The image directly above is my favourite from this set of three due to its very simplistic composition which contrasts the effect the building has with its very repetitive structure. Also the horizontal lines within the image pull your eyes away from the centre and out from frame, while the vertical lines keeps your attention fixed on the building. But what separates this image from the other two is how the grass breaks up the cold looking building contrasting this industrial look with the natural. This patch of grass takes up one third of the image meaning it conforms with the rule of thirds making the image easy on the eye to view.
Andreas Gursky produces images which have the same technique and effect to the three I have captured and shown above.
Gursky is a German photographer who is known for his large format architecture and landscape colour photographs, his work is heavily influenced by his teachers Hilla and Bernd Becher who taught him at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf between 1981-1987. The Becher's work is very distinctive, producing images that are shot straight onto the subject and capture the same type of subject (usually industrial) multiple times for one of their pieces. After photographing these similar structures, the two would mount the images side by side in square or rectangle formations of up to 5x5 to create the final piece. The repetition found with their work is from mounting multiple photographs of similar buildings next to each other whereas the repetition within Gursky's work is found within the one subject he has photographed.
To create his huge pieces Gursky captures the basic subject for his pieces then digitally manipulates them to enhance the affect of repetition much further than a un-manipulated image could ever create. This manipulation makes his photographs look incredibly powerful and overpowering to the subject, especially when the viewer see's the actual pieces in a gallery as some are up to six feet high by ten feet long. Before the 1990's Gursky didn't digitally manipulate his images just leaving it up to the original subject to create his repetitive style. I feel in some way his work almost looks too surreal because the images aren't actual buildings which I notice when viewing, even though the manipulations are done very well to make it look like a real place, this does take some of the ore away from his work in my head. Although the impact of his photographs doesn't consider whether the image is real or manipulated, it comes through the impressiveness of scale, repetition and colour. His work connects to mine through the subject, this being architectural photographs as well as the technique, in which he heavily focuses his work on repetition which is what I have captured in my three pieces above.
