THE STREET WAS ALREADY STYLED

On street photography, attitude, and a little early AI.

Street photograph taken in a New York City subway station on a hot August day in 2022. Photograph by Alessia Moccia.

In 2022, I spent a lot of time walking around Manhattan with my Sony camera.

I've always loved street photography. And I adored Bill Cunningham.

His On the Street column fascinated me because he wasn't waiting for fashion to happen on a set. He found it outside, on real people, moving through New York.

I think I've always looked at the street in a similar way.

Not for clothes, exactly.

For attitude.

The way someone walks. A gesture. A silhouette. The strange confidence of someone sitting alone in yellow with extraordinary pink boots.

Sometimes a person steps into the right light and, for a second, an ordinary corner of Manhattan looks completely styled.

No stylist. No casting. No call sheet.

The street had already done the styling.

Street photograph of a real woman with an underground rock allure, walking through Manhattan in 2022. Photograph by Alessia Moccia.

Every image in this series began as a real photograph, taken by me on the street with my Sony camera.

Most remained exactly that.

Some... didn't.

This was 2022, and I had started studying and experimenting with some of the earliest generative AI tools available at the time.

Apparently Manhattan wasn't strange enough for me.

My aliens arrived. The moon got bigger. People multiplied. Reality misbehaved a little.

And somehow, while I thought I was experimenting, images from that period ended up being recognized at the International Photography Awards in two consecutive editions.

Which still makes me smile.

Looking at them in 2026 makes me smile for another reason.

The AI already looks old.

Street photograph of a real man walking through Manhattan in 2022. No AI. Photograph by Alessia Moccia.

The edges, the approximations, the little imperfections I could probably fix today in minutes.

But I wouldn't.

Four years ago they looked like the future.

Now they're becoming part of its past.

How did AI become vintage already?

Maybe that's what I like most about these photographs today.

They captured Manhattan in 2022.

And, without me realizing it, a tiny moment in the history of a new medium too.

I still walk.

I still look for attitude.

And I still wait for the street to style itself.

Then I raise my camera.

Street photograph taken in Manhattan in 2022 with a Sony camera. Photograph by Alessia Moccia.