The  ever-evolving  portrait  of  New  York  City  has  been

painted  through  Gotham’s  cats  and  its  dogs,  its  buildings

and  its  parks,  its  diaries  and  its  letters.  Underpinning  all  of

those,  of  course,  are  the  city’s  true  building  blocks:  its

humans.

In  the  summer  of  2010,  Brandon  Stanton  —  one  of  the

warmest,  most  talented  and  most  generous  humans  I  know

—  lost  his  job  as  a  bond  trader  in  Chicago  and  was  forced  to

make  new  light  of  his  life.  Having  recently  gotten  his  first

camera  and  fallen  in  love  with  photography,  he  decided  to

follow  that  fertile  combination  of  necessity  and  passion,  and,  to  his  parents’  terror  and

dismay,  set  out  to  pursue  photography  as  a  hobby-turned-vocation.  (For  his  mother,  who

saw  bond  trading  as  a  reputable  occupation,  photography  “seemed  like  a  thinly  veiled

attempt  to  avoid  employment.”)  Brandon  recalls:

I  had  enjoyed  my  time  as  a  trader.  The  job  was  challenging  and  stimulating.  And  I’d

obsessed  over  markets  in  the  same  way  I’d  later  obsess  over  photography.  But  the  end

goal  of  trading  was  always  money.  Two  years  of  my  life  were  spent  obsessing  over

money,  and  in  the  end  I  had  nothing  to  show  for  it.  I  wanted  to  spend  the  next  phaseof  my  life  doing  work  that  I  valued  as  much  as  the  reward.

In  photography,  he  found  that  rewarding  obsession.  Approaching  it  with  the  pricelessfreshness  of  Beginner’s  Mind,  he  brought  to  his  new  calling  the  gift  of  ignorance  and  an  artof  seeing  untainted  by  the  arrogance  of  expertise,  hungry  to  make  sense  of  the  worldthrough  his  lens  as  he  made  sense  of  his  own  life.  And  make  he  did:  Brandon,  who  quicklyrealized  that  “the  best  way  to  become  a  photographer  was  to  start  photographing,”  set  outon  a  photo  tour  across  several  major  American  cities,  beginning  in  Pittsburgh  and  endingup  in  New  York  City,  where  he  had  only  planned  to  spend  a  week  but  where  he  found  bothhis  new  home  and  his  new  calling.

And  so,  in  a  beautiful  embodiment  of  how  to  find  your  purpose  and  do  what  you  love,Brandon’s  now-legendary  online  project  documenting  Gotham’s  living  fabric  was  born  —at  first  a  humble  Facebook  page,  which  blossomed  into  one  of  today’s  most  popularphotojournalism  blogs  with  millions  of  monthly  readers.  Now,  his  photographic  census  ofthe  world’s  most  vibrant  city  spills  into  the  eponymous  offline  masterpiece  Humans  of

New  York  (public  library)  —  a  magnificent  mosaic  of  lives  constructed  through  fourhundred  of  Brandon’s  expressive  and  captivating  photos,  many  never  before  featuredonline.

These  portraits  —  poignant,  poetic,  playful,  heartbreaking,  heartening  —  dance  across  theentire  spectrum  of  the  human  condition  not  with  the  mockingly  complacent  lens  of  afreak-show  gawker  but  with  the  affectionate  admiration  and  profound  respect  that  onehuman  holds  for  another.

In  the  age  of  the  aesthetic  consumerism  of  visual  culture  online,  HONY  stands  as  a  warm

beacon  of  humanity,  gently  reminding  us  that  every  image  is  not  a  disposable  artifact  to  be

used  as  social  currency  but  a  heart  that  beat  in  the  blink  of  the  shutter,  one  that  will

continue  to  beat  with  its  private  turbulence  of  daily  triumphs  and  tribulations  even  as  we

move  away  from  the  screen  or  the  page  to  resume  our  own  lives.

The  captions,  some  based  on  Brandon’s  interviews  with  the  subjects  and  others  an

unfiltered  record  of  his  own  observations,  add  a  layer  of  thought  to  the  visual  story:  One

photograph,  depicting  two  elderly  gentlemen  intimately  leaning  into  each  other  on  a  park

bench,  reads:  “It  takes  a  lot  of  disquiet  to  achieve  this  sort  of  quiet  comfort.”  Another,

portraying  a  very  old  gentleman  in  a  wheelchair  with  matching  yellow  sneakers,  shorts,

and  baseball  cap,  surprises  us  by  revealing  that  this  is  Banana  George,  world  record-holder

as  the  oldest  barefoot  water-skier.

Some  are  full  of  humor:

Damn  liberal  arts  degree.

Something  horrible  has  happened  to  Elmo.

Others  are  hopelessly  charming:

I’m  eighty  years  old.  An  eighty-six-year-old  man  was  just  speaking  to  me  in  a

flirtatious  manner,  I  believe.  But  his  daughter  pulled  him  away.

flirtatious  manner,  I  believe.  But  his  daughter  pulled  him  away.

When  I  walked  by,  she  was  really  moving  to  the  music  —  hands  up,  head  nodding,shoulders  swinging.  I  really  wanted  to  take  her  photo,  so  I  walked  up  to  the  nearestadult  and  asked:  “Does  she  belong  to  you?”

Suddenly  the  music  stopped,  and  I  heard:  “I  belong  to  myself!”

Others  still  are  humbling  and  soul-stirring:

My  wife  passed  away  a  few  years  back.  Her  name  was  Barbara,  I  used  to  call  her  Ba.My  name  was  Lawrence,  she  used  to  call  me  La.  When  she  died,  I  changed  my  nameto  Bala.

I  stepped  inside  an  Upper  West  Side  nursing  home,  and  met  this  man  in  the  lobby.  He

was  on  his  way  to  deliver  a  yellow  teddy  bear  to  his  wife.  “I  visit  her  every  day,”  he

said.  “Even  when  the  mind  is  gone,  the  heart  shows  through.”

Then  there  are  the  city’s  favorite  tropes:  Its  dogs…

…and  its  bikes…

I’m  ninety  years  old  and  I  ride  this  thing  around  everywhere.  I  don’t  see  why  more

people  don’t  use  them.  I  carry  my  cane  in  the  basket,  I  get  all  my  shopping  done.  I  can

go  everywhere.  I’ve  never  hit  anyone  and  never  been  hit.  Of  course,  I  ride  on  the

sidewalk,  which  I  don’t  think  I’m  supposed  to  do,  but  still…

…and  the  deuce  delight  of  dogs  on  bikes:

Above  all,  however,  there  is  something  especially  magical  about  framing  these  moments

of  stillness  and  of  absolute  attention  to  the  individual  amidst  this  bustling  city  of  millions,

a  city  that  never  sleeps  and  never  stops.

Whatever  your  geographic  givens,  Humans  of  New  York  is  an  absolute  masterpiece  ofcultural  celebration,  both  as  vibrant  visual  anthropology  and  as  a  meta-testament,  by  wayof  Brandon’s  own  story,  to  the  heartening  notion  that  this  is  indeed  a  glorious  age  in  whichwe  can  make  our  own  luck  and  make  a  living  doing  what  we  love.

Find  more  such  daily  mesmerism  on  the  Humans  of  New  York  site,  then  complement  andcontrast  it  with  this  photographic  census  of  the  world’s  last  living  nomads.

—Published  October  15,  2013  —https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/10/15/humans-of-new-york-brandon-stanton-book/  —