When I meet somebody in the street who knows about ‘Humans of New York,’ a lot of times they might have a scripted answer, and that scripted answer is the first thing to come out of their mouth. – Brandon Stanton
Somebody’s willingness to let me photograph them, and willingness to tell me a story, has nothing to do with the words I say. It all has to do with the energy I’m giving off, which hopefully is very genuine, very interested energy. It’s just two people having a conversation in the street. I think that’s where genuine content comes from. – Brandon Stanton
I struck upon this kind of crazy idea that I was going to go to New York and stop 10,000 people on the streets and take their portrait and create kind of a photographic census of the city. – Brandon Stanton
It’s a very immersive and intense form of travel to walk around with an interpreter and stop random people on the street and ask them about their lives. – Brandon Stanton
I think that even though some of the things on ‘Humans of New York’ are kind of very personal and very revealing, I think the discomfort with sharing that tends to be overwritten by the appreciation of being able to distill the experience of your life into a story and share it with other people. – Brandon Stanton
It’s such a different spectrum of tragedies when you talk to people in developing countries. – Brandon Stanton
It’s the rejection that is hard. It’s not the interviewing that’s hard. It’s not the photography that’s hard. It’s, you know, approaching people all day long and having a good portion of those people reject you and some of them be rude. – Brandon Stanton
As an artist in the 21st century, my two goals are to make the best work that I can, improve as much as I can, and to distribute that work as far as I can. – Brandon Stanton
Fortunately, I’ve done so many interviews that I’ve become very good at detecting when someone is giving a less-than-candid reply. – Brandon Stanton
Without social media, I’d probably just be a quirky, amateur photographer with a hard drive full of photos. I’d be cold calling respected publications, begging for a feature. – Brandon Stanton
My interviews are very pointed. I’m an active participant; I will kindly interrupt people. But I’ve learned there is nothing people won’t tell you if you ask in a compassionate and legitimately interested way. – Brandon Stanton
I’ve always felt like an artistic person. I can’t draw or paint or sculpt. I never really had technical skills, but I’ve always felt like I appreciate really beautiful things, and part of taking a good photograph is being able to recognize beauty. – Brandon Stanton
My two biggest lessons learned as a trader are take risks and get comfortable with taking losses and setbacks to help move you forward. – Brandon Stanton
‘Humans of New York’ is basically somebody walking up to absolute strangers on the street every day and, within minutes, talking with them about very personal things. Some things they haven’t even told their best friends or family members. – Brandon Stanton
I don’t want to interview people for the purpose of developing a world view and pushing that on people. – Brandon Stanton
I always say that my favorite people to interview are the people who are at the beginning and the ends of their lives because they have two alternate perspectives of the world, and neither of them are less profound. – Brandon Stanton
The most pivotal moments in people’s lives revolve around emotions. Emotions make stories powerful. – Brandon Stanton
When you are interviewing refugees, each person you talk to has a different story that could come from a horror movie. So many people talk about seeing their families get murdered before their eyes. Then I go to Central Park, and people are talking about their third divorce and paying tuition. – Brandon Stanton
Whenever you get a large body of work like ‘Humans of New York,’ a natural pathway becomes to put it between two covers. I wanted this to be a very nice keepsake. A lot of work went into it, and a lot of fans are attached to it. – Brandon Stanton
Of all the places I’ve been, India is the one that’s on the top of my list to return to. – Brandon Stanton
I was making projections about ‘Humans of New York,’ back when I had zero followers, that made all my friends and family roll their eyes. I’d throw out these huge numbers: ‘One day, a million people are gonna be looking at this. Trust me.’ And even those wild, wild numbers I was throwing out have just been smashed. So, it’s a good feeling. – Brandon Stanton
