“Humans of New York began as a photography project in 2010.  The initial goal was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers on the street, and create an exhaustive catalogue of the city’s inhabitants.”

– Brandon Stanton

Stanton’s project, Humans of New York, involves photographing strangers and everyday people on the streets of New York. After a while, he began to interview his subjects in addition to photographing them, including quotes and short stories from their lives alongside their photographs, which he publishes on his blog and in two bestselling books, Humans of New York and Humans of New York: Stories. The blog now has over twenty million followers on social media; due to its success, it has also expanded to tell the stories of people from over twenty different countries, giving the audience a daily insight into the lives of strangers and people on the streets. I think this concept is really interesting as every single person on this earth has their own unique story, and it’s intriguing to see how our own lives differ or are similar to people from completely different backgrounds and countries, that we would otherwise know nothing about. I also feel that adding these captions and stories adds another dimension to the portrait photographs, as you are not only seeing the person’s outward appearance, but also learning something about their lives and personalities, too.

Below are some examples of Stanton’s work from this series: