ยฉ Bruce Gilden
Who You Stop, Who You Let Pass
Bruce Gilden, Faces. I scroll through the images one after the other. A face fills the whole frame, weathered skin, narrow eyes, the flash flattening every shadow and saturated colors that strip the scene of any atmosphere. No context, no street, just the face. Another face, and another. Gilden is controversial. For some he is a ruthlessly honest author. For others a catalogue of marginality reduced to spectacle for a bourgeois audience. The two readings live inside the series and never quite leave.
There is a detail that interests me more than the debate. In Faces Gilden asks for consent. He stops people, talks, then shoots. It is not the stolen shot he is famous for, it is a negotiated act. Consent does not solve the ethical problem, it displaces it. People said yes, but what did they actually say yes to, did they know the project they were entering? The heaviest decision Gilden made came before the approach, when he chose who to stop and who to let pass.
The choice of the subject is the first act of a project. Not the flash, not the focal length, not the distance. Who you bring into the frame is the position you take before you even shoot, it decides what the public will see, it decides who you exclude, it decides the meaning your language will produce on the page. This is the moment ethics enters the work, not later, not in the edit, not in the final sequence.
I receive portfolios that mimic Gilden’s language. Frontal flash, proximity, faces caught off guard, and they almost never hold. Not because of the technique, which is the same, but because the choice of subjects is random, born from occasion and not from a project. Who you chose to photograph says more about you than your visual style. Style can be copied in an afternoon. Choosing who deserves your frame requires knowing what you are trying to say.
Looking at someone else’s project and asking not how it was shot, but who was chosen and who was left out. That is where an author is measured.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.