Widely considered one of the leading auteur figures from the New German Cinema era of the late 1960s and ’70s, Wim Wenders is a film director, producer, playwright, and photographer. Well-known cinematic works include Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club (a documentary of famous Cuban musicians), and Paris, Texas (in which a speechless man devoid of memory searches for a link to his past). In the 1980s Wenders began a long-running photographic project, Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, for which he travelled around the globe, capturing images in countries such as Australia, Cuba, Israel, Japan, and the United States, characterized by quiet, desolate landscapes and scenes—a barren desert, for instance, or a derelict hotel lobby. Wenders once said that photography is akin to “watching death at work,” as the contents of the image will inevitably change, fade, or cease to exist. He began his photographic practice using 35mm Polaroid cameras, but has since worked with medium-format cameras, enabling him to produce larger images.