Long before Bill Brandt, this 1920s postcard salesman worked out how to photograph London after dark without a tripod. A reissued photobook reveals just how he did it

A grainy photogravure of several coated, hatted figures standing in silhouette on a pavement, their long shadows stretching across the ground beneath a glowing street sign.

If you know one name in the history of London night photography, it's probably Bill Brandt, whose A Night in London (1938) is a fixture on any decent photobook shelf.

What's had almost very little airtime in comparison is the man who beat him to it by 14 years: a jobbing postcard photographer from Hastings, East Sussex, called Fred Judge, who solved the era's toughest technical problem with a piece of DIY kit – and, it turns out, a well-placed lamp post.