Caitlin Keane, Staff Editor
“Hi my name is Brandon and I run a popular photo blog called Humans of New York. Can I take your picture?” Since 2010, thousands of people have responded to this question with a “yes” and had their photos become a part of something truly magical.
Humans of New York (humansofnewyork.com) started as an idea from the mind of Brandon Stanton, a twenty-something bonds trader from Chicago. After being fired from his job for making too many risky moves, he made one final crazy gesture and relocated to New York City with nothing but his camera and a huge sense of hope. Stanton needed to be hopeful if he was going to complete what he set out to do- create a photographic census of the city of New York. From the very beginning, his goal has been to depict the beauty of the city’s diverse population.
Stanton started out just taking pictures of people he found interesting, but as time went on he became even more curious and started asking questions of his subjects. This turned Humans of New York into something much more than a photo blog. Now, almost every photo on the website is accompanied by a caption that gives a story to the face on the other side of the camera. Most people would argue that these stories are what make Humans of New York so wildly popular. From heartwarming to heart wrenching, the lives of the people Stanton chooses to photograph are consistently fascinating.
For example, one of Stanton’s most famous portraits depicts a close up picture of an elderly woman, the cat-themed umbrella she’s carrying blurred in the background. The caption underneath reads: “When my husband was dying, I said: ‘Moe, how am I supposed to live without you?’ He told me: ‘Take the love you have for me and spread it around.”
These simple sentences give life to what would otherwise be just a beautiful picture. Now, this woman’s story and the message that it sends to the world are equally beautiful. “My photographs aren’t interesting because of the people. They are interesting because of the interactions that I was having with those people,” Stanton explains of his ability to capture so much in a matter of seconds.
Everybody has their own opinion of New York City. Some find it dirty and crowded while others see it as beautiful, maybe even magical. But Brandon Stanton reminds us all that what makes the city so notorious is not how it looks or how many people are in it. What is really important is the diversity of those people, and he is able to capture that diversity on a daily basis.
This website’s popularity has taken hold in Newtown High School as well. “It’s amazing to see all the differences in the kinds of lifestyles people live, but essentially it shows how we are all connected in the web of humanity through those differences,” NHS Junior Jenna Siroky said. In a town like Newtown, where diversity can sometimes be hard to come by, Humans of New York is a daily reminder of the beauty that can come from being different.
