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" I struck upon this kind of crazy idea that I was going to go to New York and stop 10,000 people on the streets and take their portrait and create kind of a photographic census of the city. "

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" 'Humans of New York' did not result from a flash on inspiration. It grew from five years of experimenting, tinkering, and messing up. "

Brandon Stanton

New York

Result

" I think everyone feels alone in their sadness, and there's a certain value to hearing other people's sad stories. "

" It's the rejection that is hard. It's not the interviewing that's hard. It's not the photography that's hard. It's, you know, approaching people all day long and having a good portion of those people reject you and some of them be rude. "

" I am a huge fan of biographies. What I'm always looking for is a story. I want a story I have never heard from anyone else. "

" The interviews have gotten much longer with 'Humans of New York.' When I was first starting, I was just photographing people. And then I went to just kind of including a quote or two. Now when I'm approaching somebody on the street, I'm spending about 30 to 45 minutes with them often. "

" I don't want to interview people for the purpose of developing a world view and pushing that on people. "

" I've always felt like an artistic person. I can't draw or paint or sculpt. I never really had technical skills, but I've always felt like I appreciate really beautiful things, and part of taking a good photograph is being able to recognize beauty. "

" A lot of the children I photograph are extremely colorfully dressed in some way. But I also find a lot of kids with outsized personalities or who happen to be doing something charming. "

" You know you are an artist if you appreciate beauty. "

" I always say that my favorite people to interview are the people who are at the beginning and the ends of their lives because they have two alternate perspectives of the world, and neither of them are less profound. "

" In July of 2010, I lost my finance job in Chicago. Instead of updating my resume and looking for a similar job, I decided to forget about money and have a go at something I truly enjoyed. I'd purchased a semi-professional camera earlier that year and spent my free time taking photos in downtown Chicago. "

" I am interviewing people with a spirit of genuine interest and compassion, and therefore, the general tone of the site is one of genuine interest and compassion. The moment that culture changes, 'Humans of New York' is no longer viable. "

" The most pivotal moments in people's lives revolve around emotions. Emotions make stories powerful. "

" Without social media, I'd probably just be a quirky, amateur photographer with a hard drive full of photos. I'd be cold calling respected publications, begging for a feature. "

" Each time I arrived in a new city, I'd get lost in the streets and photograph everything that looked interesting, taking nearly a thousand photographs every day. After each day of shooting, I'd select 30 or 40 of my favorite photographs and post them on Facebook. I named the albums after my first impression of each city. "

" I never know what kind of people I'll meet just by stopping to take a photo. "

" At some point during my travels, I had a slight change of focus which would end up defining the rest of my career. I began taking pictures of people. In addition to all the buildings, street signs and fire hydrants, I started photographing some of the interesting humans that passed by me on the street. "

" When you are interviewing refugees, each person you talk to has a different story that could come from a horror movie. So many people talk about seeing their families get murdered before their eyes. Then I go to Central Park, and people are talking about their third divorce and paying tuition. "

" Wherever I go, I just try to show normal life. If the work helps to dispel stereotypes, it's because I seek not to portray the extremities of a place, but the vast majority of people who are quite normal and are having normal life experiences. "

" My two biggest lessons learned as a trader are take risks and get comfortable with taking losses and setbacks to help move you forward. "

" Social media is a superimposing place where people are usually bragging. "

" Interviewing someone is a very proactive process and requires taking a lot of agency into your own hands to get past people's general normal self-preservation mode. "

" It's such a different spectrum of tragedies when you talk to people in developing countries. "

" I think that even though some of the things on 'Humans of New York' are kind of very personal and very revealing, I think the discomfort with sharing that tends to be overwritten by the appreciation of being able to distill the experience of your life into a story and share it with other people. "