A group of students at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in the mid 1970s who studied under the influential photographers Bernd and Hiller Becher, known for their rigorous devotion to the 1920s German tradition of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). The Bechers' photographs were clear, black and white pictures of industrial archetypes (pitheads, water towers, coal bunkers). Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth modified the approach of their teachers by applying new technical possibilities and a personal and contemporary vision, while retaining the documentary method their tutors propounded.