Bernd and Hilla Becher are a German couple best known for their images of industrial buildings, such as; water towers, storage silos, lime kilns, blast furnaces. They carried out the main body of their work in the 1960's and 70's.
They approach their work by photographing each building systematically using a large format technical camera. For each image they follow a set of procedural rules so they stay the same. They always have a full frontal view, near identical flat lighting, a lack of human presence, isolated surroundings and use the same format, black and white print quality, sizing, framing and presentation. They also photograph the buildings at a number of different angles.
With these photographs they then put them into typologies where they produce grids of black and white photographs of the same type of industrial structure. These typologies invite the viewer to compare their form and design. This transforms them into objects worthy of interest, by revealing the vast diversity of objects all within the same purpose.
The Becher's have exhibited their work all over Europe and America including Museum of Modern Art, New York, Tate Modern, São Paulo Bienal and Detroit Institute of Arts Museum to name a few. They tend to present their work into books grouped into type of buildings e.g Grain Elevators, Water Towers, Mineheads and more general ones such as Typologies and Basic Forms of Industrial Buildings.
For my Project I decided to emulate Bernd and Hilla Becher's body of work seen in their book; Anonyme Skulpturen: A Typology of technical Constructions. This was their first book, it was published in 1970. This was a time when photography was very fine art and fashion based, photographers such as Bailey and Avedon were in their prime, the Becher's scientific approach to photography was something that was innovative to its time.
The book is sorted into chapters of different buildings - lime kilns, cooling towers, blast furnaces, winding towers, water towers, gas holders and silos with an explanation of the purpose of each type of building at the beginning of the chapter. This layout mirrors the scientific approach that they take to photographing the buildings. The book features buildings from England, Germany Belgium and Holland, the project was undertaken with a real race for time because it had become evident that whole complexes of heavy industry were being closed and pulled down due to disuse.
Bernd Becher taught at the renowned Düsseldorf Art Academy. In result of this he influenced students who later made a name for themselves in the photography industry. Examples of these students are Thomas Ruff, Andreas Gurskey and Candida Höfer. Their work followed the same systematical approach that the Becher's took.
Andreas Gurskey - He is well known for his large scale architecture and landscape colour photographs. He often employs a high point of view.
Candida Höfer - She is well known for taking photographs of interiors of public buildings such as libraries, banks and waiting rooms. She is known for her technical perfection. This is something the Becher's were also known for.
Thomas Ruff - His portraits are taken in an expressionless passport style. He stated that In a way he wanted to blot out any traces or information about the person in front of the camera. He also wanted to indicate that the viewer is not face-to-face with a real person, but with a photograph of a person."
Similarly, like these photographers have done, I am going to use the Becher's theory of typologies and technical perfection and apply it to my own subjects.
To conclude here are some further examples of Bernd and Hilla Becher's work:
Blast Furnaces
Industrial Facades
Gas Tanks
Pit Heads
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