In the eye of Jamel Shabazz.

"I am a humanitarian before I am a photographer," Jamel Shabazz repeated throughout our interview. The fact that photography was never Shabazz's profession has encouraged the development of his vision and passion for people. In his portraits, the gaze between the subject and viewer reveals the relationship he seeks outside the image. The camera is a catalyst to conversation; the images are a fortunate by-product of this experience.

Shabazz is best known for the book Back in the Days, which chronicles the early portraits he shot in his community and neighborhood in the early 80s in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. He took care to document everyone he could, from friends to the feared, all characters in the emerging hiphop scene, resulting in a yearbook of the time's badasses. The portraits are unembarrassed, direct and provocative, yielding work that is distinct from the traditional, documentary, street-style shots of Robert Frank or Walker Evans, who presented subjects voyeuristically rather than with Shabazz's sense of engagement. The book earned him wild popularity among the fashion-conscious and eighties-envious alike.

"I am like a fisherman?casting for the shot, finding the drama."

Initially, Shabazz shot only women; he felt their drama by way of their matching outfits, styled hair and big earrings. In retrospect, he wishes he could go back and include more men: "One of those guys could be LL Cool J now."

These days, he leaves no stone of New York life and culture unturned, and he shoots with a specific audience in mind: "All of my work now, I do for my daughter, so she will see what life was like for me, and understand me. Every image I have shot since she was born, I have titled Visions of My Father."

Shabazz's pursuit of photography fully developed upon his return from his military station in Europe from 1977 to 1981. The 20-year-old found a New York that was very different from the one he had left:

"People dressed different, were listening to different music; hiphop was changing everything from style to attitude. I took my camera out to try and figure out how to catch up." He felt a panicked drive to document the community and home he had missed for three years. He was making up for lost memories with new photos of street style.

"You had to have a different outfit every day, no matter how poor you were, because if not, someone would say something. People had to be very creative?putting different-color laces or double laces in their sneakers to make the shoes look different every day." He recalls how he and his friends had their suits hand-tailored in order to be different from one another. Shabazz is still a fastidious dresser. He carries his clothes like a king; simple prints on beautiful fabrics are part of his understated elegance and confidence.

The work has matured along with the man; his interests have grown beyond simply photographing the people of his community. For instance: his newest book, Last Sunday in June. Eight years ago, on a beautiful early summer afternoon in Washington Square Park, Shabazz was snapping portraits and striking up conversations when rowdy gay-pride parade deserters spilled into the park with reckless cheer and exuberance. Washington Square is always fertile ground for a street photographer, a unique New York cross section of green college students, die-hard chess players, street performers, drug slingers and bored suburban kids looking for fun.

In his 20 years of shooting in every borough, sometimes all in one day, Shabazz had never seen anything quite like the raucous, deliberately shocking sexuality of the gay-pride paraders. The naked pregnant belly of a woman with a large sticker stating "God made me Queer" is on the cover of the new book. He was fascinated by the energy of the crowd, and determined to get to the heart of the scene. I ask if it was difficult to coerce the unfamiliar subjects to be photographed.

"It was much easier than asking people in downtown Brooklyn in the 80s. At the parade, everyone was an exhibitionist. They all loved the attention."

Shabazz's work has also taken him in some other unexpected directions in recent years, from Ground Zero to high fashion. He was at the World Trade Center within five minutes after the first plane hit. Like many, he initially thought it was a freak accident, but quickly realized the historic nature of the situation.

"I saw through my lens that there were people jumping from the building," he says. "I was bugging out; I couldn't figure out what to do. I could not stand and photograph and not help. I was overwhelmed. I realized I had to be there to document?for my daughter, for history. It was a baptism of fire."

He photographed the rescue workers and firemen, but has never shown this full body of work?it is still too painful. Eventually, he will?if only so his daughter can understand his experience.

The first time I met Shabazz, he was working on a photo shoot for GQ. With his smooth, mellow manner and absence of pretension, he stood out from the traditional fashion photographer. The notion of taking a street-style photographer to do high-fashion street style is intriguing; there's a serpent-swallowing-its-own-tail feeling to the idea. Though he enjoys the attention, Shabazz admits that his true goal is to be embraced by the fine art world, to be seen as a documentarian, not just as "that retro 80s photographer, or a black photographer. I am so much more than that."

Two new books are forthcoming. One, an unedited edition of his 80s work with more documentary shots of poverty and city landscapes. The other, a showcase of the street work he shot in the 90s, tentatively titled The 90s. He will also continue holding photo workshops with children, of which he has already taught three: one in his own home neighborhood of Red Hook, one in Little Rock, AK, the last in Toronto. He has also made moves into the fine art world, with exhibitions in Toronto, Amsterdam and Chelsea.