Becher, Bernd and Hilla

My first impression of Bernd and Hilla Becher's photographs was neatness. He photographed many industrial buildings of different shapes but of the same type, and all of them expressed the most real form of architecture in the form of frontal photography. Not only that, the photographer also photographed the whole views of industrial buildings. It records the industrial relics left by the changing cities. Those photographs seem to convey the memories of the industrial age. From a deeper research, I learned that their original intention was that they believed that the speed of sketch recording was far less than that of demolition for abandoned industrial buildings at that time, so they decided to use cameras to record a series of buildings in the industrial age. In general, the photographer has a strong insistence on preservation of things that are about to disappear. They use typological photography to record the physical characteristics of the building, without emotional color. By influenced of their photographs, I took photos of abandoned railway station. Same as their original intention of shooting, I want to record this abandoned railway station. The railway station is located in the center of the city. Compared with nearby buildings, the railway station is sealed and locked by iron gates and railings. what makes me realize this is a railway station is the railway tracks leading into the gate. It makes people think about the discarded things that once had value, but then when things have run out of value will be abandoned by people.

For the layout and shape in the photography, as we can see in the photographer’s work, he used a lot of directing lines and rectangular shape for the composition. In my work, as you can see the gate door have rectangular shape as well, also the directing line. Furthermore, I use the black and white color to show the light part and dark part