# Street-style fashion photography

> One dressed figure, seen head to toe, stands or walks towards the camera in the middle of a vertical frame; a 50 mm or short telephoto lens at a wide aperture softens the street behind, and open shade or overcast daylight keeps the clothes' colours true. The subject usually knows: asked to stop for a moment, or caught mid-stride outside a fashion show.

- Period: 2005–present
- Where it began: New York
- Kind: Fashion & commercial
- Also called: Street style, Street snap, Fashion Week street style, Fashion-blog street style
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/street-style-photography/

## How the look is made

- Pick real people for what they wear and how they wear it, on the pavement where you find them; never book models for the picture.
- Show the whole outfit: one figure, head to toe, centred in a vertical frame, from the middle distance at eye level or a little below.
- Separate the figure from the street with a 50 mm or a short telephoto, or with a long zoom at fashion-week distance, at a wide aperture, so the city behind turns soft and only the dressed figure stays sharp.
- Either catch the subject walking towards you, mid-stride, with a fast shutter, or ask them to stop for a moment, step into open shade and stand as they like.
- Keep the colours true to the fabric: correct and grade them lightly, but do not retouch; publish one picture at a time, with the place and the date, on a blog, a magazine site or a feed.

## How it is lit

- Open shade or overcast daylight on the pavement: the subject asked into a patch of even light or the shadow of a building, so the colours of the fabric read true.
- Bright afternoon sun outside the shows, taken as it comes, with hard shadows on the pavement and sun on the hair.
- A flash or a small continuous light for evening shows and after dark.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: the open sky, all around and above, soft.

## Camera settings

35–200 mm · f/1.8–f/8 · 1/1000–1/250 s · ISO 100–800 (on full-frame), documented. Specimen EXIF: 52–67 mm eq. and 50 mm at f/1.8–6.3, 1/250–1/500 s, ISO 100–500.

## Directing people

One figure, head to toe and square-on to the camera: walking towards it mid-stride, a bag or phone in hand, or stopped on the pavement and standing as they like, weight on one leg, a hand in a pocket or on a bag strap or sunglasses. The face composed and unsmiling, eyes on the lens or just past it; friends stand or sit side by side.

## Styling

The wearers' own outfits, put together to be seen: layered pieces, statement coats, designer labels, trainers or platforms, sunglasses and bags, groomed hair and their own make-up, sometimes dyed hair. Nothing is added or arranged; the setting is the pavement, kerb or plaza where they were found.

## Before you shoot it

These are real, identifiable people photographed in public, often without being asked first and sometimes teenagers (FRUiTS followed Harajuku's young people); the pictures travel fast on blogs and feeds, where the wearer can be mocked, tracked or have the picture reused commercially without consent. Never prompt by a photographer's name, never generate a lookalike of a real person, never present a generated picture as a real street-style photograph of a named fashion week or wearer, and do not treat religious or community dress such as headscarves as exotic costume. For new work, ask before publishing, honour a refusal, take pictures down on request and do not photograph minors without a parent's consent.

## Photographs

- Scott Schuman ('The Sartorialist'), Untitled (Amsterdam), 2005, HP pigment print, edition 5/10. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, E.482-2010, given by Scott Schuman and James Danziger. © Scott Schuman. In copyright, linked: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1159638/
- Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan, 'Harajuku Fashion Street Snap (September 16, 2017)', Flickr (31029865@N06/28849552067), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Shown on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harajuku_Fashion_Street_Snap_(2017-09-16_13.37.25_by_Dick_Thomas_Johnson).jpg
- Peter T from Brooklyn, NY, USA, 'New York Fashion Week September 2016', 10 September 2016, Flickr (rr5706507/29514216591), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Shown on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_Fashion_Week_September_2016_(29514216591).jpg
- Peter T from Brooklyn, NY, USA, 'NY fashion week 2013, day1', 5 September 2013, Flickr (rr5706507/9683900386), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Shown on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NY_fashion_week_2013,_day1_(9683900386).jpg

## Sources

- The Sartorialist, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sartorialist (launched by Scott Schuman in New York in September 2005; street-style photos of people whose clothing caught his eye, sometimes with commentary; digital camera; 'I thought I could shoot people on the street the way designers looked at people'; book The Sartorialist, Penguin, 2009)
- Scott Schuman, Untitled (Amsterdam), 2005, HP pigment print 5/10, Victoria and Albert Museum E.482-2010: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1159638/ (two girls in headscarves and white tunics with blue and pink ribbons; image 32.3 × 21.5 cm; given by Scott Schuman and James Danziger); with Untitled (Paris), 2007 (O1159639, O1159633) and Untitled (New York), 2008 (O1159637), read through the V&A collections API: https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/museumobject/O1159638
- Catriona Hughes, 'Scott Schuman: A traditional street photographer with a fashion point of view', Daily Hive, 9 December 2019: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/scott-schuman-the-sartorialist-india-street-photographer (Schuman hopes to be seen as 'more of a street photographer with a very good fashion point of view'; 'The only other person shooting street style fashion at that time was Bill Cunningham')
- Danziger Gallery, Biography: The Sartorialist: https://danzigergallery.com/attachment/en/5abb9910a09a728e158b4568/TextOneColumnWithFile/5abb996aa09a728e158b63eb (born Indianapolis, 1968; after 15 years in the fashion business he started the blog to 'simply share photos of people that I saw on the streets of New York that I thought looked great'; his full-time job by 2006, when style.com asked him to shoot in London, Paris and Milan at the time of their collections)
- 'The Sartorialist', Metropolis Japan, 20 May 2010: https://metropolisjapan.com/the-sartorialist/ (Schuman carrying a Canon 5D; 'I like the 85mm, but sometimes it's too tight when out on the street, so the 50mm is the safest bet'; 'I never stop it down that much')
- Bill Cunningham (American photographer), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cunningham_(American_photographer) (1929–2016; 'While working at Women's Wear Daily and the Chicago Tribune, he began taking candid photographs of fashion on the streets of New York', no year given; a photo style feature for the SoHo Weekly News in 1977; December 1978 Times pictures became On the Street; On the Street and Evening Hours ran from 26 February 1989 until shortly before his death; unposed people, often at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street)
- Bill Cunningham New York, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cunningham_New_York (documentary by Richard Press, produced by Philip Gefter; premiered 24 March 2010; columns On the Street and Evening Hours)
- Toni Frissell, Lisa Fonssagrives in Paddington Station, London, 1951, published in Harper's Bazaar, Library of Congress cph.3g04320 via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paddington_Station_by_Toni_Frissell_1951.jpg (a postwar couture picture of a model in a real station, as in the atlas entry couture-fashion-photography)
- Fruits (magazine), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruits_(magazine) (founded by Shoichi Aoki in June 1997; final issue February 2017; 233 issues; mostly single full-page photographs, each with a brief profile giving age, occupation, brands worn and a 'point of fashion'; Phaidon books Fruits, 2001, and Fresh Fruits, 2005)
- Shoichi Aoki, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoichi_Aoki (born 1955; STREET from 1985; FRUiTS from 1997; TUNE from 2004; documented street fashion in Harajuku from the mid-1990s)
- i-D, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-D (the Straight-Up, a documentary style pioneered by Terry Jones in 1977: a head-to-toe portrait of someone street cast with great personal style, often with a short Q&A; Jones commissioned Steve Johnston 'to photograph London punks head-to-toe against a plain white wall on the Kings Road'; i-D launched in August 1980)
- V&A gallery label for E.482-2010, Selling Dreams: One Hundred Years of Fashion Photography, 2014, in the collections API record: https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/museumobject/O1159638 (titled there 'Fashion study, Amsterdam'; 'Schuman's street portraits are reminiscent of Steve Johnson's 'straight up' portraits of punks and New Wave youth, first seen in i-D in the 1980s'; 'Fellow bloggers Garance Doré and Yvan Rodic (Facehunter) produce work in the same vein'; the label's 'Since 1995' for the blog is wrong, as it opened in 2005)
- Tommy Ton, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Ton (Jak & Jil conceived in 2005; fashion-week street style for Style.com and GQ after Schuman; moved away from head-to-toe shots, candid, favoured landscape orientation, details such as coat linings and heels)
- Garance Doré, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garance_Dor%C3%A9 (blog from 2006; from 2007 photography of people around Paris, a format now known as street style; CFDA Eugenia Sheppard Media Award with Schuman, 2012)
- Catherine Shu, 'Yvan Rodic aims to please', Taipei Times, 29 December 2010: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2010/12/29/2003492126 (Facehunter launched in January 2006 with party photos from Paris, where he then lived; lives in London; 'locations including Istanbul, Copenhagen and Sao Paulo'; 104 flights to 35 countries that year; the book Facehunter, published in January 2010, 'includes 326 images culled from his site'; a seven-country book tour of Asia)
- Yvan Rodic, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvan_Rodic (born 1977 in Vevey, Switzerland; blog from 2006; travels the world photographing people at cultural and fashion events; Facehunter, Thames & Hudson, 2010)
- Street fashion, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_fashion (paraphrases Cunningham: the best fashion show comes to life every day on the streets; Instagram popular among street-style amateurs and professionals; Japanese street fashion led by young people; cites Brent Luvaas, Street Style: An Ethnography of Fashion Blogging, Bloomsbury, 2016)
- Jeremy Freed, 'Can Street Style Photography Survive Its Golden Age?', Sharp, 20 June 2018: https://sharpmagazine.com/2018/06/20/can-street-style-photography-survive-its-golden-age/ (Schuman: most of what is called street style is 'just shooting fashion week'; Tommy Ton: 'It's become about being seen and about how it's going to play out on social media'; Aoki closing FRUiTS: 'There are no more cool kids to photograph')
- 'How to photograph street style at fashion week', Amateur Photographer, 25 September 2023, with photographs by Tobi Sobowale: https://amateurphotographer.com/technique/how-to-photograph-street-style-at-fashion-week (24–70 mm at London Fashion Week, 70–200 mm for most of New York Fashion Week; a lower f-stop to isolate the guest; capture people passing by or ask them to stop and pose; flash or continuous light for evening shows; 'for me editing does not include retouching'; f/8–f/11 to capture skin texture in beauty pictures, and in street style she loves 'showing the urban environment or the crowds of people surrounding the guests')
- Feature Shoot, 'The photographer's guide to shooting street fashion', 500px ISO: https://iso.500px.com/the-photographers-guide-to-shooting-street-fashion/ (85 mm primes popular among street-style photographers for their wide aperture; blur the background; ask subjects to move into a patch of even light or shade; many start to pose as soon as they see you)
- Peter T, NYFW street style, 10 September 2016 and 5 September 2013 (Lincoln Center), and Dick Thomas Johnson, Harajuku Fashion Street Snap, 16 September 2017, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0, EXIF focal lengths and apertures): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_Fashion_Week_September_2016_(29514216591).jpg
- 'How to photograph street style at fashion week', Amateur Photographer, 25 September 2023, photographs by Tobi Sobowale: https://amateurphotographer.com/technique/how-to-photograph-street-style-at-fashion-week (Canon EF 24–70 mm f/2.8 at London Fashion Week, RF 70–200 mm for most of New York Fashion Week; 'I tend to set my f stop quite high (f8- f11)', a lower f-stop to isolate the guest; captions at f/4.5 and f/5.6; flash or continuous light for evening shows)
- Feature Shoot, 'The photographer's guide to shooting street fashion', 500px ISO: https://iso.500px.com/the-photographers-guide-to-shooting-street-fashion/ (85 mm primes popular among street-style photographers for their wide aperture, to blur the background)
- Peter T, NYFW street style 2013 and 2016, and Dick Thomas Johnson, Harajuku Fashion Street Snap 2017, Wikimedia Commons (EXIF): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_Fashion_Week_September_2016_(29514216591).jpg (Nikon D90 at 35 and 45 mm, 52 and 67 mm equivalent, f/4.8–6.3, 1/320–1/500 s, ISO 500; Canon 5D Mark III at 50 mm f/1.8, 1/400 s, ISO 100)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/street-style-photography/#sheet