1. How did they first meet?

They began collaborating together in 1959 after meeting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957. Bernd originally studied painting and then typography, whereas Hilla had trained as a commercial photographer. After two years collaborating together, they married.

2. What inspired them to begin to record images of Germany’s industrial landscape?

The first area they went to was somewhere in germany. The reason they focused on these landscapes was because it was going to be an area that would be demolished. They wanted to preserve the area from being knocked down so therefore they wanted to record it for prosperity. the subject was disappearing —> using a large format camera, lot slower than normal cameras, type of camera ansel adams used.

3. How did the Bechers explain the concept of Typology?

Hilla Becher saw it as, almost like making a movie. She came up with that concept she was looking at biology books and she picked up the idea from looking at other disciplines —> Karl Blossfeldt. Started making these pictures in the late 1950s. She got the idea by comparing one thing to another making it sort of —> symmetrical. If it was too bright Bechers would wait for a cloud to dim the lighting or wait another day, season and time setting to get the same background. They wanted an overcast day so they could isolate the building from the sky, similar to photographing people in a white studio. No funny gimmicks being used —> opposite to romanticism they wanted to create images that were real (realism).

4. Which artists/ photographers inspired them to produce typology images?

They drew inspiration from earlier German photographers like Karl Blossfeldt, August Sander, and Albert Renger-Patzsch.

5. What is the legacy of the Bechers’ and their work?

They were often labelled as conceptual artists and influenced minimalist and conceptual artists like Ed Ruscha, Carl Andre and Douglas Huebler.

As professors of The Dusseldorf School of Photography, they influenced a generation of German photographers who were their students (including Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth.)