Bill Brandt

My tutor spoke to me about Brandt in my Assignment Three feedback. He suggested I look at his work in terms of dimension and depth through the tones in his black and white work. Since I am documenting the usage of device use within my home, I very much would like to keep my own project in black and white. I feel that it tones down scenes that can be very busy when kept in colour. But I do need to create a bit more depth within my own images, as I can see where some come across a bit flat and with not enough range in my tones.

screen shot of Google search of Bill Brandt portraits

Looking at a basic Google search of Bill Brandt, particularly his portraits to connect with my own project, his work has a very high contrasting range. Brandt doesn't appear to be afraid to test those limits of contrast, to create the depth of his images. He uses light particularly well to light his subjects and then the contrast goes to very dark where, on occasion, maybe unnecessary detail is lost, therefore highlighting only the subject. I also feel a lot of texture in his images and that is something that I haven't even considered in my own work.

These are areas that I need to pay attention to in my own work. Up until now, my main concern was quickly and discreetly taking photos as and when the need arises and then converting the images to black and white. I think, moving forward, I need to now look at my processing in more detail and attempt to show more depth in my tones, as well as considering the lighting of my subject and maybe also looking at textures within the subject area too.