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After moving to New York City from his native San Francisco in 1918, Francis Bruguiére became the set photographer for the Theatre Guild. His job was to photograph scenes from plays, lit for performances and with the actors in place, which proved difficult given the low light of the theater sets. Bruguiére went beyond re-creating a play on stage and instead photographed the actors from dramatic angles, often using double exposures. He applied the knowledge he had gained from theater design to photograph abstract compositions made out of cut paper, with light from the lamps that he arranged around each object shining through its perforations. With the innovative spirit of a set designer, Bruguiére created the illusion of form and dimension from simple materials. Author and playwright Lance Sieveking used this abstraction as an illustration for his book Beyond This Point (1929).