Bernd and Hilla Becher were a pair of German photographers known for their typologies of buildings, often old industrial sites. Their photographs can be easily recognised from their typical grid format, something that they used throughout their careers to display their photographs.
They met at the Dusseldorf art university in 1957 and began documenting disappearing german industrial architecture in 1959. The couple were married in 1961. They influenced many subsequent photographers, and left a significant mark on documentary photography, particularly typologies and the procedure of taking objective photos.
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Their first project was documenting industrial buildings in the Ruhr region of Germany, finding fascination in the similarities of design and structure in different buildings across the area. They shot their photographs in an objective manner, opting to use similar angles of the subject, making sure there was nothing to distract from the central focus of the image, and only taking photos in overcast conditions to ensure similar lighting across all their photos.
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