Is This Art Photography Any Good? – Take it or Leave it with Bruce Gilden

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Watch Episode 2: What Makes a Good Street Photography –

Meet Bruce Gilden. In case you’re clueless, he’s one of our favorite Magnum photographers who won a Guggenheim Fellowship this past year and is known to be one of the badassest badasses in the business. He also shot a feature for our September magazine that you can check out here:

When we asked him to film a new photo critique show, he agreed on the terms that the show wouldn’t suck and, if it did, we’d let him sock us in the face.

We would like to officially present “Take it or Leave it with Bruce Gilden,” VICE’s first photo critique show where Bruce tells up-and-coming photographers if their work is transcendent, total crap, or somewhere in-between.

Check out Bruce Gilden’s feature for the VICE Photo Issue:

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33 Comments
  1. Elsa says

    Maybe it's a yooman

  2. Cryptic Wintermoon says

    Create more. Judge less. Obviously those pictures will satisfy many people. Every artist has a different perspective and views the world in their own unique way.

  3. Jim says

    This guys a piece of shit

  4. skrillexfanitalian says

    if someone's pointing my name to use as a weapon against my replies it's a name from 2010 
    im just trying to make it clear that what he cryticise is the lackness of message and contents inside those pictures
    if you think they're better than his works,fine, but if you don't see message and storytelling in his pictures, you need a good pair of glasses.
    peace y'all.

  5. Kevin Jolley says

    Looooooooool that Sandy Kim photo

  6. omg this guy is so out of touch im dead

  7. ed f says

    My last photography instructor was a no BS person like him. Loved the class. I learned how to improve my sketchy technical skills and I learned to stand behind my vision and way of seeing in the face of the self proclaimed 'fine art'-'fart' for short-photographers in the class. His critique of the last three, the strength of an extended idea as opposed to a single image, was dead on.

  8. Tempus Non says

    I love Delany Allen, shout out to Sandy

  9. Steph Herringtonio h says

    Art is subjective. If people don't like certain art,so what? Art is about trying to do something different,and I feel I did.
    There are some artists work of whome I don't particularly go a lot on. But who cares? Good luck to them,and the critics?That's all some of these people will ever be…

  10. siddhartha ghosh says

    I thought some of the comments were highly misplaced, or Bruce didn't get the concept at all. For example, the series on identity (or lack of it) was the subject merging into the background. Hence, the grey colored shirt against a grey background in a photo studio (where you'd generally have the model stand out from the environs) or the floral shirt merging into a similarly themed wallpaper. Similarly, with the paper cut out photos or the 'kitcsh' photos, they were bringing out the materialistic side of modern exsitence (and all Bruce could think of was Planet of the Apes! Had he said Dali it would have still saved him!) All in all, rather shallow criticism.

  11. I’ve been an “artist” for however fucking long and after a while you get sick of gently critiquing other art. Prefacing everything you say with “in my opinion” and “it’s subjective but.” Like, obviously. It’s exhausting. If I say a picture or a piece of art is shit, it’s shit, because perspective is everything. It’s your ability to choose if you’re gonna be offended or agree or disagree. Of course it’s my fucking opinion, that’s the point. You think it’s beautiful, I think it’s shit, we’re both right to ourselves. There’s free will for you. Get over it.

  12. Jens Ritchie says

    I wonder if any of the Photographers that had their pictures in this video have heard his critique?

  13. Cameron Ehring says

    hah! his critiques are great! this is better than photoclass :..)…..

  14. waltyui says

    His gender and beauty standards must drive them crazy……love it

  15. Zakaria Amin says

    Throwing studio shots at a hardcore street photographer to critique is a tad uneven.. maybe it would be better to judge photographs related to the genre he is commited to.. but again I utterly enjoyed this one (perhaps that was the purpose of this video most likely)

  16. mugg lord says

    cowndowg on a stick

  17. Daniel Path says

    oh come on, it is all relative, man.
    the world changes.

  18. Valerie Petralia says

    😂 “but your uncle doesn’t know shit about photography”

  19. David Cash says

    do one on instagram photographers! roast me ahaha

  20. David Cash says

    make more of these plz

  21. Steven Powell says

    I think this guys a wanker – just saying.

  22. Daniel Castillo Reynoso says

    loved the series since he started being so sexist. I stopped watching after minute: 7:10.

  23. Chasing The Sun says

    The definition of what good photography is has simply grown and expanded with the younger generation.

  24. Everything says

    I think this guy is full of shit but he's pretty funny.
    He's like Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear.
    Doesn't know jack shit about cars, but he's entertaining.

  25. jay ch says

    those first 3 photos, exact same style was done by a guy that was on one of the vice videos. Osang Gwon. which was uploaded a year before.

  26. Sonny Brown says

    This video doesn't play or load for me. All other youtube videos do. What's with this one?

  27. Camilo Eimbcke González says

    Why does he say that women have to be pretty? It doesn’t matter.

  28. Jessica Williams says

    umen

  29. Francis The Filmmaker says

    These videos are cozy as fuck, it's like being told a story by your uncle

  30. Liam Nangle says

    he doesnt like sandy kim so i dont like him

  31. teclo1 says

    this is the guy who shoves his camera directly into the faces of people when taking street shots. they literally reel back in horror thinking who the fuck is this. i watched his video and couldnt believe my eyes

  32. Martin Slattery says

    Not sure about his vision of life around him anything from him without a flash washing images out

  33. Deepankar Bajpeyi says

    fucking amazing

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