Thomas Struth is a German photographer, born in 1954, in West Germany. He had an interest in painting and pursued this interest at the Dusseldorf Art Academy. He began painting black and white hybrid photographs and paintings,  which depicted figures walking or standing in public places. Dissatisfied with the inability of his images to represent the complexity of the historical moment in which he lived, Struth took his camera into the streets and found that the background he was using for his paintings on photographs- the city itself- contained just such a complexity. He pursued his love of photography from this point forward. He moved to NYC and worked on cityscapes, unusual images of streets devoid of people, traffic, and the unceasing movement typical of a major city. Struth's goal with his photography is to communicate identity, history, and psychological states through subject's posture, dress, gestures, and physical environment. Although Struth is known for his urban scenes, he also branched out into photographs of rainforests and intimate portraits. One of his first series was called Museum Photographs, it consisted of images of museums and gallery visitors in the act of viewing art. Some photographs were contemplative, others in the series are crowded with masses of people trying to get a glimpse of a work of art. He also photographed people from the perspective of the work of art on display. For example, he placed his camera below Michelangelo's sculpture of David to capture the facial expressions of the viewers looking up at the artist's masterpiece. These photographs communicate powerful statements about a subject's reaction to art and allows you to step inside the viewer's mind and see their perspective and personal reaction to a work of art. These photographs allow you to see the importance of a subject's facial expression and body language in their reactions as well as understand the emotional imagery Struth is trying to evoke from these photographs. In another series he photographed an empty Disneyland. This was an attempt at communicating the combination of fantasy and the industry responsible for manufacturing dreams and encouraging imagination. We are so used to seeing Disneyland as an overcrowded, exploding with color and action scenario, but you get a whole different message when you see Disneyland completely empty, with each of its buildings and rides photographed on their own, with intense clarity of detail. You see Disneyland for what it is structurally and technologically. Another series Struth has taken are family portraits. In this series, the families are situated inside their home or in a garden. They look straight at the camera and are often expressionless. Struth photographed them both in color and black and white, using the a large format camera. The identities of the family members is communicated through the razor-sharp details included in the image. The viewer must piece together the critical elements to shape a narrative. The family portrait series communicates to me exactly what Struth was looking for- a viewer's ability to  create their own narrative from a complex and detailed portrait of people and their dress, posture, gestures and environment. It is up to the viewer to decide what these people are like and what each of their stories might be.

               Some of the techniques Struth has used in his photography include using a large format camera, 8 by 10mm, on a tripod and placing it in the middle of a scene, whether it is in the middle of a city street, or in the middle of the rainforests he has visited. The length of time he leaves the shutter open is also a technique he uses when photographing specific subjects. This allows for as much clarity and detail to be visible in the photograph so that viewers need to look at these photographs over and over again in order to try to notice everything in them.  

          Struth's genre-defying work consistently takes on the theme of precise observation. From his empty street photography to his family portraits to his phtotography of an empty Disneyland, Struth achieves his goal of making his photographs so complex and detailed that you can look at them forever and never see everything.  I believe that in Struth's work, he is trying to show that things people may not notice for example the museum photograph series, the people viewing the art can be considered art itself and this is complex which is what Struth is trying to evoke in his images.