Bruce Gilden was born in 1946 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. After taking photography classes at the School of Visual Arts, he embarked on his first major project: recording tourists and pleasure-seekers visiting Coney Island. Gilden is probably best known for his work on the streetsof New York, focusing on the city's characters and outsiders, but he has also spent many years on projects in Haiti, Japan, and Ireland. A member of Magnum Photos since 2001, Gilden has taken the genre of street photography and pushed it in new directions, documenting the essence of the people he sees and the social landscape through which they move.