In Richard Press’s remarkable documentary Bill Cunningham: New York we meet the eponymous snapper often cited as the father of street-style photography. Now well into his eighties Bill Cunningham still has the vigour and curiosity of someone just starting out on their career. In fact, Cunningham started snapping New Yorkers on the streets in the 1960s and began his famous column in the New York Times in the 1970s. Today, Bill Cunningham is responsible for the visuals in two weekly New York Times photo columns, On the Street – the current home for his street photography – and Evening Hours which documents the wealthy and fashionable at New York society gatherings. However, most of his photos, he claims, are never published. Cunningham says he uses his camera ‘like a pen. I use it to take notes.’ As the film progresses, it becomes apparent which of his two columns excites him the most.
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| Bill Cunningham |
Bill Cunningham lives the simplest of lives, with minimal fuss. It is a monastic existence. He sleeps in the same room at his Carnegie Hall dwelling which doubles as his office. It is a tiny space with the walls crammed high with files and boxes of photographic negatives – the record of every picture he has taken in his 60 plus years of working. There is no TV, no kitchen and no bathroom (‘Who the hell wants a kitchen and a bathroom?’ he responds when challenged on the matter). His single camp bed sits in the corner of the room, balanced on wooden crates.
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| Bill sat on his bed surrounded by his filing cabinets |
His own dress is unfussy and utilitarian. He sticks to a uniform of plain trousers, collared shirts, and the same blue work-jacket favoured by Parisian dustbin men that he patches with duct tape when it rips. He has no lover. His tastes are simple. Like a monk, food is not a vice, ‘I eat with my eyes’, he claims. He goes to the same café where he snacks on the same $3 lunch. He is slim verging on skinny. He has no car. Instead he rides a pushbike all over the city – a classic Schwinn – his 29th as the previous 28 have all been stolen. He is also a deeply religious man who attends church every Sunday.
Bill Cunningham appears to hold little regard for wealth, power and vanity. He is also one of the most celebrated and innovative photographers the fashion world has ever known. As Bill himself points out, not because of the quality of his images – he does not consider himself the best photographer. His images are not the stylized airbrushed visual feasts so common among today’s fashion photographers. Instead Bill’s style and approach to his work has often been compared to that of a war photographer. It is simply about the clothes, the subject, and the moment in time at which they have been captured. There is an honesty and an aesthetic sense in his pictures which can only have been taken by someone with an eye for perfection.
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| Bill Cunningham at work |
His devotion to his art is often described as religious. Minutes into the film we hold our breath as we see him running through oncoming traffic when he spies a great subject for a snap – oblivious to the danger to himself. (Bill has been in no less than ten bicycle crashes over the years). Later in the film, one of his frequent subjects and co-editor of Paper magazine, Kim Hastreiter makes the observation that ‘He’ll do anything for a shot. I’ve been in deep conversations with him and he’ll just run from me because he sees someone.’
There is something almost spiritual in his work and his pursuit for the subjects of his photographs. His interest in fashion appears to come from a place of purity – a genuine love of clothes and fashion. He has no interest in paparazzi-type photographs or celebrity. Nor does he have any interest in mocking his subjects or photographing the ridiculous or the badly dressed. To do so would be to drag himself and his work into a negative place. Bill's photography is all about celebrating clothes, and in turn, life. For him, fashion is ‘the armour to survive the reality of everyday life. To do away with it would be like doing away with civilization.’
To be chosen as one of his subjects is undoubtedly a matter of privilege in the fashion community – a badge of honour. If he doesn’t like what you’re wearing, or it holds no interest for him, he will simply just not photograph you. American Vogue editor, Anna Wintour famously declared: ‘We all get dressed for Bill.’ In the same interview, she amusingly comments that a snub from Bill delineates outfit suicide, ‘He’s been documenting me since I was a kid’, she comments, and then dramatically emphasizes, ‘it’s one snap two snaps, or he ignores you which is death.’
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| Anna Wintour by Bill Cunningham |
One wonders how Bill remains so unaffected by the famously fickle and superficial world of fashion. He is undoubtedly ‘establishment’. At one point, we see him in a queue for a fashion show, being ignored as he attempts to negotiate his way past the doorperson. When the show’s publicist comes to the door to rescue Bill, he scolds the doorperson for keeping Bill outside with the rabble. ‘Please’ he says in all seriousness, ‘he is the most important person on Earth!’
As Bill is led inside, smiling through any awkwardness, he seems unconcerned at the fuss made of him by the publicist and at the snub by the person working the door. He soon busies himself by taking photographs, blending into the crowd, becoming invisible again. The film’s producer Philip Gefter, calls him ‘the most reluctant fashion deity on the planet.’
Bill Cunningham is a man of many contradictions. He is a man who has somehow kept his modesty and charm in a world dominated by the egotistical and narcissistic. He is at once knowing and naïve, a stickler for detail interested in the bigger picture. We see him haranguing a picture editor to change the layout of his latest feature – not for the first time it turns out. The editor responds by mock-strangling him. Both fastidious and easy-going, he is a true bohemian in a cut-throat industry.
As Bill is led inside, smiling through any awkwardness, he seems unconcerned at the fuss made of him by the publicist and at the snub by the person working the door. He soon busies himself by taking photographs, blending into the crowd, becoming invisible again. The film’s producer Philip Gefter, calls him ‘the most reluctant fashion deity on the planet.’
Bill Cunningham is a man of many contradictions. He is a man who has somehow kept his modesty and charm in a world dominated by the egotistical and narcissistic. He is at once knowing and naïve, a stickler for detail interested in the bigger picture. We see him haranguing a picture editor to change the layout of his latest feature – not for the first time it turns out. The editor responds by mock-strangling him. Both fastidious and easy-going, he is a true bohemian in a cut-throat industry.
