Description

Using a flash, Bruce Gilden has become renowned for pushing the limits of the frame with his sheer proximity to his subjects. On assignment for La Monde, Gilden travelled to the oceanside Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach to photograph characters on the street. Just east of Coney Island, the neighborhood’s long been a destination for mostly Jewish Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. This long trend is evident in the Russian store-signs, restaurants and businesses that still line Brighton Beach Avenue.

I'm known for taking pictures very close, and the older I get, the closer I get

Bruce Gilden
© Bruce Gilden | Magnum Photos

An iconic street photographer with a unique style, Bruce Gilden was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946. Although he did attend some evening classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Bruce Gilden is to be considered substantially a self-taught photographer. Right from childhood, he has always been fascinated by the life on the streets and the complicated and fascinating motion it involves, and this was the spark that inspired his first long-term personal projects, photographing in Coney Island and then during the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Over the years he has produced long and detailed photographic projects in New York, Haiti, France, Ireland, India, Russia, Japan and now in America. Bruce Gilden joined Magnum Photos in 1998. He lives in Beacon, New York.

© Bruce Gilden | Magnum Photos

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