Bruce Gilden Takes Street Photos Like You’ve Never Seen Before

I wouldn’t call it challenging, but a little annoying. In Paris, you’ll always have one person who comes over and gives you the, “Why’d you take the picture, why’d you take the picture?” Sometimes we’ve had cops come over. And this isn’t going to a war  or working where people are doing heroin on the streets – which I’ve already seen – or dealing with lowlifes, I’m just talking about ordinary people here. Parisians tend to be a little “intellectual” and it becomes a whole exercise for them, so it gets me a little flustered. What I mean by “flustered” is that I don’t have much respect for it. I just say, “Okay, get a cop.” I’m not going to get into a whole dialogue because, for me, I don’t agree with their premise. I do agree that you could ask me why I took a photo, but it depends how you ask me. You don’t treat me as a piece of shit; I’m not going to take it. You have to have a tough skin to be a street photographer.