Architectural photography has never been so subversive as the life works of German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher. Through the early 1960s into the 1980s the Bechers acted as industrial tourist where most outsiders dare not venture. Starting in their home territory of East Germany, they endeavored to meticulously document industrial structures that were built for a specific purpose and would be demolished as soon as the use of the structure became unneeded or obsolete.
Later the Bechers began a series of long trips to America, traveling the industrial revolution heartlands (aka the Rustbelt and Appalachians). Using an architectural medium format camera with luxurious black and white plates, they captured factories, water towers, gas collectors, blast furnaces, coal tipples, mine shafts, and gasometer. While most people vacation to beaches, national parks and exotic locales, the Bechers packed up and flew to rural southwest Pennsylvania or the middle-of-no-where Georgia.
The Bechers were accused of being terrorists, chased, arrested and intimidated in many of the places they travelled. Being two Germans with a giant camera, lost in the hills of Appalachia looking for coal tipples "or whatever" made them quite suspicious to the locals. To be more inconspicuous they would wake up before dawn to be on location to shoot structures before people arrived to work, hopefully missing shift changes at the facilities. Not only did this provide even light, it allowed them to work without much fuss and eliminated extraneous details in the final image such as cars, animals and humans.
Books regarding the Bechers are not easy to come by and tend to be pricey. I would recommend checking them out at the library. You will not be disappointed with the images.
