From Amy Touchette’s article for tuts+:
Whether consciously or not, the first thing people do when they encounter someone they don’t know is make a judgment about them based on how they look. With so much life constantly whizzing by, rarely is there time or opportunity for something deeper. Outward appearances—and the associations we have of those appearances—are often all there is to go on within the busy confines of reality.
All photographers, but especially street photographers, need to be clear and deliberate about what their outer shell conveys in such brief surface interactions. You can take steps to break down the barriers that keep you from having successful exchanges with people you don’t know (wordless or otherwise), and we’ll explore some of those steps in this tutorial.