Thomas Struth’s photographs began to be widely recognised internationally at the beginning of the 1990s. By this time he had spent more than a decade working on a series of street pictures that he began as a student at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie, where he studied first under the painter Gerhard Richter, and then under the new professor of photography, Bernd Becher. Becher’s teaching, and the meticulous black-and-white studies he made with his wife, Hilla, of post-war industrial buildings and structures such as water towers, blast furnaces and pithead winding gear, influenced the approach of a generation of his students, including Struth, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Axel Hütte and Candida Höfer.
上世纪90年代初开始，托马斯•施特鲁特(Thomas Struth)的摄影作品开始在国际上获得广泛认可。那时，他已经在街道系列摄影上花了十多年时间。街道系列的拍摄，始于施特鲁特就读杜赛尔多夫艺术学院(Düsseldorf Kunstakademie)期间。在杜塞尔多夫艺术学院，他先师从画家格哈德•里希特(Gerhard Richter)，而后转投摄影学新教授伯恩•贝歇(Bernd Becher)门下。当时伯恩与妻子希拉(Hilla Becher)一同拍摄了水塔、炼铁高炉、矿井口卷扬装置等许多战后工业建筑和设备，那些一丝不苟的黑白摄影作品，连同伯恩的摄影教学，影响了他的一代学生对摄影的态度。伯恩的学生包括施特鲁特、安德里亚•古斯基(Andreas Gursky)、托马斯•鲁夫(Thomas Ruff)、阿克塞尔•赫特(Axel Hütte)和坎迪达•霍弗(Candida Höfer)。