While many Yalies make their way to class with their nose to the ground and their mind on the day ahead, Joy Shan, CC ’15, walks with an eye on her surroundings searching for her next subject for her blog, the Broadway Looker.  The Broadway Looker is a street style blog in which each photo is accompanied by a title, location and brief description of the outfit or encounter; one example is the blurb describing the above photo: “When I asked this gentleman if I could take a photo of him, his only question was, “Well, what do I do with my apple?” I love the simple pastels with the pop of paisley on his bow-tie.” Joy describes the goal of her blog, saying,  “Yale is famous for its architectural beauty. I want to record another kind of aesthetic: the constantly shifting beauty of my friends and their clothes. Its name is a homage to Broadway Liquor of New Haven, CT, which officially vacated its storefront early 2012. But it’s also just an excuse to take photos of leather elbow patches, desert boots with bright red soles, and dresses with interesting shapes.”  The Bullblog interviewed Joy about her blog:

BB: Why did you start the Broadway Looker?

JS: Well, I could honestly talk about this for hours because I think I may be obsessed with taking street-style pictures (as in, even when I’m not doing it, I’m thinking about it) but I’ll keep it short. I actually had this idea since April of senior year, right after matriculating, I guess after Bulldog Days when I saw Yale in all its springtime glory. But I didn’t start it officially until spring of freshman year mainly because I couldn’t think of a name that was satisfactory and also because it took me 9 months to get up the courage to ask a stranger if I could take a photo of them.

BB: What is your favorite part?

JS: My favorite part? I have a lot! But the two biggest are 1. I feel like I just appreciate my surroundings a lot more now because whenever I walk instead of staring at the sidewalk mulling over god-knows-what, I’m looking around and appreciating the people who pass me, even if I don’t stop them and ask to take their picture 2. I like the part where I ask them. I love that people are willing to take a moment out of their day to help out a stranger whom they’re never going see again. Even in China, people would act glad to stop and pose, and it made me feel so much more comfortable in a foreign city.

As for the future, I just want to get better at it. Hopefully after I take 100 pictures I’ll stop feeling nervous about asking, which I still feel sometimes..