Inspiration Street photographer: Bruce Gilden
Bruce Gilden is a famous American Street Photographer, born in 1943, he is known for his candid style of close-up shots of people on the streets in New York. Gilden was born in Brooklyn, New York. Once, he saw Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blowup in 1968, and influenced by this film, he purchased his own camera and began taking classes in photography at the School of Visual Arts of New York. Interested with the people on the street and the idea of visual spontaneity, Gilden entered to a career of photography.
His works are defined by “In your Face”, and is pretty different from other photographers works. For other photographer’s works in that time, which was at about 2002, the street photographs were colorful and vibrant, compared to Bruce Gilden’s black and white works. Also, the other photographers used long distance shots to take photos of people on the streets, comparing to the “In Your Face” shots by Gilden. In addition, another difference was that Bruce Gilden’s works were extremely more bold and aggressive, unlike the shy street photographers at that time.
Bruce Gilden’s photograph examples are took by a 28mm wide lense shot, capturing interesting details and subjects. He also likes to take photos from a low angle, creating weird compositions and making the subject appear larger than real life.
I think Gilden’s style of “In Your Face” photography is very interesting, and it also partly fits with my street photography idea because I also like taking pictures of people that are unposed. For example, I like taking photos of my friends or other people when they’re caught off guard. I think taking pictures that way illustrates the most spontaneous emotional reaction and action of the subjects, which I think is a very powerful hook for the audience. However, comparing to most works of Bruce Gilden, which are the close up face shots that clearly show detail of emotions of the face, I prefer to take photos at a farther distance, not very distant, but far enough to capture the subjects whole body and their action and movements. In this way, I think it catches not only the face expression and emotion of the subject, but also the spontaneous movement when they’re off guard.