Bruce Gilden

Bruce Gilden Rochester, New York, 2012

Bruce Gilden is among a number of portrait photographers that my tutor suggested I take a look at. My research uncovered his website at www.brucegilden.com and I was so taken by his images that I bought a copy of the Thames & Hudson Photofile on him.

Better still were the number of youtube videos showing him at work where his running commentary as he took shots added a further very interesting dimension to his work. For example:

 Magnum Photos' Bruce Gilden photographs Derby - Head On, a Format International Commission for the FORMAT Photo Festival in June 2012.
British Journal of Photography  http://youtu.be/ejlIgyYhlJ8

Street Shots with Bruce Gilden 
WNYC Culture published on 27 December 2009 available from http://youtu.be/IRBARi09je8 
(Accessed 19 February 2015 )


Gilden's first major project in the late 1960s recorded people enjoying the pleasures of Coney Island. And though maybe best known for his street photography in New York, he has worked on projects for many years in Japan, Haiti and Ireland - always looking for the essence of the people he sees - looking carefully at how they appear within their own social settings..He uses a Leica and a flashgun and often favours a portrait format for his images.

Bruce Gilden Untitled,New York, 1990

What do I like about Gilden's portraits?  I like the dynamic angles, the edginess, the spontaneity of image, created by his 'photographer's eye' , his apparent fascination with people on the street, his use of flash photography and his often used technique of angling the camera up at people which makes for interesting and unusual compositions... 

I can see that his work might well to polarize opinion.In the words of Christian Caujolle* quoted on the introduction to the T&H Profile, Gilden is " one of the rare straight-on and direct portraitists' and 'unquestionably one of the most radical and interesting photographers of his generation in the US' . 
Some may well think his tactic of leaping out at people is almost like mugging them for their image.

Personally I like the unposed 'snatched' portraits with their often blurred background as they seem to reveal more of the person than a less dynamic approach might capture.

* Caujolle,Christian,(1992) 'Coney Island beach fauna', in Vis-aVis,no.12, cited in Bruce Gilden, Koetzle,Hans-Michael (2014) Bruce Gilden.London: Thames &Hudson, p.4 (introduction )