Thomas Struth is a German photographer which was born in 1954. He is best known for his Museum photographs, Family portraits and his 1970s black and white street photos in New York and Germany.

His mum, Gisela Struth worked as a ceramic potter and his dad, Heinrich Struth was a Bank Director, they both lived in Geldern, Germany which was where Thomas Struth was born.

In 1973, Struth initially studied painting; however, in 1974 he began to become increasingly drawn to Photography which is where his passion commenced.

In 1977 Struth was awarded a scholarship by Kunstakademie, which allowed him to live in New York City. This lead to his progress in unusual images of streets devoid of people, traffic, and the unceasing movement typical of a major metropolis. 

His work is well known for his attention to detail, He wants to show the intricacy of the landscapes he captures to show that there is more than meets the eye. He is also well known for printing at a large scale; for example after vising places like Europe, Asia and America he created mural-sized colour photographs of up to 4 meters long, these were of dockyards, pharmaceutical plants, and physics institutes.

Analysis

Visual: Here in this image the eye is lead down the road and into a sort of “never ending” view of buildings, this allows the image to look 3D. I like the use of repetition with the buildings, as although there may be quite a few similar buildings at first glance, when you take another look it is clear to see the detail and the contrast shown between all the buildings. The colour in this image is clearly black and white which allows the audience to focus on the image itself without getting distracted by all the colours. All items such as buildings and cars seem to have been placed in neat little lines pointing towards the centre background of the image, which further leads the eye to each and every building before the audience I able to take a further glance.

Contextual: This photograph is called “West Broadway” due to the location in which it was taken. It was taken in 1978 at West Broadway, Tribeca, New York. This image is currently in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Technical: This picture has used Gelatin silver print which is an image suspended in a layer of silver gelatin, but on a paper substrate. The lighting is natural due to daylight. This photo was taken in the middle of this road which is shown through the symmetry of the image. Tonal range is shown in this image by the the different tones from Black-Grey-White. The photo also seems to have low sensitivity giving a better quality image. Warmth and temperature are not shown dut to the image being in Black and White.

Conceptual: I think the main idea behind this photograph by Thomas Struth is similar to the New Topographics movement in that he is trying to show the beauty in this new man altered world. This gives depth and meaning to the image as it is not another photo of New York to show of that he has viszited that place; but an image to show a different side of New York that many people may not be aware of.