BRUCE GLIDEN – FACE

Bruce Gilden’s project, Faces 2012–14, is an extended series of confronting and compelling photographic portraits. He went very up and close to the subjects faces, capturing and amplifying all the imperfections lack of symmetry of people, making each person very different to each other as we are all individuals.

“My style evolved because I liked being among the common man,” he once said. “I like characters. I always have. When I was five, I liked the ugliest wrestler, so it was easy for me to pick what I wanted to photograph.”

Gilden is not without critics who view the photographs as potentially exploiting his subjects. He would often take photos of unsuspecting people along the street. The artist describes the series as a reflection on his childhood in Brooklyn and the result of a lifelong fascination with ‘characters’ he encounters in pursuit of his subjects.

Gilden, like many photographers, often shies away from explaining the meaning in his photographs. “When people look at my pictures I don’t want to tell them what’s in the pictures. I want them to look at the picture and make up their own story.” So now I’m going to analyse some of his photos in my own way.

Both these photos have a few things in common. They leave very little space in the frame for the background, and making sure the whole face is including in the photo. This allows the viewers to see every imperfection in the face, making the individuals look ugly. There’s almost a since of humour to these photos as well as the subjects didn’t get a change to pose properly and it looks like mug shots.

Here, the blemishes, bad teeth, the stubble and the scrapes – as well as the pimples, wounds, wrinkles, and bulbous veined noses – are rendered even more extreme by the closeness of the camera and the unremitting light of the flash.