Born in Zurich in 1904, Binia Bill had already completed her training as a concert cellist when she decided to change careers in 1930. She attended Lucia Moholy’s photography class at the Itten School in Berlin and worked as a freelance photographer for the next twelve years. Partly in close collaboration with her husband Max Bill, but also independently of him, she created a remarkable photographic oeuvre. Her portraits and still lifes, which are stylistically influenced by ‘New Vision’, express a very unique, subtle feeling for surface structures, intermediate and grey tones.
 
The photograph of the hand wet with sand was taken while the young couple were travelling. It is part of a series of photographs of Binia and Max Bill on the beach and captures the memory of a carefree, quiet summer’s day. At the same time, the hand detaches itself from the situation in this narrow image section and is transformed into a concentrated still life, a study of light and shadow.