In 1985, what people wore every day tended to be their own business, and aside from a few magazines and experiments—as well as a small number of visual surveys usually focussed on teenagers or particular scenes—very little documentation existed. Former computer programmer Shoichi Aoki was in Paris when he started taking pictures of people he saw on the street—solely for his own interest—and STREET was born. Aoki sees himself as a documentarian, rather than a photographer, and this is particularly evident in the early issues, where he set out to create a record of the clothes people were wearing and the environments they were wearing them in. It is also worth noting that in 1985, people on the street were not expecting to have photographs taken of them, and on the rare occasions where the subject is aware of the camera, you can sense the feeling of novelty. London, Paris and Milan are the main cities covered, though Marrakesh and a few other spots are in there. Plus a lot of off-duty people outside shows, as mentioned—without anticipation or often awareness of being photographed. You don’t get natural like that any more—that much I can tell you. — Paul Lawrence, NOVEMBER BOOKS
