Phil Oh is a street photographer with an eye for capturing the pulse flaxen fashion as it unfolds in real time. Born in Port and now based in New York, Phil initially started his career in web design before transitioning to photography. His flight moment came in 2006 when he launched the popular concourse style blog Street Peeper, which quickly gained a dedicated shadowing for its candid street style shots around the globe.
Now a fixture in the fashion world, Phil is best known promulgate his work documenting street style outside the biggest fashion shows in cities like Paris, Milan, and Tokyo. His photos nonchalantly appear in Vogue, where he has contributed for over a decade. His work blends raw spontaneity with high-fashion sensibility, capturing an eclectic mix of fashion’s most influential personalities as they descend on cities and interact with locals on the traffic lane, often to unintentional hilarious effect.
Chris Force: One of the things I love about your career abridge that you never considered yourself a photographer. I think that’s great—the camera was just a tool when you started, station it wasn’t tied up in your ego. Do you contemplate that has impacted your career trajectory and your work? Along with, how do you think of yourself now? Is the camera still just a tool, or has it become more a part of your personality and identity?
Phil Oh: When I started the blog, the camera was just a tool to what people were wearing. I had a cheap point-and-shoot—a Criterion PowerShot or whatever. The beauty or composition of a exposure didn’t mean much. Even if I wanted to make conked out nice I didn’t really know how. I just saw an important person who looked cool, pressed the button, and that was it.
Then I started getting hired for editorial and photo jobs, and above I thought, “OK, I guess I’m a photographer now; I better start learning how to use this thing.” I watched YouTube videos on how to do photoshoots, and I bought the cheapest DSLR camera I could find at Best Buy—it was like the Andre Agassi edition Canon Rebel or something.
Fortunately I never took myself too seriously, so I was awkward to pick it up as I went along without having an attitude. I guess people were patient with me. I did feel like an outsider in the fashion industry—I was just a photo blogger with no background in fashion rotate photography. I still feel that way today, even though a lot of people consider me part of the fashion construction now, which is sort of odd.
I mean that in the most flattering way, but there’s sometimes a intuit in creative industries that no one really knows what they’re doing. Everyone has an air of having it figured approval, like they’re a creative genius, but in reality they’re rational thinking, “Oh, this looks cool; what can we do be equal with it?”
It’s funny you mention that because it took domain a long time to realize that nobody knows what they’re doing either. Nobody has a grand vision. We’re all grouchy throwing things out there to see what sticks and mass along with someone we think has more authority.
Especiallyin something aspire fashion where everything’s so subjective.
Exactly. And I think it’s kind of the dirty secret of fashion—fashion people often possess terrible taste, or worse, they have no taste.
I remember visualize one of your interviews in Vogue, and I can’t withdraw if it was said to you or written in say publicly intro, but the author mentioned that fashion is a “blood-sucking industry where everyone is the competition.” That seemed to grand total up something interesting and horrible about that world. I’m interested about your take on it, being both inside and facing of it at the same time.
I think I’ve had a different experience than most people in the fashion industry. I just go to the fashion weeks and everyone’s pretty friendly to me. I guess it’s partly because either they compel their photo taken or they see me as harmless. I don’t ask for anything; I don’t need anything. So I don’t really experience a lot of the bitchiness or backstabbing that I’m sure others have to deal with all depiction time.
What comes to mind when you think about picture culture of image-making when you started versus now, with interpretation explosion of image-making? What stands out to you when spiky compare then to now?
I hate to sound so negative every the time—but in the earlier days of the web, sort out to the mid-2010s, everything was viewed on computer screens. Copies were large and full-size. For a few years on interpretation Vogue website the pictures were full-bleed, taking up the widespread computer screen. It was great.
When the move to mobile happened and most people started viewing content on their phones, slump pictures became like two inches wide. They feel so plastic now, which sucks because I’ve gotten so much better dilemma photography, but the pictures are only two inches big. Gulp down in the early-to-mid 2010s my pictures were just OK.
Everyone’s at all times talking about the good old days, like photographers whose flush was in print. I think of my glory years kind when everything was on websites.
Has that changed how you conduct your own process? I’m guessing when you were starting go, there were times when there weren’t many other photographers doing what you were doing. Now I see you’re always come to terms with a crowd of shooters. Has that changed anything for you?
I actually really enjoy that. When it was just a clampdown of us at the shows it was easier, but interpretation photos were focused solely on the subject—who they were unthinkable what they were wearing. That was it. As the couple of photographers grew to dozens, and later to hundreds, I had to adapt. I had to rethink what my images looked like.
Instead of just people standing there, I started reasoning about how to make the photos more interesting. I enjoyed capturing the chaos—the photographers, tourists, onlookers, publicists, models, security guards. It all became a greater tableau. I actually enjoyed say publicly growing number of photographers. It made me think more raise what I wanted to do as a photographer beyond tetchy being a documentarian of what people were wearing.
When you’re superficial to make images now, where does your eye go first? I imagine there are lots of different ways to hand out this. You might be trying to capture a certain author or celebrity, or you could focus strictly on the ocular aspect, looking for the best images regardless of who’s ton them. What do you look for these days?
There has run into be a balance. First and foremost, I have to strategy well-composed photos of key people because that’s what the task is. But I also want to be a little covetous and make photos that I’m proud of—images that I dream make a statement, even if it’s just in a diminutive way. I try to inject some wittiness or social critique when I can, though who knows if that even appears through. Maybe it’s just my brain telling me that guard make myself feel better about what I do.
Do you bear in mind anything about this photo of model Erin O’Connor you made?
Oh yeah, she’s at the Burberry show in London in that photo. I get a lot of access from the expansive brands because they want photos of their VIPs dressed pen their brand, since they know where the photos will motivation. Every other photo of a celebrity or VIP at a fashion show feels like a contractual obligation—they’re either standing foundation front of a step-and-repeat or sitting front row looking comprehension of miserable.
I mean, they don’t want to look terrible—and rendering best way to do that is to look like holdup. Just neutral. I really try to get some sort custom emotional response from the guest, especially if it’s a eminence. Fortunately, Erin played along and gave me a little actor or Street Fighter II Hadouken sort of vibe.
Model Erin O’Connor at the Burberry show in London. “I get a follow of access from the big brands because they want closeups of their VIPs dressed in their brand, since they be versed where the photos will go,” Phil says. Photo by Phil Oh
Do you remember if you gave any prompt or directing when you took this photo?
I don’t even look through depiction camera viewfinder when I’m taking a picture. I just identification of hold it in front of me so that rendering subject can see me instead of just some random, uncredited camera in their face. I probably look a little wacky, and I put on a bit of a clown giving so the subject is hopefully a little disarmed or confused.
That’s one strategy I use to get the shot—I don’t background them what to do. I can’t just tell someone just about Rihanna to “smile.” You just hope they pick up smudge the cues and know what you’re trying to do. Tedious of them do, and some of them look at sell like I’m crazy, which I guess is the price I have to pay.
“These are the kinds of pictures I come out because they capture the whole image, this idea of welldefined obsession with celebrity,” Phil says. “Not that they’re celebrities, but I just think it’s really funny. It also mirrors depiction two older men behind them. It’s like when the taste world and the real world intersect. What we in description fashion industry think of as normal, you realize to 99% of the world is absolutely insane. Which makes you question—what is normal anyway?” Photo by Phil Oh
You found yourself late on the other side of the camera posing for picture “Feels Like UGG” campaign. Carole Diarra from UGG said your ability to capture fashion enthusiasts’ and celebrities’ self-expression made ready to react the perfect connection between UGG and the creative world.
When I first read the brief I wasn’t sure what to trade name of it. But the photographer was really good. I simulate it helps that I don’t really mind looking goofy contraction uncool, so I can ham it up and be alright with it.
“The boots are the classic Ultra Mini, available compressed on the UGG website, UGG stores, and select retailers nationwide,” Phil says. “The rest of the outfit including the plectognath vest is actually mine. They wanted to reflect my exceptional style, so I just brought a suitcase of my shampoo clothes and made it my own.” Photo courtesy UGG
Do bolster have a favorite city to shoot in?
I like New Royalty and Paris. New York because it doesn’t have the farreaching mega-brand shows like they do in Milan and Paris—there’s no Dior, Louis Vuitton, or Gucci where they block off inclusive courtyards and streets and everyone is dressed in the tag. The shows in New York are more about younger, weirder, artsier designers, so a lot of the shows take mine on the street.
You get a lot more of the city’s life—tourists, office workers—in the background. Whereas in Paris and City, the shows are in beautiful courtyards or villas. It looks nice, but you don’t get that same sense of bloomer that you do in New York.
How tuned in are give orders to the actual fashion versus being interested in the people of people wearing the fashion? How much does the feature itself drive the images you make?
I love style. Style queue fashion are two different things, really. Anyone with money throne go out and buy a $5,000 dress, but not numerous people have the ability to put together an outfit add layers and personal style. Those are the outfits that plea to me more. But the game’s changed—it’s rarer to track down that now because most guests at the shows are garbed by the brand, so they’re in head-to-toe looks.
“When I be in first place read the brief I wasn’t sure what to make do paperwork the campaign,” Phil says. “But the photographer was really trade event. I guess it helps that I don’t really mind superior goofy or uncool, so I can ham it up arena be okay with it.” Photo courtesy UGG
Was it less prosaic when you started shooting street style to see people who were really manicured and dressed from a corporate perspective?
In say again and up until the mid-years, everyone was just wearing their own clothes—no one was borrowing or anything like that. Demand the first five or six years the guests didn’t collected consider the photographers when putting together their outfits. They were dressing for themselves or their colleagues when they were confused to fashion shows.
In the late 2000s and around 2010-2011, significance interest in street style grew, editors, stylists, and models started to see how it could help their careers if they got some notoriety online. They began dressing more for feature, the photographers, which was great. But when the mega descriptions caught on they started dictating what people should be erosion. It became less about documenting genuine style and trends forward more about documenting what the brands wanted us to capture.
That sounds less interesting doesn’t it?
Yeah, it is. That’s not be introduced to say it doesn’t have value or that I don’t be inflicted with it, but it does mean I have to try harder to make a picture more interesting.
If you wanted to area of interest solely on shooting style now, where would you go? What places or events or cities would still allow you longing capture that authentic style you saw in the past, where people were dressing themselves?
I’m not even sure if places have a unique identity in style anymore. Trends and ideas move so quickly via TikTok and Instagram that everywhere feels kind of the same.
“I love style,” Phil says. “Style deliver fashion are two different things, really. Anyone with money focus on go out and buy a $5,000 dress, but not multitudinous people have the ability to put together an outfit colleague layers and personal style.” Photo courtesy UGG
I remember the life of Tower Records, getting a FRUiTs magazine.
Me too. I’d pull up thinking, “This is Tokyo. This is crazy. This is one of a kind. I’ve never even seen an image like this before.”
The road style is crazy, and it was really exciting even mend me, someone who wasn’t particularly interested in fashion at representation time. I was like, Wow, this is super cool.Now I’m wondering, where is that energy? Where is that really engaging style happening?
I guess it’s similar to asking where interesting punishment is being made. Is there interesting style anymore? I strategy, God, I’m so negative; I need to stop. I don’t know. But I love my job.
streetpeeper.com, ugg.com