[Some words] 為器材控情節找到一個理由

Bill Brandt said:
我的作品中最常被拿去重製的，是一張少女躺在地上的肖像，那是在她自己位於倫敦的小套房裡拍的。也許那不算是肖像照。她的臉填滿畫面前景，輪廓之後有張椅子和附抽屜的五斗櫃。從房間的窗戶向外望，可以看到對街的房子。這作品在潛意識上得到Orson Welle的電影名作《大國民》（Citizen Kane）啟發。《大國民》的技法無疑地影響了我那時候的作品，我開始裸體寫真。



不過我很受不了新相機和新鏡頭的設計，它們極盡可能地模仿人的觀點和一般視野，所以我四處尋找裝配超廣角鏡頭的相機。有一天走進柯芬園附近的二手店，我看到一部七十歲的老木製柯達相機，超高興。就像所有十九世紀的相機一樣，它沒有快門裝置，而且它的超廣角鏡頭是一個超小光圈的針孔，當然只能無限遠對焦。


(譯按：這一部Brownie?也許但不確定）

1926年，Edward Weston在日記上寫道：「相機看到人眼看不到的，不利用這特性的是傻瓜。」我的這部七十歲的新相機確實看得到更多，而且更不一樣。它對空間的描繪超讚，有一種不真實的深隧感，而且看起來變形得厲害。

我開始專注於裸體寫真時，我讓這部相機帶領我，代替我看到的東西來拍。我拍那部相機看到的，並且不願干涉它的運作。這相機拍到影像有解剖學的味道，構造了我從未觀察到的事物。

Bill Brandt

Most frequently reproduced of all my photographs, is the Portrait of a Young Girl resting on the floor of her London room. Perhaps it is not really a portrait. Her face fills the foreground and beyond the profile stands a chair and a chest of drawers; seen through two windows are houses on the other side of the street. This picture may have been subconsciously inspired by Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane. The technique of this film had a definite influence on my work at the time when I was starting to photograph nudes.

Feeling frustrated by modern cameras and lenses which seemed designed to imitate human vision and conventional sight, I was looking everywhere for a camera with a very wide angle. One day in a secondhand shop, near Covent Garden, I found a 70-year-old wooden Kodak. I was delighted. Like nineteenth-century cameras it had no shutter, and the wide-angle lens, with an aperture as minute as a pinhole, was focused on infinity.

In 1926, Edward Weston wrote in his diary, " The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it ? " My new camera saw more and it saw differently. It created a great illusion of space, an unrealistically steep perspective, and it distorted.

When I began to photograph nudes,I let myself be guided by this camera, and instead of photographing what I saw, I photographed what the camera was seeing. I interfered very little, and the lens produced anatomical images and shapes which my eyes had never observed.