At the start both Marchand and Meffre used their own 35 mm cameras, photographing abandoned historical buildings and sites in a state of decay or transition.

[3] In October 2005, they traveled to Detroit, the former capital of automobile production, a city that they discovered specifically through DetroitYES!, the website of Lowell Boileau,[n 2] as well as through the works of Camilo José Vergara.

Their project was subsequently reported on by newspapers and magazines (in particular El País, L'Espresso, The New York Times, The Guardian, Libération, Der Spiegel, Huffington Post[citation needed]).

[5] Marchand and Meffre met photographer Robert Polidori, photographer–author of books such as Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl, Havana and After the Flood.

[citation needed] The nature of their subjects has also led them to document various buildings before or during renovation, such as Hôtel-Dieu in Lyon, department stores in La Samaritaine and Pantin, or the International Fair in Tripoli, Lebanon.

"When visiting ruins, we have always tried to focus on remarkable buildings whose architecture strongly embodies the psychology of an era, of a system, and to observe and their metamorphoses", Marchand and Meffre have said about their work.

[7] Marchand and Meffre are both influenced by the typological and encyclopedic aspects of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher and the German photographers of Industrie-Kultur,[n 3] as well as the large-format images of Robert Polidori.