On the road with street style photographers
Shows are beautiful, but secretly I often find street style photos more enjoyable to see. I realize that looks are often sponsored by brands, but the sidewalk seems like a more spontaneous runway. I wanted to know what Fashion Week looks like through the lens of a street style photographer, so I emailed Paige Campbell Linden, a fashion photographer from LA with an excellent eye for detail, asking if I could stalk her for an afternoon. “Sounds like a lot of fun,” she replied.
Before I meet Paige at the Tibi show on NYFW day three at 1:30 PM, she has already attended two shows and has been running around all morning. At ten o'clock in the morning, she had to travel an hour to Brooklyn for Tory Burch and immediately after that, she raced to SoHo for the Mansur Gavriel presentation. After a quick salad and an extra large coffee, she took the subway towards Times Square.
Walking around Times Square is already a nightmare on an average day because you can easily add half an hour to your walking time due to the slow crowd, but now it's completely impossible. On 41st Street, the sidewalk is completely blocked by photographers and show attendees, and traffic is stuck with large black cars and taxis dropping off guests.
“I'm here,” texts Paige. “What are you wearing?” I ask. “A black outfit,” she says. I look around and feel a slight panic rising. It must be an unofficial photographer's uniform because there are about thirty people with large cameras in black outfits scattered across the sidewalk. Fortunately, she recognizes my searching gaze and waves at me.
“What a mega camera,” is my first comment. “Yeah, it's so heavy,” she says. “When I first started, my wrist wasn't strong enough to carry it all day, so I had a constant, stabbing pain in my forearm. I had physiotherapy and once got a steroid shot because I needed a quick fix for the European Fashion Weeks.”
We are chatting between the stationary cars, and occasionally she has to interrupt our conversation to take someone's photo. I see half my Insta feed of influencers parading by, including Amayzine favorite Olivia Palermo and Dutchies Linda Tol, Charlotte Groeneveld, and Rebecca Laurey. Some walk in slow motion to be well photographed or pose against a wall, while others hurry past the photographers.
It's immediately clear to me that this is no job for wimps. Paige runs from show to show all day during Fashion Month, has to elbow other photographers out of the way to get the best shots, stands around show locations pacing for hours, and drags that heavy camera everywhere.
“And then it's not over yet. Then I have to select and edit the photos I want to send to my client,” she says. “But I usually do that in my bed. Completely horizontal. I've fallen asleep several times with a laptop on my stomach.”
Fortunately, she knows what she's doing by now. When it's a bit quieter on the street, she scrolls through her photos at lightning speed and marks the ones she likes. This makes the final selection process behind her computer go a lot faster.
She is already very selective in choosing the outfits she shoots. “Some photographers take photos of everyone. I'm looking for a ‘cool girl vibe’, although I don't really know how to describe that. Maybe it's the outfits I would want to wear myself.”
Her fashion photography career began around 2014 when she decided to quit her job as a waitress and make use of her photography education. So she bought a ticket to NYC for Fashion Week, arranged a couch to sleep on, and took as many photos as she could.
It took time and perseverance to get her name on the fashion photography radar, but she succeeded. “My beginner's mistake was thinking I could do everything at once, so I said ‘yes’ to every assignment I got. You can't shoot street style, runway, and backstage and also travel from point A to B and edit all the photos.”
She loves details, action shots, and images that show more than a flat background, but many employers, like POPSUGAR where she currently works and Coveteur where she shot in previous years, often want full-body shots. So she has to keep her true nature in check and think of the client.
During the time I am with her, other photographers frequently come by to say hello to Paige. “Street style photography is exhausting, but I like the community. I've met really nice people, and you keep running into them.”
She doesn't really have time and energy for the fabulous fashion events, but tonight she's taking it easy and having a wine-and-cheese picnic in Williamsburg with a friend. “I took 1300 photos today. That seems sufficient to me.”
Written by: Anna van der Heijden
