“Humans of New York” – The story behind all those stories

We live by telling stories. They are what makes life interesting, they are what show how uniquely different each one of us is but how intrinsically the same we are at the same time. Brandon Stanton, the creator of “Humans of New York” (“HONY”) was insightful and motivated enough to collect these stories that we all carry around with us and has, as a result, developed one of the most beautiful and creative photo-blogs ever.

29-year-old Brandon Stanton grew up in Atlanta and attended the University of Georgia and later went to New York after a short spell as a bond trader in Chicago. As a self-taught photographer, he travelled around New York City in 2010 and walked through the streets everyday taking portraits of complete strangers, originally just posting them on his Facebook profile. Today, he has collected over 6000 pictures of people he has met in the city.

He initially aimed to collect photographs with captions only in his first year of starting the blog but after starting to converse with his subjects; he began to include quotes with the photos that he posted. Stanton travels daily from his home in Brooklyn to shoot for about 4 hours before posting the images on his blog later. Today, “Humans of New York” has developed an incredible following on social media and has over 3,2 million followers on Facebook just waiting for him to upload more images.

The blog has become so popular and successful that a “Humans of New York” book was compiled in October 2013 and from the inspiration of “HONY”, hundreds of spinoff blogs have been created around the world.

When Stanton started “HONY”, he just thought it would be a really cool idea to create an extensive database of the people walking through the streets of New York. But today it has turned into much more. The blog has become a work of art that has managed to capture the inexhaustible beauty of people and the stories they carry around. He has also written about 50 short stories inspired by the people he has met along this journey. “Humans of New York” started with a simple but inspired idea that has grown, and is still growing, into a collection of something great and spectacular.

Janay Manning : Project Exposure Q&A

1.How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
This question reminds me of 'Midnight in Paris'. I would be exactly the same, the actual number is purely for administrative purposes.


2.If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
The work I do now. I get to make more than 60 people happy everyday and I feel like a million dollars!

3.If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
Be patient.

4.What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
My hair!

5.What are you most grateful for?
My life and the people in it who love and accept me for being a loon.

6.Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
No!

7.What do you do in life?
In life I get to make everyone happy from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. It's magic.

8.What did you enjoy most about your Top 10 shoot?
Being myself, being creative, everyone getting dirty and enjoying Lee complain about having to do manual labour It was also my first time having someone else take pictures of me and it was so easy not to feel like a weirdo seducing the lense with rock star awesomeness!

9.Which is your favourite part of the winning prize?
Umm the whole prize!

10.Why should you win Project Exposure?
I am different. In look, style and attitude and that's exactly why I entered. Durban has this semi-blinded view that girls need to look a certain way to be beautiful, I want to turn that opinion on its head! You can be yourself and by loving it others will follow suit. Confidence is the Kublai Khan!!! We have scores of talented designers with looks that belong on an international level and it's time models step up to the plate, dare to be different, sell designs and push the envelope - the whole world is! I should win because the judges have all said they're looking for someone unique, hi my name Janay Manning, it's a pleasure to meet you.


Please note: All answers were copy pasted from direct messages sent to each candidate via facebook.