Whaddya think of this guy's style......

[PatrickONeill]

video pulled, and I missed out on all of the fun!

 

[greyelm]

As HCB might have said "merde"

 

[Paul T.]

I can't help hoping the next time he jumps out from behind a phonebox he ends up having to get what's left of his camera surgically removed.
Creepy tosser.

I don't like his style, and I don't like his photos, but I'm interested in all the people who want to break his jaw or his camera. Why?

He's just a guy... not a rapacious corporation, a banker who's plundered your pension, nor a corrupt politician. Maybe it would make more sense to get angry with the latter rather than a mediocre, intrusive photographer who is doing something perfectly legal?

 

[Turtle]

The video has been taken down, but his streetimages do nothing for me (some of his other work is much better). While Gilden might be controversial, he has some cracking images that I find hugely compelling.

I have not seen the video, but I guess everyone has to learn and that might including leaping in front of people and getting punched and still not having a good shot to show for it 😀

 

[Roger Hicks]

To me, anyone who feels a need to take videos of how he makes still pictures probably isn't taking very good still pictures. What was he trying to prove?

Cheers,

R.

 

[lawnpotter]

I would call this style "Startle photograhy". What this guy should do is attach a camera to a baseball bat or a gun, then he would really make a name for him self.

 

[duncanhill]

No style whatsoever. He's more of a rabble-rousing punk than a photographer.

 

[panerai]

Street photography is crap these days anyway. It was cool back when small portable cameras were new and interesting.

It was Better as men dressed in suits and women in dresses. Also the cities were a little more aged and grittier.

Now days people are casually dressed and cities are cleaner with a lot of glass buildings displacing the older historic buildings, so really not as interesting in many cities

DON

 

[Spleenrippa]

I don't like his style, and I don't like his photos, but I'm interested in all the people who want to break his jaw or his camera. Why?

He's just a guy... not a rapacious corporation, a banker who's plundered your pension, nor a corrupt politician. Maybe it would make more sense to get angry with the latter rather than a mediocre, intrusive photographer who is doing something perfectly legal?

I wonder about these people as well. How do they react when someone cuts in line at the box office or someone doesn't hold a door open for them?

 

[FrankS]

I don't care about anyone holding a door for me, but people who butt into lines really tick me off.

 

[FrankS]

So many people who call themselves street photographers want to be like Henri Cartier Bresson but I doubt that too many study his work. The thing I have noticed about his very best photos is how they capture a real decisive moment - not just because someone pressed a shutter button but because something was actually happening at that moment.

In particular so often what I notice about his work is the arrangement of people and objects within it. Check these out in the link below and see what I mean. The bicycle at the bottom of the stairs and the metal ribbon of a staircase winding down to it, for example. Its those patterns of elements that so often make an image special and interesting.


http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1983868_2128603,00.html

This is where most street shooters get it wrong I think. HCB used to stake out a spot that he thought looked promising, if necessary staying there for hours ready to pounce like a predator the moment the right image came along. He did not just shove a camera in peoples face and hope for the best. For me thats what really makes the difference between a good photo and a dud one. Interesting image elements, patterns, shadows, light and so forth. The photo by Alexander Rodchenko of the woman in the latticework pattern of shade comes to mind too. A posed shot but how memorable is this compared to what it would have been without the shadows?

http://amyjacksonart.blogspot.com/2010/08/alexander-rodchenko-historical-artist.html

+1 Totally agree with this.

 

[peterm1]

There's more to street photography than only the HCB style. I think this guy in particular want's to be a Gilden copy and not an HCB copy.
I don't like this combat approach to photography.

My comment was more a general one about street photographers not this guy specifically.

But my point is still valid. Whether he is imitating HCB of Myerowitz or Gilden or someone else - random shots of people in the street do not generally make interesting photos.

There must be more going on than this. And for me that is the physical and spacial relationship between the elements , the implied emotional relationship between the people, the light, the shade, the patterns interesting angles blah blah blah.


Without some of these at least, its just another crappy snapshot.

 

[kbg32]

To me, anyone who feels a need to take videos of how he makes still pictures probably isn't taking very good still pictures. What was he trying to prove?

Cheers,

R.

I feel this way about the later videos of Joel Meyerowitz explaining street photography on 57th Street and 5th Avenue, dressed all in black.

 

[kbg32]

At least HCB in the films of him shooting, had the dignity of wearing a suit and tie!

 

[back alley]

don't we all wear a suit and tie when street shooting?

 

[EthanFrank]

don't we all wear a suit and tie when street shooting?

Or several...

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[Lumix]

Thanks EthanFrank - a laugh to start the day!

Lumix

 

[jsrockit]

At least HCB in the films of him shooting, had the dignity of wearing a suit and tie!

well, as funny as this is... people do react differently to a well dressed photographer. When I'm in my "business casual" clothes, people act different to me photographing then when I'm in my jeans, t-shirt, sneakers outfit.

 

[Neare]

I am tired of all these photographers bashing methods like these. I don't think they bash it because they think it's disrespectful to people or the art or anything, I think they feel the need to bash it due to their own lack of confidence in getting close to people and photographing them.

Let me be an asshole, but all I see is flocks of mediocre photographers ridiculing Bruce Gilden's methods saying that he's somehow wrong in his approach. These low self-esteemed people take their personal frustrations out on another, taking their photography moral high ground and begin to claim that there is a right way to do things. Well it's rubbish, there is no right or wrong way to do things at all.

Now there are younger photographers like this, who's work is not at Gilden's standard yet, or perhaps never. However, the fact that they are breaking out of the norm, away from the bokeh shots of a persons back standing at traffic lights and entering into fairly uncharted territory is something that deserves admiration. Not the hate and disgust these internet warriors dish out.

"Art is about doing what you should not."

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Most of us have probably read that HC-B didn't use a flash because he regarded it as impolite

It is impolite, just like playing the accordion would be in the middle of a State of the Union speech. Unless, of course, it's been invited.

It doesn't mean that there isn't good accordion music out there: it means that things have their time and place. Sticking a camera in front of a stranger and firing off a flash on his/her face is beyond impolite, I don't care if Gilden is a Magnum photographer or not.

I guess they thought "when you don't know how to do something, trump it by doing it the wrong way...and make that your shtick. Yeah, that's it!".