David Gillanders

Emergency room at The Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, Scotland 2006

David Gillanders (b. 1978, Scotland) obsession with photography developed in his early teens while training as a boxer in Glasgow. He became hypnotized by the black and white posters on the walls of the boxing clubs where he sparred. At the age of 16, he was fed up being punched in the head but still loved the atmosphere and characters in the boxing world and returned to the clubs with a camera to start and document what he saw. In the late 1990′s, David won a couple of local photographic competitions of work on Glasgow and began to secure regular commissions from several of Scotland’s leading broadsheet newspapers and magazines. With regular photographic commissions, David combines editorial and commercial assignments in an attempt to finance his own long term social documentary projects.

About the Photograph:

“This photograph is part of a series exploring the massive problems we have in Glasgow in relation to knife crime. The young  man in the image, and his friend, have been subjected to a pre-meditated and sustained attacks by a young gang in retaliation for previous wrong doings. The young gang, aged between 14 and 18, were armed with machetes, swords and hammers. The subject of this photo was lucky as his friend sustained the brunt of the attack and at the time of this photo was undergoing surgery for severe head and neck wounds from a machete. It was thought that the gang were trying to decapitate him.”

About these ads