Wednesday 11 December 2013

Back in the saddle...

Listening to Endless Boogie...

viewing countless photographs from street photographer Bruce Gilden and I can feel the energy pulsing through me. This guy is fucking awesome! So much energy...so much going in the frames, and his humanistic approach is not too dissimilar from Dougie Wallace, aka (Glasweegee). 

They both use off-camera flash and if you have seen neither photographers' work, well you should get yourself out there and start looking! If your into street photography, you probably have heard of these guys before. Let me tell you Dougie Wallace travels around a lot he's a proper photo-journalist with a very humanistic approach, it may seem agressive like Gilden's but that's because you have never tried that style, and you really should get out there and photograph some more...

For the past few weeks I have been a very busy guy with avoiding floods...engine dying...crappy trains, assignments, assignments...let me tell you trying to sort things out whilst holding a job down and going for a degree in photography, not to mention still the possibility of finding a great deal more material for a new book; yeah I been busy alright.

Alas though it will all be worth it in the end, cos the one thing I do believe in is hard work equals big rewards...ten fold!
So what exactly have I been shooting then? Well apart from some graffiti backdrops and listening to umpteen John Cooper Clarke poems and reading them of course and the latest book from John Berger which looks at visual language and photographic work by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith, through the eyes of award winning author Geoff Dyer.

If your studying photography as an art form, this book; is well worth the investment. it helps move on from Berger, John Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin Books 1972). And if you have read that then you will have an idea of where I am going with this, it looks at the one aspect of photography few beginners will understand, unless your an avid reader of photography literature. 

It's a great tool for those who are looking at the art of photography as a visual language, for those who are really wanting to learn more about the art from an academic perspective. 
  Now that I have shared that with you, I thought I would share some photographs of Bruce Gilden and other New York street photographers and a link to everybody street. Great film if you have not seen the piece.

Enjoy viewing!