The Street:

Buildings, homes, roads, architecture, patterns, lines, neighbourhood, people, strangers, friends, shops, money, food, bars, art, graffiti, vandalism, transport, movement, route, direction, life, pollution, crime, smoke, fashion, homelessness, homes, neighbourhood, space, language, sound, watching, windows, sub cultures, diversity, expression, exploring, adventure, texture, youth, schools, territory and expression.

 

Photography: Takay. Styled by: Ye Young Kim. Hair: Kenshin Asano. Makeup: Simone Otis. Model: Ewa Wladymiruk.

Keywords: Movement, Fashion, Fabulous, Feminine, Rushed, Glamour and busy.

This walking shot is amazing, I adore the long high heel boots which enhances her character and persona. I admire the monochrome style effect used to perform this shot because it drains the photo out of colour and just leaves her body gesture and the scenery to do all the fascinating eye- catching work.

 

Keywords: Class, Architecture, Vivid, Powerful, Dominance, Beauty, Makeup and proxemities.

Bella Hadid is one of the most famous and recognisable model in the whole fashion industry. Having a shot like this really brightens up her personality and shows her love to clothes, fashion, streets and architecture. the use of one colour on her outfit fits perfectly with the contrasting dark colours behind and around her. The street is looking up to her because of how the angle is shown; showing dominance and character. I adore the way Bella gazes at the camera, she makes the most natural straight face look fabulous       and classy.

Photography: Elio Nogueira

Keywords: traditional, suit, casual, movement, shutter, pose, man, architecture, fashion, street and street style. 

Interesting perspective, angle, movement and body gesture. This shot was taken in Spain by a popular spanish model who occasionally works in studios in London. The photograph is taken on a street passing by an old building which gives texture to the photograph. The shot must have been taken from just above the ground because I can see the low angle was being made. By not having the model looking at the camera it doesn’t create any tension with the viewer but actually creates a calm atmosphere of a young man walking casually across the streets of spain.

Defining “The Street”:

As Marcel Proust states “The streets belong to everybody, I repeated to myself” this quote means that the street is not restricted, they are like roots that holds and connects big cities with villages, towns and houses. let’s take Oxford Street to consideration, that one massive, long street links with many more side roads which contains little shops, big label shops and food places. The street is different during the times of the day, during day time Oxford street is fulfilled with over population, people going work, people going early shopping, people using the public transport and for tourism however during the night-time that specific street turns into young people clubbing, eating and having fun. However it also can be deserted from people, it could be a source of crime or it could simply be filled with bright lights that shines the roads.

A street is important to every single person, that is where protests occur, where homeless people sleep roughly, how people commute to get from A to B, where people communicate and where life happens. The street is authentic, it is real, whatever happens on the street actually happens. Walter Benjamin talks about the urban culture, experience, on  high-speed rush, it is hard to walk across the street and not be run over ideally contrasts with just simply walking over a field. Paul Simul talks about the industrial movement because boring, people actually have to look at each other while being at the bus stop, while being in a tube, while walking on a pavement you have to look at everyone’s faces even though you do not want to.

Street style is very important, people dress a certain way, they display themselves to each other, its like they are on a stage showing off their clothes. Street-style developed enormously throughout the years, there are bloggers, vloggers and hype-beasts around every corner of a street. People in the 70s dressed differently on the streets to what people wear now. For example in the 70s the public wore disco style clothes such as loose trousers, bold colours and shiny shoes whereas today the streets is filled with twice the features the 70s have. Furthermore, I personally realised that during the years of 2010 onwards the vintage and retro style was becoming trendy once again. Rather than seeing people dressed in the newest collections from Gucci, the streets would be filled with unique retro clothing that the youth have never seen before. Stated by Ted Polhemus “Street style has always existed. It is, however, only since the mid-1950s that its significance has been recognized, valued, and emulated”. This quote evidently suggests that street style since the 50s have been spotted by many designers and is used today as a way of showing off who is best on the street. A person who wears all designer clothes will always be spotted by anyone on the street whereas a person who dresses ordinary will never be noticed by any fashionista, vlogger, photographer or blogger because of the boring and ordinary clothes he wears. Street is a lifestyle, you can take a man of the streets but the street life skills wont disappear from a man.

Street style Magazines such as “Fruits” is a monthly Japanese street fashion magazine founded in 1997 by photographer Shoichi Aoki. Fashion magazines often give people advice on styling, diet and what is trendy. Fruits talks mostly about the absurd fashion senses located in Tokyo, Japan and also the numerous subcultures such as punk, rock and goth. Additionally in one of the covers of the Fruits Magazine issue number 3, I noticed a couple holding hands with a destroyed graffiti background behind them. The colours in this shot are extremely vivid and I can see that their ripped up, filthy, damaged, absurd and unusual outfits connect with the horrible background. I can interpret that the photographer wanted the models to relate to their surroundings such as the dodgy graffiti wall.

The most influential photographer that has ever walked the street was Vivian Maier because of her unique style of holding her film camera waist height. She took photos of people on the streets in her own free time. She was a Nanny for about forty years and the streets were like her home, she would love to stroll around crowded areas to make new compositions, self portraits and then moved to colour film photography after moving to Chicago. Her work influenced many street photographers and her technique is still being used till today.

Overall in conclusion the street is taken really seriously in the fashion industry. For instance more and more photographs are being taken from the streets rather than from catwalk. Taken from an article by Hadley Freeman from “The Guardian” it states ” Now anyone can take photos for fashion blogs, not just accredited photographers with access to the Prada show, and anyone can be celebrated as a fashion icon, not just models and celebrities” which explicitly shows the street is where everyone has access to everything, people are not restricted to see what normally they would have to pay for or have incredible contacts for. At a fashion show you will find people such as actors, models or designers who enjoy dressing up, which is why fashion weeks are peak time for street-style photographers. Summing it all up, get out there on a street because a once in a lifetime opportunity might catch you there!