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May 6, 2008
If the boom in German photography was in the 1990s, then the sole supremacy of the Düsseldorf Becher school with its strictly documentary perspective of the first generation of practitioners looks to be fading, if not definitely over.
Bernd and Hilla Becher, Zeche Consolidation, Celsenkirchen, Ruhr Germany, 1974, gelatin silver print
An alternative photography school is at the University of Essen. An example is the work is Jitka Hanzlová, which is characterized by careful composition, a subtle sense of colour and light, and a quietly poetic painterly quality. She is known for her portrait work but there is an non-portrait strand about the village where she grew up.
Jikta Hanzlová, Untitled (hungry fishes), 2004
The forest series is particularly interesting given my difficulties with the beech forests in NZ.
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