Florence 2004
'The museum photographs each show people doing what you are doing yourself – looking at a picture,' says Struth. 'For every frame, I waited between one hour and four or five hours for the decisive composition'
Photograph: Thomas Struth/Whitechapel Gallery
Las Vegas, 1999
'I am always interested in history and architecture; how a community represents itself in the built environment and what that can tell us about that community. There is an atmosphere in a city that a photograph can capture or suggest'
Photograph: Thomas Struth
'This for me is a landscape of the brain. The promise of science and technology is always some better, brighter, faster future that will somehow free us. Yet we become more entangled and self-focused the more technological we become. I wanted, too, to make these images look somehow exhausting' Photograph: Thomas Struth
Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, 2008 Photograph: Thomas Struth/Whitechapel Gallery
Landsdorf, 2008
My own family's portraits were my first engagement with photography and I have been interested in family pictures every since,' says Struth. 'There is a moment when a family just comes together and sets aside the usual family dynamic to surrender to the photograph, but then the photograph then reveals so many clues about the family dynamic' Photograph: Thomas Struth/Whitechapel Gallery
Yakushima Japan 1999
'I am very fascinated with complex structures and depth of vision and detail. The jungle pictures have no immediate history of reference, so you must surrender your usual faculties and analytical tools and surrender to just looking. There is nothing to think about too much, so the act of looking becomes more meditative' Photograph: Thomas Struth/Whitechapel Gallery
Rome 1990
'The art gallery is a strange, undefined space. There are few other gatherings of people in which it is unclear what the shared experience is about. It’s about experiencing art, of course, but often it is akin to some vague appointment with something we cannot define. And a crowded gallery is not a comfortable space to contemplate that kind of thing' Photograph: Thomas Struth
New York/Wall Street 1978
'My photographs of architecture, buildings, cities are part of a continuing story. They are not the individual human stories, tough, that many photographs suggest, but the built reality that is a collective story in itself' Photograph: Thomas Struth
Tokyo, 1986 Photograph: Thomas Struth/Whitechapel Gallery
Milan, 1998 Photograph: Thomas Struth/Whitechapel Gallery
