Despite opening up fashion imagery in the 1980s and embracing supermodels of the ’90s, capturing many of the era’s most iconic and enduring images, Arthur Elgort remains one of the industry’s more underrated talents. An upcoming exhibition, The Big Picture, at Galleria Carla Sozzani aims to change that. The show encompasses five decades of his work, including several original ‘snapshots,’ a candid and natural style Elgort introduced into the fashion vocabulary. His ideas of what a ‘fashion’ photo was, opened up the possibilities of what fashion photography could be to the next generation.

Elgort attributes much of his liberated direction to his lifelong love of music and dance, particularly jazz and ballet from the ’30s to ’40s. “Some of my best pictures were taken when I wasn’t ‘working’ — models getting ready, people on the street, the little moments in between shots,” he writes in a new book, published in conjunction with the exhibit. “That’s when you can really capture people as they truly are and see what’s underneath. It’s those real moments that just can’t be faked.”

Arthur Elgort: The Big Picture, February 6 – April 6, 2015, Galleria Carla Sozzani, Galleria Carla Sozzani, 10 Corso Como, Milan