“I was really eager to go to college because that’s when you really get to decide who you are, and who you’re going to be. Now that I’ve graduated, I still have a good understanding of who I am, but I’m as lost as ever trying to figure who I’m going to be.”
King Solomon
If Brandon Stanton were to approach me on the street, I would tell him that story: the story of the young graduate. About how I majored in Anthropology and studied bones and teeth and skulls; about how certain I was that I would be the next Indiana Jones and then about how I changed my mind. If Brandon Stanton were to ask me about my life, I would have a lot to say and I bet you would too.
That’s because we all have a unique story – an experience we want to share or maybe even a secret we are dying to tell. Stanton captures all these stories and he does so with the help of his camera.
After losing his job trading bonds on the Chicago Board of Trade, Stanton decided to move to New York City to begin his Humans of New York project. With no former training as a journalist or a photographer, embarking on this adventure was a giant leap of faith. In the summer of 2010, he set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers, eventually hoping to plot all the photographs onto a map. Along the way, however, he eventually began collecting stories and quotes from the people he met.
Four years later, his collection has become the subject of the vastly popular Humans of New York photoblog, as well as a New York Times Bestselling book, which reached the No.1 spot only after its first week on sale. To date, HONY also has over seven million followers on social media – and it’s still going strong.
Ultimately, Stanton’s project, is much more than just a graphic census of New Yorkers. His celebrity status, along with his blog and pictures, have been used to raise funds for charity. The photos that Stanton took of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, for example, helped him to raise over $300,000 to help the victims of the storm – a truly inspiring action that is worthy of being shared on a blog; maybe specifically on one that chronicles the lives of ordinary, but sometimes extraordinary New Yorkers.
