Magnum street photographer Bruce Gilden working in Oxford Street
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Bruce Gilden shoots London.
Well, much to my surprise I bumped into Bruce Gilden, who is a famous street photographer from New York and member of Magnum Photos. He was taking pictures of people around Oxford Circus - as street photographers do. I had a nice chat with him, and he's a really nice interesting guy. I got him to try a couple of shots with my newly acquired Fuji x10, and he got some pretty good results from it considering it was a totally unfamiliar camera.
The video quality here is not great - one of the first bits of video I have shot with this camera, and I'm afraid I didn't set it up for best quality and I messed up the exposure as well.
Whether you like his methodology or not, his shots are split second observations of people and are quite brilliant.
Interestingly, during the time that I stood there and watched him work, nobody reacted badly towards him for taking their picture. One or two were a bit bemuse/ puzzled/surprised but that was about it.
Peter
I wish one day to have the guts to take pictures like that 🙏
great...nice to see the master in action where i live
In the grand scale of things I can't personally see that he's doing that much to offend and obviously street photography such as this doesn't really work if you ask permission first. And the chap is there in front of you if you wanted to speak to him about it. On the subject of permission; I don't recall there being much discussion in this country prior to the massive expansion CCTV surveillance systems, which strikes me as a very un-British thing and yet as a nation we seem to have embraced.
Sure, I will send you a link to the pictures.
Peter
no one in the world like bruce :)
Very gutsy
London's a great town. Never know who your going to bump into.
I'd be curious as to what pictures he's got there. His style is very aggressive, in your face with a flash. It's real brash - New York all over. But London, a place where you can't catch someone eye on the tube for more than a second with them getting paranoid. How did his style go down there i wounder.
Frank C
He wouldn't do it in Hackney , I guarantee you!
People reduced to random objects. There’s no story there at all, keeping the picture floating at the surface.
They are so many styles in the streetphotography..who tell you writting storys? Its not a movie, its photography.
wow pretty jealous! i saw him in derby, but i didnt really get much of a chance for a chat as he was in a bit of a hurry.
@RiOtEmpire777
He did mention that Leica had lent him an M9 that he took with him on assignment to Haiti, but he said he didn't really get on all that well with it. He found he / the camera tended to over-expose. I think what he meant was that he's used to the exposure latitude you have with negative film which you don't have with digital. Plus he's clearly used to working with film - though he did miss a shot by forgetting to wind on which amused us both 8-)
Peter
I have to confess that I'm not a fan of the use of flash in street photography, though I did like Philip-Lorca diCorcia's heads series. Perhaps I lack your sensitivity but I really do see Gilden's approach as obnoxious - in daylight at such sort range with Tri-X 400 and f2.8 the flash out put isn't that noticeable to the subjects. I've tried this technique myself and people don't seem to react to the flash - some do duck thinking your trying to photograph something behind them though 8-) Peter
That's not the sort of shot he was looking for. If you look at his past published work you'll notice that he mostly shoots single individuals from a couple of feet using a 28mm lens - so really a tight head to waist shot. Also on this occasion he was working to a specific brief to capture the stress of city living - the tourists with the map didn't look stressed to me.
Peter
Any updates in 2022?
I assume you mean the pictures Bruce Gilden was taking. I don't have access to those. I was just passing by and stopped to watch him working.
Peter
Whoops that should have read: ....but I really don't see Gilden's approach as obnoxious... Oh, for an edit function!
Wow, his pics with the x10 came out pretty nice. You should be honored that a master such as bruce has touched your camera!
nerrej
Bonkers!
Ah, yes your right I'd forgotten all about those. I could did them out and put them on Flicker if your interested.
Peter
Ok, I'll send you a message with a link to the pictures.
Peter
I also would like to see x10 gilden photoss :) pleasee
Great stuff! I bet you weren't expecting to bump into him! Great opportunity to watch him at work first hand, and have a chat too.
Oddly enough I had seen him working in Oxford Street about a year or so before this, though I didn't get to chat to him. I'd assumed he'd be too busy or not particularly interested. In fact he seems quite happy to talk to people in between darting off to take pictures.
Is there someway I could see the pictures Bruce took on your x10?
Your welcome. Let me know what you think.
Peter
I, too, would love to see the shots he took with your X10.
hahah no, i meant that he is one of a kind :)
I would like to see those x10 photos as well. Please
He’s totally disrespectful
After I took this short bit of video, I stood and watched Brue Gilden work for about 30 minutes. During that time he photographed quite a lot of people as the past by. None of them objected. A few looked slightly surprised, and a few dodged out of his way - I think they thought they were getting in the way of whatever they thought he was trying to photograph. Most people didn't react at all.
Interestingly, if I remember correctly, he had been commissioned to take these street photographs of passers-by by UNESCO.
@babettesfeast6347 Ah, good to see you here! I think he's brilliant. We'll have to agree to disagree!
awesome, shot for posting this!
they have that classic Bruce style
i do! (-;
thanks!
stupid question -he uses Leica -which is manual focus camera??
how he focuses??
+CPFingerboarder All Leica M's are manual focus
CPFingerboarder Bruce Gilden has traditionally shot with Leica M film cameras, but I think he shot his latest portraits with the Leica S medium format Leica.
He uses zone focusing. It's pre focused using the distance scale on the lens. Say for example you set it to 3ft with an aperture of f8 or f11 then anything from 3ft and beyond will be in focus.
@RiOtEmpire777
An M6.
How they let this hack into Magnum says more about Magnum than it does about Bruce.
Awesome!