August Sander is a wonderful German photographer who took pictures of ordinary, everyday people shortly before the second world war. Many of his photographs have been a great inspiration to me. One photo that I have gone back to over and over again features Otto, a bland looking bureacrat who is so bland he's exciting.

I don't know why I am drawn to this type. An accountant who briefly raises his head out of his ledger, has his picture taken, and then immediately returns to work. Fashion models in flyers for discount suit stores. A civil servant who has just slipped out of his office for a quick two hour break. The look of these people excites me. Maybe it's that they seem totally without art, without beauty, so practical, zombie-like, and strangely pure.

Sander has taken many pictures of such people -- rigid, conforming, statue-like Germans, so practical and artless and bland I can't help but be in awe.