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 streets of 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 1998, 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.

The Photofile series brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers, in an affordable pocket format. Handsome and collectable, the books are produced to the highest standards. Each volume contains some sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography. The series has been awarded the first annual prize for distinguished photographic books by the International Center of Photography, New York.