The Aesthetics of Minimalism in Street Style Blogging, Plus Blogger Emily Lane, Outside Prabal Gurung

When I first started blogging, now almost two years back, I was eager to put up every semi-decent picture I took. Sometimes I'd have four of a single individual. Sometimes I'd post several people from a single day of shooting. I would try different angles, different filters, different effects, presenting to you the various phases of aesthetic development I underwent as a photographer. And you, poor reader, had to endure it all. Now, I've begun to pull back. I've followed the lead of the blogs I follow and begun to streamline my posts. As blogs professionalize, they also tend to minimize. They settle on a single look, a single style of presentation, a single orientation for their photographs. They create consistent minimalist cascades of images that stream down the page like a Tumblr feed on an iPhone. The blogs that do best are often the ones that show the least. What's left for you to see is a best of compilation without the original hits. My own process of becoming a blogger has also been about learning to streamline. I have lots of good shots of  Emily Lane, for instance, featured above, posing before the steps of the post office building where Prabal Gurung had his recent show at New York Fashion Week. But here's the only one you get to see on this blog today. If you want more, you'll have to check out my Instagram feed: @urbanfieldnotes, where I'll be posting another one or two. A gimmick to make you follow my Instagram feed? Perhaps. But that's a common blogger strategy, and I'm not above it. And guess what? I'm not going to be posting my New York Fashion Week photos on and off for the next six months like I did last season either. You're only going to see a small portion of what I took, and you're only going to be seeing them at all for the next couple of weeks until it warms up a little, and I can start getting decent shots on the streets of Philly again. Why? 'Cause this a "real" street style blog now. It is an exercise in restraint.