David Bradford is a New York street photographer and maker of videos. He became known in the 1990s when he combined his graphic skills with a job as a taxi driver. Since then he has published two books of his photographs.
Life and career
Bradford was born in Flint, Michigan[1] in 1951.[2] As a teenager he enjoyed dance and playing the trombone.[3] After graduating in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1978,[4] Bradford moved to New York and worked for ten years for Saks Fifth Avenue. He then left Saks to work freelance, and from 1990 started to drive a taxi to supplement his income.[5][6]
Bradford particularly enjoyed photographing in the rain and snow: "There is more drama when the umbrellas are out and people's faces are scrunched up."[7]
At first, Bradford took photographs from the taxi as material for his illustrations; but from 1993 he was taking photographs for their own sake. His first book, Drive-By Shootings, sold 50,000 copies within months.[5][6]
A review in The New York Times compared Bradford's photographs with those by the then mayor Rudy Giuliani, saying of Bradford's:
[H]e often includes a steering wheel, side mirror or windshield wipers, constant reminders of his relationship to the city. . . . [T]he windshield and side mirror frame what Mr. Bradford calls New York's "separate realities". . . . In Mr. Bradford's world, it's usually a dark and stormy night and you follow your nose or your hood ornament.[8]
For The New York Taxi Back Seat Book (2006), Bradford pointed the camera backwards rather than outside.[5][6]
Bradford later turned to making 15-second videos from the front seat of his taxi.[5][6]
In 2014, Bradford was described as having retired from driving a taxi "a few years ago".[7]
Exhibitions
New York City blasts, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York City, 17–22 December 2005.[9][10]
Books
Drive-By Shootings. Photographs by David Bradford, text by Gerhard Waldherr. Cologne: Könemann, 2000. ISBN3-8290-2891-1.
The New York Taxi Back Seat Book. Photographs by David Bradford. New York: Daab, 2006. ISBN978-3-937718-85-9.
