Barbara Crane, an abstract photographer whose camera transformed mundane objects into provocative, playful and sometimes frightening fantasies, died on Aug. 7 at her home in Chicago. She was 91 .

Her death was confirmed by her son , Bruce.

In contrast to the work of many of her colleagues, what she viewed from behind the lens was rarely what museumgoers and collectors eventually saw.

Image Ms. Crane in an undated photograph. Her work, produced over a 70-year career, is in the collections of many major museums and galleries. Credit... Estate of Barbara Crane, via Stephen Daiter Gallery

The experimental techniques she used over a 70-year career typically created exaggerated effects: overexposures, wide-angle close-ups, out-of-focus foregrounds, striking shadows cast by a flash, compositions formed by superimposing one image on another.