Bill Brandt Research

Bill Brant was a German-British photographer and photojournalist, born May 2nd 1904 and died December 20th 1983. Widely considered as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, Brant originally became famous for his images of British society. Later on in his career, Brandt's popularity grew as a result of his images of distorted nudes, portraits of famous artists and landscapes.

In this image, Bill Brandt has used negative space in order to make the model's skin seem a pure, clear white. The solid black around the model makes her features pop and contrasts against her skin. The way it shadows across her face but stops in a sharp line accentuates the curves along her nose and lips. It seems to be irregular as the negative space covers her neck, separating her head from the rest of her body.

Brandt is associated with representing the body as a landscape or an abstract geometric form.

Working often with the female form, he is also creating images within a sexualised context in much the same way as a classical sculptor portrays a nude. This image, for example, could be interpreted to be sexual objectification with the use of the female body (her legs). Personally, I do not believe this image to have a totally sexualised content as it only shows a woman's legs. I feel that this image simply uses the female form as an abstract shape as the darkness of the background emphasises the light tones of the legs and the shadow on one legs accentuates the curves in her skin. Although, some people may interpret this image as sexually objectifying when looking at his other images and comparing how he has been known to use the female body to this.