Photo by Mr. Newton. Click on the image for more from the photographer.

When I started writing about fashion in 2004, street style photographers were not yet a breed. Well, at least not in the Western world. But with advent of The Sartorialist in 2005, that all changed. Today, just about every fashion related website, blog, what-have-you boasts some form of street style photography.

And while Scott Schuman, founder of The Sartorialist, may be the pioneer, he is no longer alone in his work. The streets surrounding fashion week runways have become flooded with a special type of paparazzi–the kind who you want to be bothered by.

Other than a good blog post, and some great inspiration, what do street style photographers get out of this work? Well, if they’re smart, they’ll leverage it to score other projects. Think about it: Garance Dore’s collaboration with Gap, her work for British Elle and Club Monaco, Schuman’s Burberry campaign, Tommy Ton’s Style.com retainer–none of these would have happened without those trusty blogs.

So that’s how we determined 2010′s Most Influential Street Style Bloggers. Much like our personal style bloggers’ list, this isn’t wholly scientific. However, we did consider a number of factors, including: blog traffic, overall appeal, notoriety, and maybe most important–big deals, placements, or campaigns that can be credited to the blog’s influence.

We’ve narrowed the field down to the 10 best. Are your favorites well-represented?