November in the Suburb 1933

Bill Brandt made this photograph, November in the Suburb, and what strikes me first is the layering of tones, moving from light to dark. It reminds me of the way I build up layers in my own paintings, adding and subtracting until the image feels right. There’s a real sense of texture in this photograph, even though it’s a flat image. The way Brandt captures the rooftops, the brickwork, the windows, gives you a tactile feeling. It’s like you could reach out and touch the dampness of the slates or the grimy surface of the brick. My eye keeps going back to the way the light falls on the roofs, how it flattens the forms and abstracts them. This photograph reminds me of some of Edward Hopper's paintings. Both artists find a way to make the ordinary seem strange and beautiful, hinting at the stories hidden behind closed doors. Ultimately, art is about seeing the world in new ways, and Brandt certainly achieves that here.