Photography legend Bruce Gilden’s current exhibition at Fotografiska Tallinn, Why These, delves deep into the human experience. Anne Vetik spoke with Gilden about intuition, importance of the detail, and the people who inspire his work. Here are his thoughts.
“When I picked up a camera in 1967, I didn't even know that what you got was what you saw in front of you through the viewfinder. That's pretty stupid. And the first picture I ever took was of a squirrel on a tree. That was not very good. It's funny though, so if I do a retrospective book, I think I'm going to put that picture on the cover. “
“Huh? How important is empathy for a photographer? I don't understand that question. It seems like it's directed at me specifically. Would you ask that question to someone who does supposedly humanistic pictures? I'm going to turn it around. Do you think I have empathy in my pictures? Yes, you do. All right, so I do, too.
The people I have been attracted to since I was a kid, are never your average people. I always liked outliers, and I always rooted for the underdog.
As a child the things that struck me visually were, for example, the wrestlers that would be out of the ordinary like The French Angel or Man Mountain Dean, a guy who weighed 400 pounds, something like that. So I just translated that interest for out of ordinary into my photography.”
“I'm an insider. I'm not like some photographers - I won't mention names - who do it out of curiosity. Diane Arbus called the subjects she photographed, ‘aristocrats”. I don't find them aristocrats, they're just people who look a certain way or act a certain way and they are mostly ignored and invisible in our society They might not be pretty but I find them beautiful. And to me they’re my family."
"For my prostitutes on drugs series, after initial shoots, I've gone back to certain places later, whether it's Overtown in Miami or Kensington in Philadelphia. I had a nice conversation with one lady whom I photographed. I told her she should, stop doing drugs. I told her I was a cocaine addict at one point in my life and that you know, she should stop because she was just hurting herself. She said she'll stop when she's ready but when I came back six months later, she was dead. I don't proselytize, I just make my statement and that's it, you know.
Another time in Kensington, a lady who's in two of these pictures in the Fotografiska show was obviously a huge addict, and when we went back a few months later after the initial shoot, nobody had seen her for two weeks. So that means either she's dead or somebody had kidnapped her or something.
Anything can happen on the streets. I've heard some horrendous stories and I believe them. I believe them to be true, because too many people say similar things. It's not easy being out there on the street and having a habit to top it off.”
“I wanted to be a boxer before I started with photography, and yes I’ve been in a real street fight but not because of photography. Simply put, I´m a fighter and I probably got into more fights without a camera than with a camera. To me, it's about respect. If you're not respectful to me, you know, there's really not much to say at a certain point. I'm physical that way. Now that I'm older, it's more difficult because my brain is the same but my body is not so I have to back off a little bit now.
Today everybody calls themselves a street photographer but everybody isn't a street photographer. I mean, if you want to call yourself a street photographer because you pick up a camera and you take a picture in the street, okay fine, that’s your right but for me, to earn the right to call yourself a street photographer, I think you should at least be half decent at taking good pictures and most people aren't very good at it. That's a problem but that doesn't bother me.”
“I only am interested in things that I believe are well done or that are just interesting personally to me. If I'm not interested in something, I just turn the page. I'm not, like all these people on social media, who always have problems with this or that or me or somebody. Why waste your time, criticizing things? Unless somebody asks your opinion, what's the point?”
"In a good picture everything comes together, you just see it. I think what's important in photography is to pay attention to the details. For example, I've learned a lot about faces by doing the portraits. I find they're easier to do than the candid photographs. When you're working candidly you can't control how 20 people are going to be in a frame: someone might be in the right position, but if they just tilt their head a certain way it's not as good as it could have been if they tilted their head in the right position. And you say, wow, that's unbelievable, it’s good. But in general, it works against you.
Portrait is not necessarily about what person I'm interested in or who I'm not interested in. Occasionally there's someone I'm not that much attracted visually but personally and it turns out to be a pretty good picture. Then I say, well, I misread it a little initially, all right? But I still took the picture and it came out very good because of what I've learned. It is more about the details of the face. The shape of the face is important. For example, If your bone above where your eyebrow is, is very strong and prominent, then your eyes are set back in the head, so that doesn't help make a good facial portrait.”
"The longer you go everything in all photography becomes more fine-tuned. What you think was good at one time may not be that good after a long period of time, because you got better.
When I give workshops, I'm going to be very critical. But if you do a picture that's really good, I'll really compliment you deservedly so. And when I do workshops, I also take into consideration how long you've been photographing which is obviously very important. It's like when you’re playing basketball, you should not like to play against someone who's not as good as you. You shoul like to play against people who are as good as you or better than you. It's the same thing in photography.
You're you, and I'm me, and we're not the same person. I don't like the idea of people giving workshops and everyone imitates their teacher. I once had a student in my workshop who showed me a photograph where he had imitated me, and he did pretty well. But, you know, what are you learning? You learned nothing, just how to imitate. You're not learning how to become yourself, and that is what you should be learning.”
"For Fotografiska I chose the photographs that I like, ones that I think are good. I have other ones that I think are good, but I think most of the best ones are in here. I left some of them out, but I think that my choice is worthy of being shown.”