Back to Basics

August Sanders has always been on of my photographic heros and imagine my pleasure when these appeared on Christmas day - a complete collection of his life work presented as he wanted them.

If you don't know, Sanders set out to document all the 'types' of people around his part of Germany, based on their occupations. He believed that you could tell what a person did by how they looked and lo and behold he seems to have been right.

His portraits are taken straight on to the lens with the sitter projecting how they look to the world - very powerful. Also his images are entirely non judgemental so we see an SS Officer next to a Pastry Chef.

He discovered, much to the annoyance of the Nazi Government, that Germany was a multicultural place where none of the racial stereotypes worked and and as a consequence he was banned and his radical son jailed.

So I've spent the day immersing myself in his world and doing nothing much else.