NYFW Revelation #3: Shooting Street Style at Fashion Week is Like Fishing with Explosives

Street style is the art of picking out the sartorially distinctive and quietly unique from a crowd of strangers. It is a solitary practice, and sometimes a lonely one. You walk the streets or stand at a corner, sometimes for hours on end. You watch. You seek inspiration. You train your eyes to recognize the posture, pose, or lingering aura of style from a hundred feet away. It takes keen observation to do it right and a quick response time to capture the shot once it finally comes your way. And like fishing in a rushing stream, it takes patience. Sometimes lots of it. Shooting at fashion week, however, is an entirely different thing. If street style in Philadelphia is fishing, shooting street style at NYFW is fishing with explosives. It's way easier, and you get way more, but it's also less satisfying of a challenge. At NYFW the stylish practically seek you out. You don't have to explain what you're doing to them. They don't even care what you're shooting for. They just want to be represented. The trick is not finding a needle in a haystack. It's finding the haystack at all. When everyone stands out, they all start to look the same.