Eyeshot 50mm #2 | David Gibson on Street Photography, Gender Representation & Storytelling

Tracing 35 years of practice, David Gibson reflects on instinct, abstraction, and the quiet discipline behind his work. From early black-and-white devotion to a freer visual language shaped by Magnum influences and iN-PUBLIC, he considers community, vision, and abstraction as an escape from reality.

Traffic with glowing red tail lights seen through a rain-streaked window, in a color photograph by David Gibson.

David Gibson speaks about street photography as something simple to define yet hard to master: real, unscripted, and rooted in public space. Starting seriously in 1988 with Black & White photography, he describes an obsessive apprenticeship built less on technical lessons than on photobooks, setting his early compass toward Cartier-Bresson and Erwitt before expanding into colour and more experimental territory.

A key thread is Gibsonโ€™s โ€œsecond hatโ€ of abstraction. Reflections, textures, motion blur, double exposures are used as a way to work on reality and ignite the viewerโ€™s imagination. He also connects photography and writing: researching iconic images raised his standards, sharpened his edits, and reinforced a principle he offers with dry honesty โ€” if youโ€™re not occasionally frustrated, youโ€™re probably not pushing hard enough.

ABOUT EYESHOT 50MM

An Eyeshot conversation series

Eyeshot 50mm is a long-form conversation series with photographers working across street and documentary photography. Each episode is recorded in dialogue with a guest, expanding on the questions that move their practice. The series is part of the editorial work of the Eyeshot team in Italy.

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