No such thing as innocent seeing in photographs

In 1943, the British magazine Picture Post ran a photograph of a girl dancing in front of friends on a London street. The photo was used to illustrate the unfortunate consequences of the lack of youth clubs -kids were forced to play "juvenile games" in city streets.

Just seven years later, Picture Post ran the same photo again, this time with an article that called for a return to the days before massive slum removal, when the charming sight of children playing in the streets was common.

The picture was the well-known "Dancing the Lambeth Walk." The photographer was Bill Brandt, one of Britain's most prolific post-World War I photo-journalists, and the subject of a biography in progress by Paul Delany, the Center's Senior Research Fellow and professor of English at Simon Fraser University. Picture Post's use of Brandt's photo for two opposite purposes likely would not have surprised or dismayed him because Brandt didn't treat photography as a quick-snap documentary window on reality.

Dancing the Lambeth Walk

  thanks to consumptive.org