Thomas Ruff is a German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He shares a studio on Düsseldorf's Hansaallee, with other German photographers Laurenz Berges, Andreas Gursky and Axel Hütte (de). The studio, a former municipal electricity station, was converted between 1998 and 2000 by architects Herzog & de Meuron, of Tate Modern fame, and updated with a basement gallery in 2011.