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German School photographer, Thomas Struth, refused to indulge in the ‘spectacular,’ meaning, he made a concerted effort to apply no grand theories, techniques, nor imbued his photographs with any discernible sentimentality. He did, however, make a concerted effort to compose neutral images focused to infinity regardless if he was making a family portrait or cityscape. In this manner he is much like his instructor, Bernhard Becher of the Düsseldorf Academy, where he, along with his wife Hilda Becher, were the lords of the “German School of Photography” aesthetics, which eschewed aesthetics for the sake of exacting composure and superior veracity through the avoidance of emotionality in photography. Struth has said that he is most impressed with images that bare no personal signature which is interesting because everyone knows a German School photograph when they are confronted with one because they all employ the same compositional techniques (of which they claim to not do) and this belies a ‘personal signature.’
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