Thomas Ruff is a contemporary German photographer who is most famous for his portraits. Ruff studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1977-1985). This was the academy of Düsseldorf, Germany. When i was looking at Ruffs work i came across the book ‘Thomas Ruff Andere Portraits + 3D’ this was a book on the sea rise of portraits that Ruff had done. The book was really interesting. One of the things that Ruff says is ‘If things are the way that they are then why should I tray to make them different’.

Ruff also comments on the renaissance and says that in that time portraits were a sign of social status. The props, jewellery, clothes and objects in the paintings were meant to illustrate the persons background. What Ruff is saying is that he didn’t want people to do this with his work. Ruff says that he thinks it is outrages the way that people treat his portraits. Ruff didn’t want people to think about the persons background in the photograph. He just wanted the viewer to look at the  photographs.

There is a 3D aspect to this book. Ruff has combined two faces together in one. the effect of this gives it a strange look. Ruff wanted to do this because he said that it was like combining to heads together. Ruff said that is was interesting because this could not be done in real life.