I knew from a very early age, that what I saw on tv had nothing to do with real life. So I wanted to make a record of real life. That included having a camera with me at all times. - Nan Goldin

An american photographer, Nan Goldin is famous for her documentary style photography of her close friends and family in the gay and transsexual community

Her photographs are honest, truthful and raw. She photographs her friends, lovers and family, embracing life as they know it.
When viewing some of her images you can instantly feel the emotion the subjects were feeling as these were not taken in a forced artistic manner, but in a more natural documentary style.

Her images take you through her journey of life, through the happy times and the not so happy times. She carries you through the decades of her teenage years in boston in the lte 60's, through to the fun free spirited late 70's in New York, onto the drug and sex fuelled 80's and 90's which led to some devastating results of dear friends who fell victim to the AIDS crisis or drug overdoses.

Through her images she shares her life with you, taking you on her journey without words. She needs no words, these images are raw and full of emotion. The composition of most of her images are just shot naturally as in the eye of the beholder, no clever angles or fancy lighting, just available light.

Her work is often presented in a slideshow format and her first in 1986 being The Ballad of sexual dependency which was 45 minutes long with a series of 800 images shown.

An interesting documentary about Nans work I found was  I'll be your mirror documentary

Gotscho kissing Gilles in Paris 1993

Joanna laughing in Paris 1992

Cookie at Vittoros casket

Nan one month after being battered 1983

Picnic on the esplanade 1973

Christmas at the otherside

Me and Brian

 I'm not a lover on all of Nans images but I love her method, her technique.

I have not gone into her more recent work and career, it was during these decades mentioned above that caught my attention.

 One of her most recent interviews for the Guardian she quotes



“I don’t photograph adults so much any more. I don’t have a child and, psychologically, my focus on them is a lot about me wishing that I did. But I am a godmother to friends’ children around the world – in Berlin, New York, Sweden and Italy. I don’t remember much ever feeling like a child, so maybe photographing them triggers memories. They are wild and magical, as if from another planet. And they haven’t been socially conditioned yet, so they can scream and express how they feel publicly. Sometimes I envy them. When I am in a group of people, the children and I find each other’s eyes, and end up laughing at the same, unspoken thing.

I’ve been taking pictures of children since the early 1980s, and it’s become increasingly important to me. I see a continuum in the children of my friends, some of whom have died. It’s about hoping that my friends will bring up a new species of people.”….I certainly think that my work comes from a humanistic vision of the world, rather than some kind of manipulative, theoretical version of art. It’s about the people and places I love, and that haunt me.”


The Guardian has an interview with Nan Goldin by Sarah Phillips