Lets face it, his parents may not of been British (Russian) and he may have been born in Germany, but Bill Brandt spent most of his time in Britain and was hailed as a great British Photographer.....If you want more detailed info on the old chap see here There is also a lot of nice stuff here if your interested...
I always liked the story about the old 'police' camera he found and used it to produce his nude work, although I am not sure how accurate this may be. I also remember a slightly more disturbing story late in his life where upon his death bed people tried to get him to sign his work to in order to make money which would of been bad enough, but he did not die and lived for some time afterwards. I believe there was a spot of bother, but again accuracy on this is not great...
I did print some of Brandt's works some time ago when I was printing black and white in Chelsea. They where the hardest negs I have ever tried to print because there was very little contrast to be had and the original I was trying to match had tons of contrast. See above image.
It was not so much that I was heavily influenced by Brandt's work, there was just a lot of books and exhibitions of it around when I was discovering photography.
Before I left for America there was a show of Brandt's work at the Focus Gallery in 2003 (sadly no longer around which really stinks because they used to represent me). They where not vintage prints (even though they had exhibited these in the past) neither where they the ones I had printed. They where actually Platinum prints, made by copying a print to make a big neg and then contacting the neg. They where the furthest from the original as you could possibly get, but this didn't stop people from snapping them up, even with a big edition number. I only mention this because I had handled a few originals and they where exquisite..
Not sure what my point is here but Bill Brant is one of those historic photographers you just gotta mention....And he was British.......
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