The source material for the series press++ are mainly black-and-white press photographs from the 1930s to the 1980s, originating primarily from the archives of American newspapers and magazines. Thomas Ruff scanned the front and back sides of the original documents and combined the two sides in order to merge the partially edited photograph on the front side with all the texts, comments, and traces of use on the back. The disrespectful treatment of this type of photography becomes visible when printed in large format, since, for the editors of newspapers, these photographs are not aesthetically valuable products but merely transmitters of information without artistic value. Similar to the Newspaper Photographs from the early 1990s, Thomas Ruff chose images that cover all aspects of newspaper reportage—from politics to society, from science to technology, from culture to fashion.