Garage Magazine’s “Take My Picture” video chronicles the rise of street fashion photography
posted Monday, March 18, 2013 at 3:55 PM EDT
"Take My Picture" (shown below) is a short, 10-minute documentary from Garage Magazine, and it looks at how the popularity of fashion blogs has lead to New York's Fashion Week being overrun by huge crowds of street photographers, attempting to photograph fashionistas. This video chronicles how the industry has moved from a relatively niche business, into the world of supermodels, which has spurred the recent boom in fashion blogs. The end result is that anyone with a camera is now attempting to make a name for themselves on the streets during Fashion Week.
The situation seems to have considerably worsened over the past year or two, with mobs of photographers flooding the streets and sidewalks, trying to capture photographs of the most stylish. This, in turn, has lead to "peacocking": people dressing up solely in the hopes of being photographed by the right people. It's a bizarre situation, where untested photographers attempt to make a name for themselves by photographing the right people, and new designers attempt to get their clothes seen in the right places.
As Garage Magazine puts it:
"When we set out to make this short, our intention simply was to observe the phenomenon of fashion bloggers and street style stars. As we started to review the footage, two salient trends became apparent: fashion editors frustrated by the ensuing commotion outside of shows, and the rise of "peacocking" street style stars as a result of the proliferation of blogs. This film examines these themes from both perspectives."
One thing that is conspicuously absent in this short film is any real mention of The Sartorialist and Scott Schuman, who pioneered the street fashion blog in 2005. Schuman's distinctive brand of photography was arguably the trigger for this entire movement (for better or worse). His website is briefly seen at one point in the documentary, but Schuman and his work seems oddly absent from the discussion.
Watching the video, it's striking just how much these photographers seem almost like paparazzi, mobbing celebrities but under very different circumstances.
(via FStoppers)