Photographer Brandon Stanton w/One of His NYC Subjects
Larger than life cities like NYC have always fascinated, intrigued, and intimidated me. Sure, it’s the constant hum and buzz — 24 hours around the clock — the traffic jams, the East Coast ‘tude (although, I am from Boston, so I am no stranger to the beloved disposition of the right coast). The factor that is the most mystifying about NYC is its sheer, massive population: 8 million people.
Hula Hooping Violinist in Central Park
Who are all of these people? I try to visualize 8 million individuals, and it inevitably turns into an indecipherable gaggle of humanity — 8 million might as well be infinity. I’d say this visualization can’t be done.
But one particular photographer is changing just that.
One of my very lovely friends from college, Jessica Hamilton, introduced me to Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York,a site that proudly displays thousands of New Yorker portraits. Brandon’s original idea was to construct a photographic census of New York City. He set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map.
Kids beating the summer heat in the Lower East Side
The project had other plans, however, when Brandon started to collect quotes and short stories from the people he met through his project. The current site has resulted in what was previously inconceivable: actually showing — in the most beautiful of ways – what 8 million vibrant, unique, individual people who live in New York — actually do look like.
Check out the following video of Stanton, roaming around NYC to find new subjects for his site:
********************
Did you like this story? Please help spread the word about these thoughtful people — you can:
1) Like/Share this post using the buttons below
2) Subscribe via e-mail or RSS feed for updates of new posts (also on right sidebar)
Cheers!
