Faces in the street : The street and portrait photography of David Gleave
There is a fully-wired, nerve-tingling edginess in every shot. An electricity – no other word for it – that emanates from his close-up and personal style. The proximity to the subject is his signature. So close, why you can hear and feel the street around you, the hubbub of voices, the subtle, gentle brush of people passing, the sounds and smell of traffic.
Copyright ⓒ David Gleave
“I just think that when you fill the frame and get in close,” David tells me thoughtfully. “ The picture has more impact and the viewer has the sense that they are in the image and not looking at it.”
I get where he is coming from.
The nearer the photographer gets to the subject the more you are invited into the frame as the space contracts and you feel as if you are there with photographer and subject? A trilogy of photographer, subject, viewer.
These are candid, intimate street shots. We can read every twitch of expression on the face of those he shoots. Curiosity, aggression, bewilderment, it is all there and we are with them. Even those who look disinterested, essentially because they haven’t noticed David, we stand beside them.
“I probably got that (way of working) from my love of William Klein’s photography,” David revealed. “He said that he just loved walking into a crowd and firing away at close range to see what came out. I like that too. There are too many street photographers who seem to be scared of people so they do everything they can to avoid people, or the people are like ants in the frame. It’s just my own personal taste but definitely through looking at Klein’s stuff.”
Copyright ⓒ David Gleave
We need examples and one of my favourite David Gleave portraits is the one with the guy with the skewwhiff baseball cap.
This guy is right in the photographer’s face, rather than the other way about. He is filling the frame, and is it just me who would want to reach out and straighten his hat, though, for him – no doubt – the off-centre head covering must signify something? His super-fresh persona? His street identity?
He is staring straight down the lens. It is a challenging stance that reflects the man’s curiosity : ‘Who the hell is this?’ and/or ‘What’s this fool doing?’
“It was Times Square in New York,” David explained. “I just remember how cool he looked. I did engage with him and he was happy to play up for me. Just had to get him. One of my favourite shots actually.”
Let’s call it what the heck it is because David Gleave is one of the best portrait photographers around and this is a great street portrait.
But he is also someone who we can sense is passionate about capturing the psychological, sociological and historic essence of those who he hangs in these spaces (these close spaces) with.
Copyright ⓒ David Gleave
“I see myself more as a historian with a camera than a photographer,” he quickly adds.
I frown. In truth it confuses me. Street photographer, portrait photographer, visual historian? Maybe all three?
“I’m not trying to say anything clever with my photographs,” He says defensively. “They are simply literal records of what I encountered. I came to photography through my interest in history. Local history, you know those books : ‘Your town 100 years ago’, where you get to see the shop where you go every day for your milk [and] how it was 100 years ago with horses outside instead of cars.
“Then I saw an exhibition by Manchester street photographer Samuel Coulthurst. He photographed candidly on the streets of Ancoats and Salford in the last 20 years of the 19th century. I was just struck how these people, all long since dead, were somehow kept alive by the camera. From that moment I got a camera and went looking for people to keep alive. Hopefully in 100 years somebody just might look at one of my photographs like I looked at Samuel Coulthurst’s.”
It is a street photography thing, of course, in their face, capturing them, bottling them for the long haul into the future.
So, this seems as good a place as any to walk through with Mr Gleave and discover those who have had the most influence on him and his…art?…history?…photography?
“Wow, so many,” he said sounding glad I had asked him. “I absolutely devour photography in all it’s forms… prints, online, books, exhibitions, I’m obsessed with it and I’m hoping that all the stuff I take in will subconsciously come out again at some point in my own work. Robert Frank, William Klein, Mary Ellen Mark, Vivian Maier, Garry Winogrand, Josef Koudelka, Krass Clement, John Bulmer, Gilles Peress, Harold Feinstein, Barry Feinstein, Daido Moriyama and so many more.”
It is like a roll call of the best of the best of photography, street or otherwise, over the last 100 years or so, Frank, Klein, Feinstein, Peress, Gilles Peress? Ah oui, seulement le meilleur! Ah yes, only the best. I share my love of these men with David and especially Koudelka and Peress.
Copyright ⓒ David Gleave
She or he, are electric, to paraphrase Oasis. They really are electric.
“They are men but they look great as women,” David tells me. “It was at Pride 2019 and if you look…between them I just managed to get the Canal Street sign in the shot.”
Canal Street is known as the iconic gay area of Manchester.
“I can usually see the shots coming and I put that down to the fact that I’ve seen them before in someone else’s photograph,” he goes on. “That thing I was saying about if I take enough in, it will find a way out.”
That strikes me as pretty profound, we know what we like, we gravitate toward it, it is a form of osmosis, it gradually seeps into our being, becomes part of our cumulative soul and manifests as part of our art? A composite feature in our creative output?
We spoke about like-mindedness and how we associate with those on the same wavelength, admiring those photographers we want to, in some way, mirror in style, technique, and subject matter.
Copyright ⓒ David Gleave
“Well the nearest one isn’t a woman,” David revealed to my surprise. “So that’s probably what attracted me, but he/she looks great. I can’t tell you what exactly draws me to certain people. It’s just a natural reaction. Some people scream out at me. Not literally.”
Most photographers never really get the credit for the continual brilliance. Not just the odd fluke shot that many of us could create, but a regular body of work that stands out and calls out to be respected. I put David Gleave, along with others, in this category.
“I went to Athens last September for two weeks and stayed two months,” he said cheerfully when I asked him what he was now working on. “I started a little project by accident and met some people too.”
As many will tell you those can be the best kind of projects.
“I am here right now!” David continued. “For six weeks this time, and have lots of photos to edit when I get home. Hopefully when the world starts turning again I will photograph people I know in Manchester.”
And David knows quite a few Mancunians of note. Editor-in-Chief of music magazine Louder Than War John Robb, Shaun Ryder and Noel Gallagher to name a few.
“John I know well,” he informed me. “I have photographed him a few times, and I have been in Shaun’s company a few times at gigs.
“”I played in a band called The Naughty Boys who gained a lot of notoriety in Manchester between 1978/ 89. We played venues such as The International, the Boardwalk, The Gallery. Noel would have seen me there pre Oasis cos when I took his photo he said : ‘Hey I know you don’t I ?’ ”
Copyright ⓒ David Gleave
Not everyone is happy with David getting so close, of course, but then, we have to think, he wouldn’t be keeping them alive into the next century and beyond if he didn’t.
That Gleave has talent is not disputed, his work says something about the human condition in the early part of the 21st century, and I have no doubt people will be marvelling at his photographs in 100 years time.
“There’s just something about eye contact for me,” he says reflectively. “Not every time of course as that would be boring. But I went through a phase where I waited until I was seen before I pulled the trigger. I am trying to get away from that now. I’m trying to stand back and take in more environment and context. What the photos will be like I’m not sure.”
We can’t wait to see.
*David has a planned exhibition at what used to the Pitt Stream Gallery in Jersey in the first two weeks of October.
**David Gleave uses a Ricoh GR2 for most of his images though he does have a FujiX100V and a Nikon D800 which he describes as: ‘Big and daft.’
Visit David at hi Website David Gleave
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To Purchase ANY Print to add to your collection, Please Contact David Directly.
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