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PHOTOGRAPHY: STUDY AND ANALYSIS

The tradition of protest documentary

His pictures of the north contain much more shock and indignation than his East End pictures, and are closer to the tradition of protest documentary than anything else in his work. Almost all of Brandt's East End pictures, taken over a longer period of time, stand out for the respect they show their subjects, and for their visions of a more human London than the one we know today. His interior pictures of adults in pubs and cafes prove his diplomatic skills. How could someone so obviously upper middle class and foreign be allowed to bring out his camera in such places? With Brandt's Rolleiflex, there was no chance of a stolen shot; he needed his subjects to cooperate. His friends mention his extreme quietness, patience and politeness; no doubt an ability to buy drinks also helped. But even with the modest success of The English At Home and A Night In London, Brandt had not yet found a way of connecting with a mass public in Britain. This began to change in the summer of 1937, when Picture Post and Lilliput, a new magazine, began to publish his pictures. His first major assignment for Lilliput, in May 1939, was Unchanging London, which recognized him as a specialist in the great city, and particularly in its dark underside.

 In spring 1938, Eva Brandt became friendly with a fellow TB patient at one of her sanatoriums, Marjorie Beckett. She brought Marjorie to London to meet Brandt, or perhaps sent her there with an introduction. Eva's idea was that Marjorie was too shy, and needed to be drawn out socially. But she also thought that if she was unable to be in London herself, then "Billy shouldn't be alone". And if he was going to have someone else, better that it should be someone Eva already liked. When Marjorie and Bill promptly fell in love, it was, on some level, what Eva expected and even wanted - though she clung to the belief that she would always be the most important woman in Brandt's life, whatever happened. When he met Marjorie, Brandt had been a photographer for 10 years without paying much attention to women as subjects. He had done some pleasing but derivative nudes in the style of Man Ray, using Eva as his model; and there were some vivid staged pictures using his sister-in-law, Ester Brandt. But his fascination with Marjorie led to a much bigger project of staging pictures, probably in the winter of 1939-40. Brandt took multiple shots and linked them into a narrative, publishing seven of them as Nightwalk: A Dream Phantasy In Photographs in the American magazine Coronet. Nightwalk begins with Marjorie asleep in bed and ends with her waking up. In between is a dream sequence of five pictures in which she wanders through hallways and staircases in her dressing gown, carrying a Jack Russell, and meets a sinister figure played by Brandt's brother Rolf.