http://www.oca-student.com/resource-type/campanybillbrandt
By David Company.
How did black and white become such a respected and trusted medium in Documentary.?
The black and white medium are less distracting than colour, making you look properly at the image
and deciding for yourself the story it is trying to tell. They look more gritty not glamourising certain events. Some of the subjects needed to be dour to give the correct feel.
Some of this could be to do with the fact that the old documentary photographs would be black and white because of their age and maybe we have followed a trend for this. But I do feel personally I look deeper at a black and white shot and colour automatically has a different vibe.
Photographs are highly mobile images, made at particular times for particular reasons.
Many essentially simple withstanding transit. Some become well known through use via media. Others
gain meaning over time. Able to move over social classes.
Dinner is served - forces us to see opposites.. understanding social structures of class and service. In his book of images the viewer was expected to see the relationships and differences that build up, page after page.
Brandt shows himself not only as an artist but an anthropologist. He wandered about England with a detached curiosity of a man investigating and unfamiliar tribe !
The surrealist approached the document more dialectically - with conflicting views - Brandt was unconvinced of the effect of the photo as a straight forward social description and was wary of its use in projects of social reform.
He was drawn to the rituals of daily life. In his photos people look self-involved, fixed in their ways and old fashioned.
In the last few decades his book has been regarded as a classic work. A picture of the insular English, unable to recognise their own image when they see it.
Under Parlour maid ready to serve dinner - Across 5 pages the piece narrates the activities of a head parlour maid of a stately home. It was a comfortable, often conservative format that fitted documentary photography into popular literary structure.
At dinner 'she hears every word that is spoken, yet she does not hear it.'
The parlourmaid is shown as part of an old class structure but a sign of new trends too.
Towards the end of the war his style changed. He lost the enthusiasm for reportage. Documentary
photography had become fashionable.
In the 1950s Brandt continued with the genres Portraiture and Landscape, he began to print his negatives much more harshly, sacrificing mid tones. Rich descriptive information could be obliterated in his new aesthtic. His latest work was pursued as art. Art and Documentary are never entirely separate.
The reprinting of Parlourmaid was never too harsh as Brandt new the power of this photo is in the detail. Brandt deliberately focused on the shiny glass and silverware of the table. The focus falls away from the maids, avoiding eye contact. The camera clearly sees them but fails to focus on them. He is keener to scrutinise the table rather than the people.
The maids were out of focus technically, and by extension .. socially.
Brandt was discovered by a wide range of audience - he was regarded as a figure of the past and as a contemporary artist at the same time. There could never be any simple distinction between his artistry and his documentary description. The two are inextricable and give no clear answers.
In the end it is the contradictions at the heart of his work that are the bedrock of his success.
No comments:
Post a Comment