Bruce Gilden: Haiti

by Bruce Gilden

Dramatic, confrontational images of a country enduring inconceivable upheaval and disaster

Bruce Gilden first traveled to Haiti in 1984 for the famous Mardi Gras festivities. There he discovered an impoverished territory in the grip of numerous natural disasters but charged with a unique energy. True to form, Gilden immediately departed from the beaten track, choosing to roam the length and breadth of the island along serpentine...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 236511377X
• ISBN13: 9782365113779
• Release Date: November 2023
• Publisher: Atelier Exb
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.7" x 11.5"

Customer Reviews

This is a bad 'revisiting' of the original. A warning not to buy books online.

This edition is horrible. This is the 2023 version with SIGNIFICANT re-edits from the original--change in photo order, changed in layout, OMISSION of striking photos. Several years ago, I came across a powerful collection of photography while researching New Orleans/Voodoo/Haiti. I didn't have any aspirations as a photographer, then--I didn't take the time to remember the photog's name--but this book helped explain photography AND Haiti to me even more. . .with nuances and grace that justified its brashness. I started looking for it as I came to know photography more, and actually made my way as something of a photographer. . .a photojournalist here in New Orleans. Familiar, now, with Bruce Gilden's work, but not wanting to believe it was HIM who did this book--until finally I saw the pics that struck me so hard in a video about the ORIGINAL Bruce Gilden's Haiti. So I purchased this one as a Xmas present for myself--$50 wasted. I got it in the mail today and was so eager to check it out, and crushed by disappointment. Some of the photos that matter so much are gone. The spaces on the pages are used badly--as if laid out by a design intern. And there's some sappy epilogue at the end about 'believing in humanity' or something. Hint/truth: Haiti's in a lot of trouble. . .and the irony of the matter is that the photos they've taken out--perhaps to make the work more 'PC'--demonstrate FAR MORE the 'humanity' than the post-note gushed about. Maybe the work of this edition isn't that bad; but they could've given some indication that this is a newly edited version, different from previous editions. I don't know of any other time in any other media--movies, music albums, collections of photography--where they DON'T say this is a "special edition" or "director's cut" or the like. Probably not going to buy a new, full price photo book online again. I want to make sure that what I paid for is what I'm getting.