Behind the world-famous Instagram profile @HumansofNY is 37-year-old Brandon Stanton, who took risks when he had nothing to lose.
It all began in December 2010, when Brandon, until then a financial trader for a company in Chicago, lost his job and found himself alone with his Canon EOS 7D.
He knew in his heart that he couldn’t go back to Atlanta, so he decided to move to New York to give voice to a passion he had jealously guarded, a project that only his camera knew about.
The idea was very simple: to make 10,000 portraits in New York, creating what we now know as Humans Of New York. Brandon recounts his first six months in the Big Apple as the saddest and loneliest, where he couldn’t afford television and this prompted him to look around to understand the news, to find out what was happening in the world.
During a TedTalk at Columbia College, the American photographer recounts, through simple questions and answers, the main themes that attract people to a story. These are violence, sex, conflict, danger and animals.
Through this reasoning, he understands where to focus his work: while all photographers will go looking for the story that makes the most noise, Brandon will choose to give voice and portrait to the person who goes unnoticed, but who has something to say.
It will be this attitude and gentle manner that will fascinate users and create a bond and, later on, a very strong social community.
His popularity began to grow as his blog filled up with astonished, sleepy, happy and angry faces and their stories, hinted at sentences, amusing and heartbreaking anecdotes.
These are life stories that the New York photographer began to collect in his blog, Humans of New York, which make web users dream, think and reflect.
The centre of discussion is no longer just the photo, Brandon Stanton becomes a storyteller who tells everyday stories in a simple, direct way through his passion.
His modus operandi is always the same: he approaches a person, explains his project, asks if he can take a photo and exchanges a few jokes. At the beginning they were simple phrases, but as he got to know and meet new people he started to use his visibility to give vent to difficult situations, to invisible ethnic minorities.
The difference is that year after year, he goes further and further away from America.
Arriving in Europe, Asia and Australia. Brandon Stanton became a recognisable brand, thanks also to a personal branding developed over the years.
In the last period, as you can well imagine, it has become difficult to continue his project, which has so far seen the publication of two books that have become bestsellers in a very short time: Humans of New York and Humans. The latter, says Brandon, collected everything he could tell, all his energies were channelled into this 437-page book, the result of five years of travelling around the world.
Because of the pandemic, however, he had to reinvent his work, like everything else in the world. So he decided to open an email dedicated to HONY stories and invited, via his social channels, anyone who wanted to tell a bit about himself to write to him directly.
At first, the FaceTime interviews raised a lot of doubts for him, as he was afraid of losing the spontaneity and a bit of randomness that reigned supreme on the streets of the cities he visited, but never before had people needed to tell their stories and let off steam with someone who was there to listen.
So he decided to continue telling the adventures, thoughts and worries of as many people as possible.
People feel safe, they know they can open up to him and his camera lens.
Two great pillars on which this project is based are diversity and inclusion.
Alongside the story of a young Mexican father who struggles every day to ensure a better future for his children, we can find the outburst of a young girl who decides to be strong and get out of a difficult situation on her own and get back to living.
Brandon knows that in the world there are not only stories with happy endings, but he decides to give voice to everything that can inspire others to do their best, to choose generosity instead of selfishness, to hope for a better future.
Dajana Mrruku
