No lens, no negative — only objects laid on sensitized paper. The image is what remains after light has decided.
A translucent object passes some light and blocks the rest, so its silhouette reads as a measured midtone, never an accident.
Light refracts around a bottle or lens and leaves a silver ring — the only ornament we permit, because the material earned it.
Fully exposed paper reads dense and deliberate. We arrange emptiness as carefully as we arrange the white forms inside it.