"Face" -- A New Book by Bruce Gilden

[Norma Desmond]

I did miss your point, Marc, likely because you completely misstated it. You said: "one would think that they would create

a spread such as the kind W. Eugene Smith used to do . . ." That seemed very clear to me. I'm glad you now explained it

as you actually meant it, because you're now saying something very different and that I can relate to more.

 

I guess because you think of me as a know-it-all, you expected me to read your mind in addition to reading the words spoke, which said what they said. I had no way to know you didn't mean what you said but instead meant what you are now saying. Not as clairvoyant as you thought, I'm happy to say!

[Norma Desmond]

And Brad, as usual, has opted for the personal attack instead of addressing the substance of the discussion.

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>These pictures of Gildens show nothing about what life is like in Appalachia. </p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

They pretty much show what's going on inside Gilden's head, which is not very pleasant or interesting.<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I brought up Smith not to suggest that Gilden shoot like him but for photographers to see the extent of effort that goes into a well perceived and executed documentary project</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

That was very clear. It takes a fair amount of work not to see that.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

Except that Marc's words talked about creating a spread like Smith. All you have to do is read Marc's words to know what he actually said. But that rarely happens among some folks here, who retroactively always seem to

understand what what was never said, especially when they are being cheerleaders for one of their own against a voice

with whom they substantively disagree but have no clue how to debate substance, so they make personal attacks about

ability to understand, Brad going even a step further to claim he knows what my intentions are when I understand

something differently from him. This is the most intellectually dishonest group of photographers with the most unimpeachable

opinions and the shallowest work to show for it I could ever imagine. Look in the mirror, Brad and Jeff, because many of

the things you accuse Gilden of, particularly showing more about yourselves in the work than your subjects, applies to

you. Both your series of portraits of people are stylistically blind to them as individuals and simply show a repetitively

shooting-gallery style without any sense of all the engagement you both consistently talk about and emphasize. I suspect

you are so offended by Gilden's work because you see so much similarity in your own (without the HDR of course) and

wish you were producing something with some degree of the kind of intimacy you'd like to think is or should be at play. Your work is cold and distant in so many of the same ways you've accused Gilden of shooting. You've both unfortunately let your status as pop stars of this forum prevent you from assessing your work honestly and from falling into those same traps you've accused Gilden of falling into.

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>Both your series of portraits of people are stylistically blind to them as individuals...</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

I'm an event shooter. I shoot portraits as an off-shoot of the events. I don't claim anything about them except that they are people at events. Occasionally I shoot portraits for money and generally ask people to tell me how they want to be portrayed.<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I suspect you are so offended by Gilden's work </p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

Where did I say I was "offended by Gilden's work?"<br /><br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>you see so much similarity in your own (without the HDR of course) </p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

I don't see any similarity. I never show people as ugly or damaged, I avoid it. And I have absolutely no idea what the HDR comment is about. I use HDR for real estate shooting, that's it. I don't even know how to use HDR for portraits, it depends on things not moving. Technically it would be extremely difficult except with a dead body.<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Your work is cold and distant</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

I'm an event shooter. The people I photograph are at events. I used to be a sports shooter, and then most of the people I shot were at sporting events. <br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>your status as pop stars of this forum</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

I have no idea what this means. I rarely post on this forum. I haven't done street photography in years so I don't make a point of trying to be a major presence on it.<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>prevent you from assessing your work honestly </p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

I have plenty of people to do that for me, I don't have to think about it too much.<br>

</p>

[Brad_]

Another photonet day, another one of Fred's Trump-like tiny rants. Shrug.

[Norma Desmond]

~<<shrug>>>

 

LOL. Brad, ever the kool kat.

[spanky]

<p>What's gotten into you Fred? Unless I missed it I don't recall you ever reacting this way. So some of us don't think very highly of Gildens recent work. Big deal, is that anything to get so defensive about? I mentioned Smith because his was the first name that came to my mind. I could have easily mentioned Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark or several others as examples of documentary photographers who immersed themselves in the environment they were shooting in order to gain trust and thereby produce stronger, more intimate pictures. In fact as I was driving to work this morning I was thinking about and comparing in my mind Bruce Davidsons "East 100th Street" and Roy DeCaravas work, most notably "The Sweet Flypaper of Life." While DeCarava lived among the people he photographed Davidson was an outsider but he enlisted assistance from a local church and other prominent community leaders which allowed him to gain the trust of the people he photographed. He didn't just show up and take some "poverty porn" photographs over the course of a weekend and then leave. I don't think anyone can look at Davidsons or DeCaravas work and say they exploited the people in their pictures. Gilden, on the other hand...well, we'll have to wait several decades to see how his current work holds up.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

Marc, what confounds me are the terms of the criticism. In my mind, critiquing Gilden for not being as intimate as others is like

criticizing Picasso for not being as realist as many other painters. While I understand people preferring either intimate

portraits or realist paintings, when I hear critiques that seem to expect either realism or intimacy by default, without any

seeming awareness that these are precisely the things being questioned and even thwarted by Picasso and Gilden

respectively, I have to question the expectations of the viewer as well as the work being discussed. Could it be a desire for intimacy that is getting in the way of actually understanding Gildlen, whether one likes him or not, and the thwarting of that very desire for intimacy that's causing people to dismiss him as an asshole instead of at least accepting that he was actually showing the lack of intimacy we have with certain populations? Wasn't the starkness the very thing he was trying to show? Again, I can completely understand not liking the lack of intimacy just like I can understand many not liking the lack of realism in Picasso's work. But suggesting ways in which Gilden's work could have been more intimate, like suggesting ways in which Picasso's work could have come across as more realistic, seems to me to miss the point. I'm not asking people to like it but rather to at least get it on its own terms. It's not supposed to be intimate. It's a different language.

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"What's gotten into you Fred? Unless I missed it I don't recall you ever reacting this way. So some of us don't think very highly of Gildens recent work. Big deal, is that anything to get so defensive about?"</p>

<p>Marc was thinking he was having a interesting debate with you, Fred; then you suddenly fly of the handle.<br /> Jeff, Brad are told they're nothing more than pop idols and generally debase their photography. Myself I thought the whole thing was funny...particularly as Jeff was totally bemused, Marc was wondering what the hell was going on, and Brad shrugged his shoulders thinking it was just another Fred thing. Hey, I wanted also to be pop idol but you left me out...Hmm. All silly Billy stuff hence the silly Billy response.</p>

<p>The bottom line Fred is that Bruce Almighty has little respect for the people he photographs. He clouds this with he is doing them good and giving them publicity so people can understand their plight. But in reality he is nothing more than the circus that has come to town. I cannot understand why you cannot see that.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>And yes there should be a degree of morality/ethics in art and photography like we care about in everything else .Do you really want to see Hitler's art being sold for millions? perhaps it is....scary thought.</p>

[Brad_]

<p>>>> Brad, ever the kool kat.</p>

<p>Whatever.<br /> Not certain of the meaning, pretty sure that's from my father's generation.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Who knows the anthropologist may unintentionally take a photograph that's more about the language of photography than an accurate translation of the subject. That's exactly what makes photography so fascinating and complex" Phil.</p>

<p>Absolutely, Phil. That's why when Im talking to another photographer I like to see his/her work. That work tells me a story about him/her than words for me...words pale into insignificance....I feel, and I am, reading a different a different language with its own unique perceptions.</p>

<p>Fred, chill. Hug time.</p>

<p> </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Be nice, Phil, post some photos so I can get a feel for Phil. Sort of have a Phil that we are coming from the same place despite the Bruce thing.</p>

<p>Thanks in anticipation.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

Allen, I'm quite sympathetic to the ethical arguments even though I don't happen to agree with them in this case, and

probably would avoid bringing Hitler into it myself. I can definitely understand why people would find these photos

unethical even though I see them differently. I have a harder time with the argument that they show too much about the

photographer and not enough about the subjects, especially when that argument comes from some whose own photography

often does just that. And I have a hard time with the argument that these photos lack intimacy since I don't see them as

trying in any way to establish intimacy. As a mTter of fact, I think they are about a lack of intimacy and are actually a

comment on the more intimate photos of such populations, which are often more pathetic than intimate but seem to pass

for significant even though the pathos is often as exploitive as what many are experiencing here.

[spanky]

<p>I'm starting to get what you are meaning Fred, but it's still a bit of a stretch for me. I happen to love Picasso for many reasons probably the most being his sheer genius. I mean come on, Cubism? This was what I started painting when I first picked up a brush and a tube of paint many years ago. I also happen to love Edward Hopper. Hopper had a very unique vision and technique even during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism which he had a lot of contempt for. He didn't cave into the fashion of the time, he kept his work true to himself. That's the way it often is with artists though. When Pop Art became all the rage legend has it that de Kooning approached Warhol at a party and accused him of "destroying art, destroying beauty" etc. I'm sure people said the same thing to Picasso when "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was unveiled to the public. So Picasso and Hopper, two very different artists who I greatly admire for different reasons and whose work I hold in high esteem for different reasons and which I have different reactions to. Remember too that these artists created art for the sake of creating art. With documentary photography there is a hint of a utilitarian purpose as well...that is to educate and inform and thus one of the reasons why I evaluate photographs differently then other forms of art. <br /> I tend to view photographs much differently though. I came into photography kind of late in life compared to many others and for the longest time I actually hated anything to do with cameras and photography because my father who was a photographer used to have a color darkroom in the bathroom outside my bedroom door that would keep me up at night and I recall many very boring weekends spent out in the desert so he could take landscape pictures. So I actually hated photography, it's a wonder I picked it up at all when I got older. Anyway, as I mentioned several pages back in this topic, people like Gilden I simply expect more from. When someone who has talent and is able to work full time as a photographer I just find it aggravating to see work that I consider to be sub-par for that person which is how I react to Gildens recent work. This is just my opinion of course and we all know the old saying about opinions -"Opinions are a lot like a#*holes. Everyone has one and they usually stink." Gilden can spend the rest of his career making the same kinds of pictures and I wouldn't care one way or the other, I would still think he was throwing away his talent and his opportunities.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>." Gilden can spend the rest of his career making the same kinds of pictures and I wouldn't care one way or the other, I would still think he was throwing away his talent and his opportunities.</p>

<p>I agree with Marc... he is debating his/ my point of view a lot more succinctly than I can.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>" and probably would avoid bringing Hitler into it myself."</p>

<p>I don't think we should shy away from anything and I don't think Bruce is remotely like Hitler...but in my opinion, hopefully Im wrong ,I feel that he has a lack of respect for his fellow human beings...it is just about him and gold coins.</p>

<p>Hitler loved his mistress and his dog from what I understand. I don't think he started off as a pure evil entity but he kept crossing lines of morality and ethics.... because he could get away with it, and was encouraged, he carried on. Out there today there are others doing the same because they can get away with it...</p>

<p>It is about drawing lines on the small things before they become the bigger things.</p>

<p>That's what I think wrongly or rightly.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

If I were worried about the lines being crossed by Gilden, I'd worry about those very lines and not the hypotheticals that

could occur. I don't think we,'re in any danger of Gilders' ethics going any further than his photos and I think more than

enough outrage is being expressed to keep such unlikely hypotheticals in check. Slippery slope arguments usually amount

to no more than those arguments about the fall of the world to communism if we didn't get involved in the Vietnam War.

They are usuLly fallacious. As I said,

though, I'm sympathetic to the more reasonable ethical arguments presented even though I think your ethical argument is

unreasonable and way overblown, and your bringing in Hitler, IMO, shows that. I already said I am sympathetic to the ethical arguments being made even though I don't agree with them so I'm not sure what more there is that's worth saying about the ethics of these photos though it would be interesting for someone to respond to Phil's and my points about the photos showing more about the photographer than the subjects and about whether they need to be more intimate.

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"If I were worried about the lines being crossed by Gilden, I'd worry about those very lines and not the hypotheticals that could occur. I don't think we,'re in any danger of Gilders' ethics going any further than his photos" Fred.</p>

<p>Well they do Fred...and they are not hypotheticals. He is pushing boundaries on morality and ethics. The next Bruce will push them either further and where does it stop? They are all about" bad boy publicity" because that what sells. Is that what we are about....as photographers a commercial circus that sells? Very sad thought.</p>

<p>Perhaps for many it is all about coin; the self, cloaked in a pseudo exploitation of humanity. I dont' believe you believe that.....I think you believe we should treat each other in a decent way.</p>

<p>It beggars believe that you would defend this persons actions other than about winning a debate.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Does everything and anything, always have to about the self and commercial success? I suppose it does...very sad thought; that is all we are about....as a species.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Three things in this life are destructive:<br /> Anger,Greed,Self-esteem.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>"I don't have to apologize to anybody for anything that I do because I do it from my heart."</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

The way in which this line comes across is defensive. He sounds like he knows he's wrong but he won't say it. I'm not saying he does know that, but it's how it comes across.</p>

[Brad_]

<p>>>> I'm not sure what more there is that's worth saying about the ethics of these photos though it would be interesting for someone to respond to Phil's and my points about the photos showing more about the photographer than the subjects and about whether they need to be more intimate.</p>

<p>OK, I'll take a crack at this...</p>

<p>Sure, photos made by a photographer say a lot about the photographer. Was there really any doubt about that having been covered here and other places countless times, likely going back more than 100 years? That is certainly true with Gilden's photos. I don't need or want his photos to be anything different or intimate than what they are as they are a good reflection of who he is and how he is around people.</p>

<p>Not surprisingly, the photographs that Allen, Barry, Steve, Marc, Lex, Jeff, Ian and others here make say a lot about them as well. Subject connection, closeness, subjects captured being at ease, respect, empathy, humor, and being personally at ease while confident are read from the photos they make and dovetail with how they engage with others here at ease on the forums and likely in life in general. There’s a certain amiability and looseness in process that comes through that elevates their photos, as well as how they relate to others here.</p>

<p>Similarly, Fred’s portraits speak strongly about him. Subjects looking annoyed, uncomfortable, not at ease, rigid, overly sincere, with little connection are some of the things I read in his photos. Many times they appear as props rather than human beings. I think it has to do with a check box approach to portraiture where a half dozen aspects need to be ticked before the shutter is released and is what drives that rigidness. That awkwardness and lack of empathy comes though in his behavior in various forums on photonet. Like Gilden, I would not want Fred's photographs to be more empathic or intimate, or his forum behavior/demeaner to change. They are a reflection of who he really is.</p>

<p>Phil S is a puzzler. From his thoughtful discourse and calm manner I suspect he is an accomplished photographer with a strong body of work, maybe even a well-known photographer incognito. Perhaps he’ll share a little of his work here someday.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>I've been crazy at work and am trying to catch up with the thread though I checked in a couple of times throughout the day. Personally, I don't have anything against Gilden, his work or his approach. He has a long and successful career and has earned the cache to shoot what he wants. He is a rigorous passionate photographer and he has been important in creating a certain style of photography that we have all been discussing from various angles. I would say historically, some of his philosophy seems to be influenced by people like Ascher Fellig (Weegee) who used flash a lot at night and used it to simply strip away pretense besides the fact that he shot at night a lot:), but the way he used the flash creating a stark effect often. I do it sometimes too, but that's another story. But Wegee also would usually provide some context, often darkly humorous, especially his crime scene photos; Where I think BG just wants to strip away the psychic protection of skin and almost peel away the flesh of both the subject and the viewer. I get that. But in doing so, he instead recreates people into mutations, monsters in a way that really is violent. Now sometimes that process is amazingly revelatory, such as his Yakuza photos which I think are amazing, because the really captured some of the ugliness of that culture and the interplay of the culture and the individuals involved, also partly for the pure chutzpah of it. But this latest round, especially with the way it was processed no longer says anything to me about the individuals, but instead just about his process and that's fine, he should just say so if that's what he's about. I used to like movie monsters, and I recognized at one point that what made us hate/love them was that they represented internal psychic response processes in ourselves. But these photos don't even evoke that in me. I don't think they do, at least for me, what he described as his project. But that's just me.</p>