Humans of New York is an amazing blog that features photos of New Yorkers along with quotes from brief interviews with them conducted by the photographer.
On the site the photographer writes, "My name is Brandon and I began Humans of New York in the summer of 2010. I thought it would be really cool to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants, so I set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map. I worked for several months with this goal in mind, but somewhere along the way, HONY began to take on a much different character.
I started collecting quotes and short stories from the people I met, and began including these snippets alongside the photographs. Taken together, these portraits and captions became the subject of a vibrant blog.
With over eight million followers on social media, HONY now provides a worldwide audience with daily glimpses into the lives of strangers in New York City. It has also become a #1 NYT bestselling book.. It’s been quite a ride so far. Feel free to follow along."
At the moment he's geting photos and quotes from Africa, but at the site mainly you will see photos and quotes from New Yorkers. Some of them are hilarious, some are touching, and some are heart-breaking. Here are just two samples:
"I told the truth on my job application about my past drug use, and they sent me a letter saying I didn't meet their standards of integrity."
"My mom committed suicide when I was ten. I’ll never forget the day we went to foster care. It was the last day of third grade. I was riding home on the bus with my brother, and I was so excited about meeting my friend later at the YMCA. But when we got home, all of our stuff was packed into boxes. My dad was sitting on the stairwell, crying. He wouldn’t tell us what was going on. He just told us that we had to leave. For the first couple years of foster care, he’d tell us every week that he was about to come get us. After awhile we stopped believing him.”
When you go to the site be prepared to give it a couple of hours--it'll be well worth it.
