Legendary New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunn-ingham died Saturday, according to the paper where he worked for nearly 40 years.

He was 87. Cunningham, whose watchful eye brought images of New Yorkers — from the well-heeled to unsuspecting trend-setters — to the public, had been hospitalised recently after a stroke, the Times reported.

Credited with creating the genre of street fashion photography, Cunn-ingham held a passion for capturing a subject or trend’s look, whatever it may be.

He was, as the Times called him, an “unlikely cultural anth-ropologist.”

Cunningham, who plied New York in his trademark blue workman’s jacket with a camera slung around his neck and travelled on his bicycle, had an uncanny talent in unearthing major, even avant-garde trends on the street, on the catwalk or at glittering parties.

In a 2010 documentary about Cunningham, Anna Wintour — the powerful editor of American Vogue and one of the photographer’s muses — marvelled at his ability to “see something, on the street or on the runway, that completely missed all of us. And in six months’ time, that will be a trend!” Frank Rich, a former New York Times columnist and executive producer of the HBO series Veep, tweeted: “Bill Cunningham was as delightful and fascinating a person and colleague as he was as artist. An independent mind, big heart, no airs.”