The work of Albert Renger-Patzsch is today considered one of the most prominent examples of Neue Sachlichkeit photography in Germany. His photographic oeuvre greatly contributed to photography's development from a philosophy and working methodology characterized by the Pictorialist practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries towards a more objective photography which documented the surface structure of the object. With its concept of representation, his photography liberated vision from the Pictorialistic way of seeing, which was aimed at making atmosphere and mood visible. By contrast, the sharp focus, purposeful lighting, emphatic vantage points and formenhancing framing displayed in his images increased the viewer's awareness of detail and structure. The assertions made by his photographs provoke an unrestrained attitude toward vision in the viewer, which, in the end, focuses exclusively on the object itself, regardless of whether it has been excerpted' from the world of plants, animals, architecture or machines. In their method of presentation, the surprise effects in Renger-Patzsch's photographs were perceived as extremely original by the 1920s and 1930s viewer. Appreciation of Neue Sachlichkeit photography during this time can be explained primarily by its high degree of iconicity. The technical medium of photography was viewed as a means with which to reflect reality. Thus, we can explain Renger-Patzsch's understanding of reality, with its claim to document the world of objects, as a product of its time. He confined reality to that which was optically and visibly real, which he attempted to capture in its visibly comprehensible structure. On the basis of his documentary intentions, Renger-Patzsch's position toward reality was actually more naturalistic than realistic. However, he succeeded in creating many photographs which, particularly in the pointedness of their framing, acquired a means of expression which went far beyond the mere reproduction of a fragment of the object. Ultimately, Renger-Patzsch's claim to document reality can be seen as the theoretical expression of his photographic work. His photographs correspond in their essential criteria to the characteristics of the Neue Sachlichkeit photography of his day.