Bruce Landon Davidson (born September 5, 1933) is an American photographer. He has been a member of the Magnum Photos agency since 1958. His photographs, notably those taken in Harlem, New York City, have been widely exhibited and published. He is known for photographing communities usually hostile to outsiders. [1] Biography [ edit ] Early life and education [ edit ] Bruce Davidson: Outsider on the Inside is organized by Benjamin Mendez, Exhibitions and Archives Fellow 2019 – 2020. Audio tour and interpretation by Amy Raffel, Ph.D., Andrew W. Mellon Interpretation Fellow.

An Ideal for Living: Photographing Class, Culture and Identity in Modern Britain Beetles+Huxley, London, July 27 – September 17. [16] In addition, Davidson isn’t interested in defining himself in terms of photography, and rather calls himself a humanist: For example, he photographed for his “Circus” project for 4 months when traveling with them in 1958. For his “Brooklyn Gang” project, he photographed the group for an entire summer in 1959. After that, he photographed the Civil Rights Movement in the South for 4 years for his “Times of Change” book. For his “East 100th street” project, he photographed for 2 years. His “Subway” project took him an entire year riding the trains in NYC. His “Central Park” book took him four years. Here, the enclosed world of the subway is a metaphor for New York itself, in all its frantic hustle and bustle—its violence, its humanity and its hope.– The Guardian Masur Museum of Art, located Monroe Louisiana – Collection Images". www.masurmuseum.org. Archived from the original on 2019-10-18 . Retrieved 2018-12-30.I want to be discrete- so what I would do is go to a flower shop and take pictures of the owner of the flower shop – then I’d ask do you know anyone else in the street who would be interesting to photograph? Oh yeah we just delivered flowers to a 100-year old woman. So one thing leads to another – so you’re kind of like a reporter. So its like an anchor.”

Davidson makes the point that most street photography is “sneaky” and “stealing a soul”. Rather, Davidson makes another suggestion on how to be discrete yet not sneaky: Bruce Davidson and Paul Caponigro: Two American Photographers in Britain and Ireland, The Huntington, MaryLou and George Boone Gallery Nov 8 2014 – March 9, 2015. [81] Au Cœur de l'Intime: Paris Champ & Hors Champ Photographies et Vidéos Contemporaines, Galerie des Bibliothèques de la Ville de Paris, Oct 26, 2014 - Jan 4, 2015 Bruce Davidson is an award-winning photographer whose career spans nearly sixty years. He became a member of Magnum Photos in 1958, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1962, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1967 and 1980, the Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Photography in 2004, and a Gold Medal of Honor Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Arts Club in 2007. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and Aperture Foundation, New York. Davidson has been in photography for many decades. His works have either featured or the subject of 14 exhibitions over 50 years at a single notable institution – the Museum Art in New York.

Jeffrey, Ian. (1995). "Diane Arbus and the past when she was good." History of Photography, 19(2), 95–99.

Davidson also shares his difficulties & struggles when working on a long-term project, especially in his “Subway” project:

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As street photographers, the connections that we build with our subjects is often very shallow or non-existent. After all, that is the working style of street photography. We see a subject or a scene we want to capture, we take the photograph, wave hello or thank them – and move on. In 1960, he was invited to the United Kingdom by the Queen Magazine for two months, where he documented the idiosyncratic indifference of the island’s natives from the American perspective. Davidson got his first assignment in 1961 to photograph high fashion for Vogue and the New York Times Freedom Riders in the south. This assignment led him to commence a documentary project about the civil rights movement. And between 1961 and 1965, he recorded its event and effects across the United States. Bruce Davidson (born 1933) has been a member of the prestigious Magnum Photos agency since 1958 and is best known for his photo-essays documenting subversive and counter culture groups. Rejecting the traditional objective approach to photography, he formulated a practice that involved embedding himself in the world of his subjects for extended periods of time, often spending months nurturing relationships. Davidson describes his photography as an attempt to understand his own place in the world, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s he produced several bodies of work for which he immersed himself in communities normally hostile to outsiders, creating powerful and deeply intimate photo essays. In 1998, Davidson returned to East 100th Street to document the revitalization, renewal and changes that occurred in the 30 years since he last documented it. For this visit, he presented a community slide show and received an Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship Award. Davidson, Emily S; Powers, Robert B (2012), Bobby's book (1sted.), Seven Stories Press, ISBN 978-1-60980-448-0

In transforming the grim, abusive, violent, and yet often serene reality of the subway into a language of color, I see the subway as a metaphor for the world in which we live today. From all the earth, people come into the subway. It’s a great social equalizer. As our being is exposed, we confront our mortality, contemplate our destiny, and experience both the beauty and the beast. From the moving train above ground, we see glimpses of the city, and as the trains move into the tunnels, sterile fluorescent light reaches into the stony gloom, and we, trapped inside, all hang on together. Bruce Davidson – Subway, 1980 Recognition & Exhibitions In Davidson’s example, he created a new meaning shooting in color – describing adding a “new dimension of meaning that demanded a color consciousness”. He likened the mood & atmosphere he wanted to create was similar to that of deep-sea fish, which are beautiful and glow vibrantly in color.

1. Become part of the community

Davidson also shares the deep sense of privilege he had getting to know more about the lives of others, and how it was more important than just photographs: One of the defining aspects of Davidson's subway series is the contrast between the often palpable solitariness of the passengers in their silent worlds of thought and the clamour of their surroundings: the rumble and screech of the trains, the messy overload of the graffiti scrawl that covers every inch of the walls and windows. Here, the enclosed world of the subway is a metaphor for New York itself, in all its frantic hustle and bustle – its violence, its humanity and its hope.