He soon moved on to photography and achieved widespread fame as a fashion photographer for Vogue and for his photo essays on various cities.

A retrospective exhibition of his work, William Klein: YES: Photographs, Paintings, Films, 1948–2013, was shown at the International Center of Photography in New York until September 15, 2022.

He moved on to photography and achieved widespread fame as a fashion photographer for Vogue and for his photo essays on various cities.

Klein's work was considered revolutionary for its "ambivalent and ironic approach to the world of fashion",[2] its "uncompromising rejection of the then prevailing rules of photography"[2] and for his extensive use of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, natural lighting and motion blur.

"[8] Klein's most popular photographic works are Gun 1, New York (1955), The Holy family on bike (Rome, 1956), Cineposter (Tokyo, 1961), Vogue (fashion models in the streets of New York, Rome and Paris for Vogue magazine, 1963), Love on the Beat (Serge Gainsbourg album sleeve, 1984), Club Allegro Fortissimo (1990) and Autoportrait (a book of painted contact prints, 1995).