fashion (n)

c. 1300, fasoun, "physical make-up or composition; form, shape; appearance," from Old French façon, fachon, fazon "face, appearance; construction, pattern, design; thing done; beauty; manner, characteristic feature" (12c.), from Latin factionem (nominative factio) "a making or doing, a preparing," also "group of people acting together," from facere "to make"

\-ist

word-forming element meaning "one who does or makes," also used to indicate adherence to a certain doctrine or custom, from French -iste and directly from Latin -ista

When I left my California newspaper job to begin freelancing in Milan, I had no interest in fashion; rugby, surfing, and adventures in photojournalism were my passions. But Art Streiber in LA urged me to visit an editor at the Fairchild office in Milan. Absurdly, I took a photo essay I had shot on bounty hunters, a gritty portfolio that was the farthest extreme from fashion photography I could have chosen. To my surprise the editor loved it and hired me, to shoot in my reportage style, backstage at the largest shows in Milan. I had acquired a coveted spot available to only a handful of top fashion photographers and had no idea how lucky I was.

A few years later the director of Visa Pour l'Image, the most prominent photojournalism festival in the world, berated me for sending these pictures for his festival. They were insultingly far from photojournalism to him. But he didn't see in them the dedication and effort I had grown to respect in the industry. That same year at the festival, David Griffin, the director of photography at National Geographic, said "if you could shoot archaeology like you shoot fashion, that could be really great." It was like he turned on a light and showed me a new path right in front of me.

Fashionista by Dave Yoder

I moved to Italy ill-prepared; I was starting my freelance career after working at American newspapers with no experience as an independent, was still recovering from years of illness with chronic fatigue syndrome, and I didn’t even know Italian. But I was used to change, having grown up in Tanzania as a boy, and I gradually worked up freelance work. Italy is a unique, beautiful place, full of contradictions and delights. I never pose any of my pictures; my imagination cannot match the unexpected visual delights the peninsula serves up, if I’m just patient.

15 Years in Italy

On most Wednesday mornings, Popes hold a general audience in the piazza of Vatican City. Pilgrims from around the world gather there to see him up-close, and sometimes even touch him. As I ran just ahead of the Popemobile, ruining my two suits and countless ties in copious amounts of sweat, I was literally in moderate danger of being run over by the Pope. His white G-Wagen chariot, between stops, had to keep up an energetic clip to stay on schedule so that everyone there would have the occasion to be close to him at some point. I frequently stumbled into members of his security detail, similarly keeping pace, who were invariably polite and, inexplicably, apologized to me. In addition to protecting the Pontiff, they carried babies from the crowd to him for blessing and returned them to their correct procreators.

With a flash in one hand and a camera in the other, both held blindly and opposingly at arms-length to get the separation I needed to overcome the dreadful midday light, I never had time for any more than one picture of any situation, as they were taken while in a near sprint. The camera was always far from my eye, but the events and pictures were intoxicating. When my editor called me off, saying they had enough, I went on my own time, knowing someday soon the unique opportunities would come to an end.