Bruce Gilden (born 1946 in Brooklyn, New York) is a street photographer. He is best known for his candid close-up photographs of people on the streets of New York City, using a flashgun. Fascinated with people on the street and the idea of visual spontaneity, his work is characterized by his use of flash photography. He has worked in black and white most of his life, but he began shooting in color and digital when he was introduced to the Leica S camera as part of Magnum’s Postcards From America project. Gilden has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1998. His first major project was of people at Coney Island. He has photographed people on the streets of New York, Japan's yakuza mobsters, homeless people, prostitutes, and members of bike gangs between 1995 and 2000. According to Gilden, he was fascinated by the duality and double lives of the individuals he photographed.Bruce Gilden has continued to focus on strong characters and to apply Robert Capa’s mantra to his own work: “if the picture isn’t good enough, you aren’t close enough”.

Images by Bruce Gilden

My response

Tableau vivant , French for 'living picture', is a style of artistic presentation, often shortened to simply tableau. It most often describes a group of suitably costumed actors, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. By extension, it also applied to works of visual art including painting, photography and sculpture, featuring artists' models in similar arrangements, a style used frequently in the works of the Romantic, Aesthetic, Symbolist, Pre-Raphaelite, and Art Nouveau movements. Jean-François Chevrier was the first to use the term tableau in relation to a form of art photography, which began in the 1970s and 1980s in an essay titled "The Adventures of the Picture Form in the History of Photography" in 1989. The key characteristics of the contemporary photographic tableau according to Chevrier are, firstly: "They are designed and produced for the wall. summoning a confrontational experience on the part of the spectator that sharply contrasts with the habitual processes of appropriation and projection whereby photographic images are normally received and "consumed".

The Dead Photos

http://thedeadphotos.com/index/

“The Dead Photos”, an on-going series by Tom Phillips. Featuring a set up scene of a dead man in multiple locations all over the world, since 2007 over 50 images have been uploaded to the series website, which is linked above.

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that employs images in order to tell a news story. The images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of events. The situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone. Like a writer, a photojournalist is a reporter, but he or she must often make decisions instantly and carry photographic equipment, often while exposed to significant obstacles (e.g., physical danger, weather, crowds, physical access). The "Golden Age of Photojournalism" is often considered to be roughly the 1930s through the 1950s. A new style of magazine and newspaper appeared that used photography more than text to tell stories. Below are some links to the work of a few photojournalism artists.

https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/robert-capa/

https://donmccullin.com/

http://www.chrishondros.com/

Henri Cartier-Bresson born August 22, 1908, died August 3, 2004, was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. His work has influenced many photographers. In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published his book The Decisive Moment. It included a portfolio of 126 of his photos from the East and the West. 

In early 1947, Cartier-Bresson, with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger founded Magnum Photos. Capa's brainchild, Magnum was a cooperative picture agency owned by its members. The team split photo assignments among the members.  Cartier-Bresson would be assigned to India and China. Maria Eisner managed the Paris office and Rita Vandivert, Vandivert's wife, managed the New York office and became Magnum's first president.

Cartier-Bresson achieved international recognition for his coverage of Gandhi's funeral in India in 1948 and the last stage of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. He covered the last six months of the Kuomintang administration and the first six months of the Maoist People's Republic. He also photographed the last surviving Imperial eunuchs in Beijing, as the city was falling to the communists. In Shanghai, he often worked in the company of photojournalist Sam Tata, whom Cartier-Bresson had previously befriended in Bombay. From China, he went on to Dutch East Indonesia, where he documented the gaining of independence from the Dutch. In 1950, Cartier-Bresson had traveled to the South India. He had visited Tiruvannamalai, a town in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu and photographed the last moments of Ramana Maharishi, Sri Ramana Ashram and its surroundings. A few days later he also visited and photographed Sri Aurobindo, Mother and Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.

Magnum's mission was to "feel the pulse" of the times and some of its first projects were People Live Everywhere, Youth of the World, Women of the World and The Child Generation. Magnum aimed to use photography in the service of humanity, and provided arresting, widely viewed images.

Below is a link to Cartier-Bresson's page on MAGNUM Photos.

http://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZMYN

What is street photography?

Street photography is a type of photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places. Street photographs are mirror images of society, displaying unmanipulated scenes, with usually unaware subjects.

A candid photograph is a photograph captured without creating a posed appearance. This is achieved in many ways, for example when the subject is in motion, by avoiding prior preparation of the subject, by surprising the subject, by not distracting the subject during the process of taking photos.

http://www.arnoldnewmanarchive.com/content/about-arnold-newman

Arnold Abner Newman born 3rd March 1918 , died June 6th 2006, was an American photographer, best known for his environmental portraits of artists and politicians. In 1946, Newman relocated to New York, opened Arnold Newman Studios and worked as a freelance photographer. Newman normally captured his subjects in their most familiar surroundings with representative visual elements showing their professions and personalities. "I didn't just want to make a photograph with some things in the background," said Newman. "The surroundings had to add to the composition and the understanding of the person. No matter who the subject was, it had to be an interesting photograph. Just to simply do a portrait of a famous person doesn't mean a thing." On December 19, 2005, Arnold made his last formal portrait of director James Burrows at the NBC studio on the Saturday Night Live stage.

An environmental portrait is a portrait taken in the subject's usual environment, for example it could be taken in their home or workplace, and usually describes the subject's life and surroundings.

Below are some examples of environmental portraits by photographer Michelle Sank, there are also two links to some of her projects on her website.

http://www.michellesank.com/portfolios/bye-byebaby 

http://www.michellesank.com/portfolios/teenagers-belfast

Below is another example of some environmental portraits by photographer David GoldBlatt.

Another example of an environmental photographer is Anthony Kurtz. Below are some examples of his photos and also links to his website.

https://anthonykurtz.com/Humans-2/India-2007/1

https://anthonykurtz.com/Humans-1/Senegal-Portraits/1