Coincidentally, one of last year’s Dallas International Film Festival’s opening night films is opening theatrically in Dallas this week. Bill Cunningham New York is a wonderful first-time feature documentary by Richard Press about the long-time New York Times fashion photographer who made his name capturing the styles of the street and the social circles of New York’s elite.

Since the 1960s, Cunningham has spent his days riding his bicycle through New York’s streets, applying his careful, studied eye to the everyday wear of that city’s citizens. Sometimes finding wild, off-the-wall styles, sometimes focusing on popular trends and runway influences, Cunningham comes across in the film as more of a social anthropologist than a fashion photographer. And at society events, he doesn’t just shoot party pics. As one of the many admirers interviewed in the film puts it: Cunningham documents the web of connections between New York’s movers and shakers. In this way, Cunningham’s photographs participate in a historical project, recording the life of the city over many decades.

But who is Bill Cunningham? That is the question that lingers throughout Bill Cunningham New York. Richard Press puts that question to some of his interview subjects, and he follows Cunningham through his days — meeting neighbors and long-time associates, keeping his ear open for an answer, but never pressing too hard to force his film to come to some definitive conclusion about the man. Instead, Press seems content just to bask in the photographer’s curious aura. For a man who has the utmost respect in the fashion world (in a scene during Paris’ fashion week, he is ushered past security by a someone who tells the list checker that Cunningham is “the most important man in the world”), Cunningham is a cheerful, odd little man, full of familiar, colloquial warmth and free of any and all pretensions. He has lived for decades in a tiny studio at Carnegie Hall, a space crowded with file cabinets which archive nearly every photo he has ever taken.

There is an almost monastic quality to Cunningham’s life. Stories from former colleagues abound of him tearing up pay checks, quitting jobs over ethical issues, and working all the time with little regard for compensations. That’s the secret, he says in one scene. If you are not getting paid they can’t tell you want to do. These qualities prove to be Cunningham’s most endearing. Watching his dedication, ethic, and confident artistic vision in action, you can’t help but admire the man. Certain biographical details remain unsolved late into the film (information about Cunningham’s family, love life, sexuality, religious devotion), but after spending time with the photographer those things hardly seem central to the story. Bill Cunningham’s life is defined by his work. Regarding work, Cunningham is not just a rare talent, he is a rare kind of person: his kindness and integrity make us admire not just his craft, but the way he has managed to exist in the world. Spending an hour an a half with him is a pleasure.