Depth of Field: Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky specialises in Large Format photography, whose subject matter tends to explore the uniformity of architecture and everyday goings-on. Prominent in his work are inner-city apartment blocks, supermarkets and the stock exchange: anything where the activity can be reproduced and multiplied to the degree of the unbelievable. Hailing from Germany, he was influenced by Hilla & Bernd Becher, a pair of photographers "known for their distinctive, dispassionate method of systematically cataloging industrial machinery and architecture" (Marien, Mary Warner. Photography. 2006, page 371-2, Wikipedia). This quote sums it up beautifully for me.

The reason I have included Gursky amongst my examples is because his subject matter lends itself to what are evidently very narrow apertures in order that every last detail assumes the same importance. You can see from this composition that everything is completely uniformed and takes its own place within the supermarket, and also within the frame of the image. Everything appears catalogued and colour-coded.

Paris, Montparnasse, 1993. Again, we have an apartment block in Paris, which includes all the detail that Gursky is known for. He has openly admitted to heavily manipulating his images to create this degree of uniformity and space between each item (in this case, each individual apartment):  "about his reliance on computers to edit and enhance his pictures, creating an art of spaces larger than the subjects photographed" (Wikpedia).

This is one of Gursky's famous studies of the New York Stock Exchange. Obviously, to get this degree of detail and sharpness throughout the whole image, a narrow aperture value would have to be selected. I think it is also possible to see here where he has manipulated the image, for the lines towards the edges of the image are a little too uniformed.