Hilla and Bernd Becher
Artists Hilla and Bernd Becher were influential in several fields of art, both photographically and sculpturally. In an article on the Tate website (linked below), they are described as sculptors, even though they never made physical sculptural objects. This is because their photographs were more than documentation: they were transformative to the way objects were seen. Before they began to collaborate, Hilla was a professional photographer and Bernd was a painter.
Below are several series of their images, readily found on the web and collected here for ease of access. They are points of departure for your conceptualizing. Note that photography is often touted as truth. In reality photography is always a lie. Or at least, a heavily redacted version of reality. In the case of the Bechers this editing is essential and deliberate.
Each individual photograph is a crop of exquisite control, forcing us to look at the singularity of the object. Stripped away is the context of the structure in its surroundings. What it related to in the world around it is hidden, allowing us to see this object as the only thing of importance. It may or may not be the most dominant thing in the landscape, but in these croppings, there is nothing to compete with.
One of the many beautiful aspects of the photographs is the classification of forms. There are many ways to catalog and reference similarities in objects. We may believe that all water towers are essentially the same size and scale, as this is how they are presented in the Becher groupings, but it simply is not so. The actual scale of the forms is not as important as the language found in their shapes, textures, and structures.
Compare the various collections of water towers. Some of the individual towers show up in multiple collections, meaning that these particular forms match well to others in many ways. The gridded collections are more impressive and beautiful than the individual images because repetition and the grid are visual tools that excite the eye and mind, and force us to look. Groupings offer the opportunity to compare; to find similarities and differences. Our brains are designed to do this process very well. Grids give power to shapes because they present these shapes as data points.
Although you are making individual pieces, look to others in the class to find reference and commonality.