🎙️ Lee Oliveira
If you are a devoted follower of street style then you know that there are just a handful of photographers who you want to take your photo as you arrive at a show. Or at the very least stand outside at a show pretending to be super busy on your phone. One of them is the Brazilian born, Australia based, photographer Lee Oliveira.
His visual signature is one of discretion. Unlike those concrete catwalk photographers that have you to walk across the same crosswalk over and over to get a shot, or ask you to stop and pose for them, Lee is more of a stealth snapper. Often you don’t even know that he has taken your photo until it appears in the Thursday style pages of the New York Times or on the newspaper’s official NYTimesfashion feed on Instagram.
Just like the iconic Bill Cunningham, who was the godfather of street style photography, Lee isn’t interested in taking photos of celebrities, or head to toe branded outfits worn by influencers. Instead it is the composition of the image itself, how someone’s outfit is framed by its surroundings and environment that intrigues him.
I caught up with Lee while he was in Australia covering Australia Fashion Week. And I have to warn you…and apologies… for the sound quality of the recording of our phone conversation. It’s really not the greatest… but what Lee has to say about his work and the fashion industry as a whole certainly is worth the effort.