German, 1931–2007, 1934–2015. Husband and wife photography duo who were best known for their black and white images of architecture all over Germany. Bernd and Hilla Becher studied typography and graphic printing techniques respectively before moving to photography. They began a collaborative career in 1959 and were married shortly thereafter. Their images documented the evolution of society and industry through the physical structures they occupied and served as a way to preserve history. They would shoot everything from water towers and grain silos to timber frame and slate houses and exhibit them together to show the similarities, juxtapositions and patterns in what they called "typologies". Their work laid the foundation for the contemporary school of photography in Germany.