Summary of Nigel Warburtons essay on the image A snicket by Bill brandt

The essay I have been given to summarize is by Nigel Warburton on the image ‘A Snicket’ by Bill Brand. To start off Warburton talks about how the image has 2 purposes or aims, one being documentation of industrial towns and the other being how Brandt creates a ‘dreamscape’ a theme that is often brought up within the essay. Warburton discusses how Brandt’s work never really fit perfectly in to one category or another on multiple occasions and argues that while he was never really recognized as a pure surrealist he had always worked well in the grey area between the real and the dream world.

  talking more about the image itself instead of the artist Warburton talks about how there are multiple different prints of this image and how the one in particular that is being discussed is physically darker and more dramatic than other prints. This was due to the fact that Brandt was very prolific in dark room editing and would often re edit some of his work. This image was darkened dramatically apparently for dramatic effect and Warburton talks about how Brandt strips the image down to bare detail and makes it more geometric and mysterious. Brandt justifies his re editing and re interpretations of his work by saying ‘’photography is not a sport. I believe there are no rules in photography. A photographer is allowed to do anything, anything in order to improve his picture’’

 in the last section of the essay Warburton states a few points others have raised about the technicalities and symbolism of the image and discusses how that using a path as a metaphor is also crucial in 2 other pieces of Brandt’s work and talks a little more about his technical skills with geometry and reductionism before ending the essay with a statement about how Brandt’s work can be justified by the word ‘’surrealist’’ and a small section about the grey between dreams and reality that surrealists explore.

A Snicket Bill Brandt 1937