Wallet Point Blank A photographer’s sidewalk view of styling around fashion shows. I remember the first time I walked up the step...
Wallet
Point Blank
A photographer’s sidewalk view of styling around fashion shows.
I remember the first time I walked up the steps at New York Fashion Week at Lincoln Center ten years ago, armed with my camera and a new zoom I bought just for the occasion. . I had no expectations other than a friend of mine thought it would be a great boost to my growing love for collecting portraits of strangers on the streets.
It was intimidating: the people hanging around the shows were better dressed than anyone I had stopped on the street in previous weeks, and there was a cool energy in the air, as if I had just walked in at a party that was out of my league.
I spent the day pretty much apart from everyone else, and when I got home that night to look at my photos, a feeling of disappointment washed over me. Thinking that the zoom would get me closer ended up being a crutch for the shyness.
I decided to come back with a small 35mm plastic lens. It was cheap, but it was the lens I had taken portraits with and it would require me to engage with people for the photo.
When I arrived the next day, the timing was incredible. As I passed the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, a sight must have gone off and I found myself swimming in a stream of people rushing in the opposite direction. Everything was going too fast, I had no choice but to grab my camera and start.
As I sat down later that evening and loaded the photos onto my computer, to my delight there was singer Solange Knowles, the very first portrait I landed clean.
About three years ago, I ditched the traditional street style and returned to the kind of street photography that excited me when I first started: wider perspectives, greater depth of field, but, above all, less possible poses.
It’s a discipline I learned by browsing party photos on the Internet. Photos where people pose for the camera are almost always the least interesting. But I like a real portrait. This will always be the basis of my work.
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