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Interesting video of Bruce Gilden

charlesphoto

New member
"I wonder if anyone has ever punched him for getting in their face like that."

Gee, I hope so.
I really have to say shame on you when you advocate violence against another photographer, no matter how rude or off putting you find their style. Note, he is taking a photograph, not pistol whipping them with the camera. They have every right to challenge him verbally but it's a sad day when other photographers think it should be open season on other photographers. Be careful what you wish for.
 

robertwright

New member
it never fails that when there is good work (imo, but have we all spent time looking at the work itself?) the question inevitably comes up about how it was done, and the ethics of it. While we are at it lets open the discussion to include Weegee, Arbus, Natcheway, Norfolk, Alpern, ...name your own who has run afoul of the propriety/niceness/ethics/ rules that we all are supposed to abide by. When we say, "the ends don't justify the means" that is a double judgement, but if you like the work then you can't really talk about the other.

of course we can all have opinions about behaviour, but to discount the work because you don't like that the photographer or artist is -insert, drunk, addict, rude, unsavory, mean, naive, etc. is to connect two dots that don't connect.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
I appreciate your argument Robert, but I cannot agree. I did not mean to imply a double judgement by saying the ends don't justify the means. I truly think that art in general is not a license to treat people inhumanly. In the same way that great medical advances might have come through forced human experimentation, that does not justify their use. I certainly don't mean to compare Gilden's method to forced human experimentation, but I think that there is a fundamental link between the art that is made and the way it is made. I feel the same way about Richard Prince...while his idea to blow up the Marlboro man to gargantuan size might have been novel and artistic, for me it does not forgive the fact that he blatantly appropriated another photographer's work and made millions from it without so much as giving him a credit.

I know it is not a popular opinion, but I would not hold art above all as some are so quick to do. I would put kindness, consideration and humanity above it.
 

tollie

Workshop Member
- posed photographs that don't capture people the way they really are.

I must say that he does not capture anything about the way people are. He sets people up and assaults them and then captures their look for his own profit. It is quite possible to do great street work which does capture some of both individual character and ones place in the world with a humain attitude towards your subjects.

His work is not made with an ethical approach nor an illuminating approach, justify it by calling it art if you need to... but it is throughly repulsive.

Todd
 
S

sirvine

Guest
Bruce Gilden is a genius. His 'Fashion Magazine' puts the entire industry to shame. People who don't get New York will never get him. I think it's amusing that people who worship ethically questionable shooters like Nachtwey have an issue with Gilden. Everyone gets their opinion...
 
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