Having consumed the Typologies of Bernd & Hilla Becher and August Sander’s Face of Our Time almost simultaneously, I have viewed each from the perspective of the other.
While both build a typology through volume it is the rigour and consistency that underlines the Becher’s work. It exhibits a clarity of process and precision that Sander eschews in favour of his more emotive pursuit.
Angles and views are tightly controlled, so that one can consume the evolution of structure through the depiction of multiplicity.
Their images seek to explore the concept of a particular type of structure by photographing many, as Sander seeks perhaps to define all through a photograph of one.