Subjective Photography refers to an international movement of experimental photography founded in Germany in 1951 by Otto Steinert (1915-1978), which professed a form of photography that explored subjective reality and inner states rather than objectively reflecting the outside world. The photographic artists explored complex themes in their work and sought to portray the darker aspects of the human condition through their expressionistic and hallucinatory images. It was in part an attempt to distance subjective photography from the rise of commercial, documentary and journalistic photographers. The movement emerged from the group fotoform, founded in 1949 by Steinert and Peter Keetman (1916-2005). The group's manifesto defined subjective photography as humanized and individualized photography.
