excerted from the Bechers conversation with Michael Kohler

MK.
How did you develope that specific view of objects which has become typical of your work?

HB.
...and at the same time a view that makes the objects comparable-as long as we stick to it. because its only really when you have the same vantage point that you can lay the photos along side one another and realize what they have in common, what is specific to the basic form of a blast furnace or a cooling tower and what is individual variation.

MK.
But in that case the photographer completely abandons personal expression in favor of subservience to the particular object?

BB.
That's right, the object is in the foreground and not the photographer. The more precisely you get the object in the picture the more its individuality is highlighted. And that is what we, at least, consider to be most important. It allows us to excesise our subjective preferences in the choice of object we photograph; we then use these in tableaus or include them in exhibitions or in our books.







What Hilla and Bernd Becher are talking about here really strikes a chord with me in my portrait series. I definately regard their methodology as a key understanding and approach. With this in my mind, I think I would like to present the portraits in this style of grouping, in sets of three, a total of 9 images per set, and in accompaniment large single shots.https://www.artsy.net/artist/bernd-and-hilla-becher