Art of the document

Exercise 10 - Read Bill Brandt's - Art of the Document by David Campany
Write a short review.
How did B&W become such a respected and trusted medium in documentary?


Bill Brandt's Art of the Document by David Campany

This document charts the careers of Bill Brandt and one of his images, namely, 'Parlourmaid and under-parlourmaid ready to serve dinner'.

Campany focuses the article on Brandt's first book "The English at Home" and the

unique subject matter (for the time), the British classes - upper class and lower class in the same book on facing pages of the book. He pays particular attention to the cleaver layout of the photographs within the book and the juxtapositions of several pairs of images: -

Ø         A posh crowd watching the races at Ascot (front cover) paired with a miners wife and her children in their cramped living quarters (back cover)

Ø         An upper middle-class children's party in Kensington (West End) paired with a playground scene of the working class (London's East End)

Ø         A "Clubman's Sanctuary" paired with a workman's restaurant.

Mortimer writes in his introduction that Brandt "seems to have wandered about England with the detached curiosity of a man investigating the customs of some remote and unfamiliar tribe." This in part is probably quite true, bearing in mind that Brandt had just settled in England (from Germany) some 3 years earlier.

Whilst the contents of the book was no doubt 'accurate' in its portrayal of the differences of the class system, there is little doubt that its lack of success at the time was quite simply because of the very existence of that rigid class system. That said, "in the last few decades it has become regarded as a classic work"; interestingly the letter from Brandt to his publisher quotes a version of the book for sale at $500; it can be purchased today for circa £120.

Campany discusses the 'reincarnations' of the parlour maid image and also a more complete story commissioned by the Picture Post entitled 'The Perfect Parlourmaid'. The Brandt's preferred style of image was one of "tight formal organisation, its content given dramatic charge and dense psychological resonance; as documents they aim to exceed visual description." The difference between his preferred style (direct, forceful and sometimes confrontational) and the required style for photo-essays (more subtle and flowing, more film-like) was, Campany believes, possibly why in latter life he moved away from reportage and towards art photography.

"At his best Brandt was a 'documentary artist' with all the paradoxes and interpretative difficulties that entails. There could never be any simple distinction between his artistry and his documentary description." Back to the boundaries between the genres of photography, as stated earlier Brandt's work (his very best work and his most memorable images) whilst certainly documentary are also well conceived and conceptualised pieces of stand-alone art. They could neither pass across generations or stand alone unless they were art.

How did B&W photography become such a respected and trusted medium in documentary?

I don't know if there is a simple answer to this question, I think there are probably many different reasons.

1. The simplest is the cost and practicality of utilising coloured photography. Whilst initial development was underway as early as circa 1850 ('Hillotype' by Levi Hill), it was very experimental and a complicated process that was not perfected. By 1907, the Lumière brothers had developed the first commercially successful colour process, however, this was at least 10x more expensive than B&W and required significantly longer to take equivalent exposures. It was not until 1935 that Kodak developed 'easy-to-use' colour film, that said, it was still expensive in comparison to B&W and without experience and good lighting equipment the film was really only usable outdoors. Colour film became more common place for holiday photography during the 1950s, but was not adopted by the public until the 1970s when the price of equipment and film fell.

2. Thus the renowned documentary photographers, such as, Riis (1849 - 1914), Hine (1874 - 1940), Lange (1895 - 1965), et al had no choice but use black and white - thus the tone was set for documentary photography.

3. We see in colour and it is distracting, no matter how relevant even the smallest block of colour will draw our eye - especially red, a human reaction to blood. I remember a television interview where Liam Neeson discussed the making of Schindler's List and the rationale for B&W, he commented to the effect that the viewer would not have been able to concentrate on the story if they were confronted with all the blood and guts - B&W sanitised the situation whilst maintaining the mood and the grittiness.

4. I would also go as far as to suggest that the majority of viewers would be put off by the desperate and squalid conditions depicted in the images taken by documentary photographers. In order to get the message across, the 'narrator' must maintain their audience and the nature of B&W images enables the photographer to communicate the reality but creates the necessary distance required.

5. With regards war photography, actual images from the war-zone, these are still circulated in B&W, again I suspect this is because of trying to ensure the entire message is communicated rather than just the gore.

6. I believe that generations of exceptional documentary photographers and photojournalists have gone to places and become involved in situations, that we can't even begin to imagine, for the sole reason of ensuring that the 'rest of the world' get to know the truth. These people are the reason that B&W photography has become such a respected and trusted medium.

7. More and more images in newspapers are being printed in colour and as technology advances, with digital cameras, more footage from the front lines is being shown on the news in colour. There are also very successful documentary photographers who favour colour, for example, Martin Parr, Nan Goldwin and Don McCullin. Nonetheless, B&W still has its 'foot in the door' and with the resurgence of B&W with the new generation of photographers I don't see dying out. I do, however, believe that in the future will see greater use of colour in documentary photography and photojournalism.

8.