For Ms. Mustaparta, once a full-time model, the impetus to shoot strangers came from being a target herself. “I was going to Bryant Park for a friend’s show,” she said, “and as I walked up to the tents, all these photographers wanted to shoot me — for what I was wearing. After the show, I was backstage and saw this girl, and she had on this awesome outfit, so I asked if I could take her photo.”
In less than three years, Ms. Mustaparta, who was born in Norway, has become a first-name fixture in the blogosphere, one whose “brand” is built on her own way of dressing as much as on her ability to reflect that aesthetic in her photographs of others.
Thanks to her bankability as a model, she has worked in front of the camera in ad campaigns for Net-a-Porter, Coach and Rag & Bone while shooting street fashion for Vogue.com. Last fall, the magazine named her one of its 10 best-dressed women of 2011, further blurring distinctions between style photographer and style icon.