"All these people that I photograph are like my friends, even if I don't know them, because I am drawn to them somehow." Bruce Gilden's "friends" are quite an assortment of peculiar characters, from Yakuza mobsters to the strange faces of bustling NYC streets. Although, Gilden may not prefer to call the faces of his photos strange, but rather beautiful. The generic definition of photogenic doesn't interest him, "people that have something different and special" do. "There is beauty in everything," says Gilden, and he finds beauty where others may turn away.
Where others turn away, Bruce Gilden gets close. His up close style puts the viewer right into the subject's face, flipping the viewer's role from simple observer to participant. Gilden takes Robert Capa's famous words "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough" and pushes it as far as he can take it. The way he fills the frame with the subject and utilizes an off-camera flash reminds me of staged portrait photography. But unlike staged portraits, Gilden's photos capture the subject's natural self. He catches his subjects off guard. No face is put up for the camera, making vulnerable the subject's true self. Some say Gilden's photos are almost spiritual, so close to the subject that you can almost peer into their souls.
Bruce Gilden recently covered the Democrat and Republican National Conventions, but Obama and McCain weren't of importance to him. While cameras pointed at center stage, Gilden turned his camera towards the strange, if not eery, faces of nationalism/partisan surrounding it.Check out more of Bruce Gilden:
The Rat Story, Magnum in Motion
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