities of spontaneity, ambiguity, accident and wit. These captured the spirit of Dada while pointing in the direction of Surrealism. Many include everyday household objects, others incorporate shadowy human form, each has the rare virtue in photography of being unique. This example, in which an abstract light form floats in three dimensional space, dates from 1926, the year in which Man Ray had his first exhibition of Rayographs, at the Galerie Surrealiste in Paris.