virtual philosopher

Article on Bill Brandt's Wartime Photography of Rochester and Canterbury Cathedrals

The text of an article I wrote about Bill Brandt's wartime commissions for the National Buildings Record is now available on the Bill Brandt Archive website. This was originally published in History of Photography in 1993 as 'Bill Brandt's Cathedral Interiors' where it appears with the illustrations. Brandt's task was to document buildings and monuments within them that were likely to be targets for Nazi 'Baedeker' raids. Some of the images bear close similarities to his better known photographs of statues.

Wikipedia article on Brandt

Bill Brandt Archive

Useful Brandt Bibliography from the V and A Museum

Encyclopedia Britannica article on Brandt

Writing By Bill Brandt - A Bibliography

I have compiled a short bibliography of writing by Bill Brandt [16KB rtf] Download writing_by_bb.rtf.

Brandt wrote relatively little, but what he did write was eloquent and memorable. For instance, in 1948 he described his approach to photography: 'I found atmosphere to be the spell that charged the commonplace with beauty'...explaining this further:

'When I have seen or sensed - I do not know which it is - the atmosphere of my subject, I try to convey that atmosphere by intensifying the elements that compose it. I lay emphasis on one aspect of my subject and I find that I can thus most effectively arrest the spectator's attention and induce in him an emotional response to the atmosphere I have tried to convey.' [from 'A Photographer's London' introduction to Bill Brandt Camera in London, Focal Press, 1948].

Wikipedia article on Brandt

Bill Brandt Archive

Useful Brandt Bibliography from the V and A Museum

Encyclopedia Britannica article on Brandt

Bill Brandt Bibliography: Books by and About Brandt

A  list of books by and about the photographer Bill Brandt is available here [rtf 24KB]:
Download bks_by_and_about_bb.rtf
More to follow. I'm planning to annotate this list in the future, supplement it with a list of key magazine and journal articles about the photographer, and also to provide lists of Picture Post and Lilliput stories by him. Let me know if there is a demand for this.

Books on Bill Brandt I've contributed to

This book, Bill Brandt: Selected Texts and Images was originally published by Clio Press, and by A and C Black in 1994. It consists of a chronology, long introductory essay, selections of texts and images by and about Bill Brandt, and a detailed annotated bibliography. It is officially out of print and the copyright has reverted to me. The main introductory article 'Brandt's Pictorialism' is downloadable. I'm thinking of making the annotated bibliography available too if there is a demand for it. Let me know.

I wrote two sections at the back of this book. 'The Career'  consists of thumbnails with brief descriptions of all Brandt's major picture stories, including details of first publication in, for example, Picture Post and Lilliput magazines. In "Bill Brandt's Printing Styles' I discuss the multiple versions that exist of most of Brandt's best known images.

I wrote a short introduction to this book and selected the quotations that appear alongside the illustrations.

Wikipedia article on Brandt

Bill Brandt Archive

Useful Brandt Bibliography from the V and A Museum

Encyclopedia Britannica article on Brandt

Paul Delany's Biography of Bill Brandt

Attached is a book review of Paul Delany's biography of the photographer Bill Brandt. Download BookReviewDelany.rtf [13.5KB, rtf]. This review was first published in Portfolio Magazine 39, June 2004.

Wikipedia article on Brandt

Bill Brandt Archive

Useful Brandt Bibliography from the V and A Museum

Encyclopedia Britannica article on Brandt

Bill Brandt's Halifax Snicket

I recently wrote an article about Bill Brandt's famous photograph of a snicket in Halifax, a cobbled lane, taken in 1937. This appeared in a book edited by Sophie  Howarth, called Singular Images . While writing the article I took a trip up to Halifax and eventually located the site of the photograph, next to a supermarket car park, near the huge Dean Clough mill,  and leading up to a bridge over a disused railway. Brandt took another of his famous images of Halifax from the top of the snicket - the one of children running alongside a railway near a sign saying 'catch point' and with chimneys billowing dark smoke behind.The photograph on the left is my own version of Brandt's snicket. The one on the right shows the snicket's location. And this last one to the right is taken from the top of the snicket showing the scene where the children ran past the catch point sign. The photographer Michael Kenna rephotographed the snicket in 1986 in homage to Brandt.

Wikipedia article on Brandt

Bill Brandt Archive

Useful Brandt Bibliography from the V and A Museum

Encyclopedia Britannica article on Brandt

Article on Bill Brandt's Pictorialism

Attached is a downloadable file [80K rtf] Download BrandtPict.rtf containing my article 'Brandt's Pictorialism' - an essay about Bill Brandt's approach to photography. Brandt frequently manipulated, retouched and collaged photographs, reprinted the same images with completely different captions, and so on. For example, most of his photographs for the series on London in the blackout included as a photo-story for Lilliput magazine were in fact manipulated images that he had already published elsewhere - in some cases he simply blacked out the lights in the darkroom. This article elaborates on Brandt's declaration that 'photography is not a sport - there are no rules'. Not a philosophical article, but one with philosophical implications.

Wikipedia article on Brandt

Bill Brandt Archive

Useful Brandt Bibliography from the V and A Museum

Encyclopedia Britannica article on Brandt