It is difficult now to imagine the impact of Brodrick Haldane's first photographs, taken in the 1930s when social photography was an entirely new phenomenon. But at the time, they revealed a hitherto unseen world of gaiety and glamour. Born into the Scottish aristocracy, Haldene was readily accepted into the best circles where others were turned away. The shy youth used his camera to photograph his friends at parties in the London of the 1930s. Soon he was spending summers in the South of France and winters in Austria or Switzerland, chronicling the exploits of international society. When the Second World War broke out, Brodrick joined the 83rd Battery. After the war, he settled in Lausanne, and throughout the 1950s mixed with the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Charlie Chaplin, the exiled Queen of Spain and Noel Coward.