Man behind ‘Humans of New York’ is visiting Pakistan in August

LAHORE: Renowned American photographer-turned- philanthropist, Brandon Stanton, the man behind the best-selling photo blog “Humans of New York,” is due to land in Pakistan next month.
The “Humans of New York” is a globally-acclaimed collection of over 10,000 street portraits and interviews, which currently has over 13.7 million followers on Facebook and over 3.5 million fans on Instagram, an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service.
The 35-year old Atlanta-based Brandon, a graduate of the University of Georgia, claims his portraits studded with interesting and spicy captions provide a worldwide audience daily glimpse into the lives of strangers walking on the streets of New York City.
He says he had conversations with most of his subjects and has thus printed short stories alongside his photographs. Brandon had started the “Humans of New York” project in November 2010 shortly after leaving his job as a bond trader in Chicago.
After he had lost his job, he had started to take candid portraits on the New York streets, an idea that soon became a hit on his Facebook page.He has added interesting quotes and short stories with these portraits, also published in a form of a book and has already sold 30,000 copies as preorders.
In December 2013, he was named as one of the prestigious Time Magazine’s “30 Under-30 people changing the world.” As of January 20, 2015, the book had been on the “New York Times Bestseller list” for 28 weeks, reaching the number 1 position on “The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Sellers” of 2013.
(Reference: The November 6, 2013 edition of the New York Times)The “Humans of New York” has won the 2013 Webby Award for “Best use of photography” and the People’s Voice Award for “Best Cultural Blog.”
In December 2012, Stanton had spent two weeks collecting street portraits in Iran and on August 7, 2014, he had embarked on a 50-day “World Tour” in partnership with the United Nations.
During this tour, he visited 12 countries collecting portraits and stories along the way. Countries on this trip included Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Congo, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ukraine, India, Nepal, Vietnam and Mexico.
Early this year, Stanton had photographed and interviewed a 14-year-old boy Vidal from a locality with the worst crime rate in New York City, and had decided to set up a fundraiser that would provide each incoming Sixth grade of the Motts Hall Bridges Academy (where Vidal studied against all odds) a chance to visit the Harvard University.
The fundraiser had managed to accumulate a sum of $1,419,509 in donations from 51,476 contributors.As a result of this successful campaign, Brandon Stanton, the 14-year old Vidal and his teacher Mrs. Nadia Lopez were invited to visit the White House on February 5, 2015 to meet President Obama.
(Reference: CNN)
One of Brandon’s photographs of a young Korean woman living in New York has this caption: “I had a nanny named Carmela Geribelli. She was a Sicilian woman who lived across the hall from me at my apartment building in Queens. We lived in 2B and she lived in 2M. My parents were always working so I’d live with her during the week. She always had me pick her horse when she bet on the races. And whenever something bad happened, for some reason, she’d scream: ‘Shit on toast!’ All my extended family lived in Korea, so I even called her ‘Grandmother.’ I’d spend every Christmas with my Korean family, and every Christmas Eve I’d spend with my Italian family across the hall.”
Portrait of a small girl was given this caption: “Today in microfashion...”
Portrait of a sad young boy bears this caption: “My mom passed away when I was 9, and I didn’t really take her last years very seriously. Most of the time when we went to visit her at the hospital, I thought it was boring, so I’d just go in the other room and watch cartoons. It sounds stupid, but I never knew she was dying because she promised me we’d go fishing.”
Portrait of a bald young man suffering from “Alopecia” states: “Alopecia is a weird disease to wrap your head around. It causes your immune system to turn against your body, and your hair falls out. I used to have a big blond for that was a big part of my identity. It was hard to not get depressed when it disappeared. I started to think: ‘What value do I have if even my body doesn’t like itself?’ As I lost more and more hair, I kept trying to comb my remaining hair over my bald spots. Eventually I had to embrace it. On my 20th birthday, I decided that instead of having a bunch of little bald spots that I don’t like, I’m going to give myself one big one that I do like.”
Photograph of an elderly couple sitting on a garden bench is given this caption: “I like to organize clubs. I’ve started three of them. The first one is called the SWANK Club, which stands for ‘Second Wives and No Kids.’ That one is self-explanatory. After that, I started the ‘M’ Club. That one is all women with names that start with ‘M.’ Right now it’s me, Marilyn, Mary, and Maureen. We meet on Mondays and go to restaurants that start with ‘M.’ Then, there’s the Adventure Club. I started that one with my friend Bonnie because she couldn’t be in the SWANK Club or the M Club.”
Photo of a bespectacled young woman in Navy Blue skirts bears this caption: “I grew up very religious, and I was taught to think that people with alternative lifestyles were just ‘confused.’ But now it seems to me that gender and sexuality are so bendable and flexible. I’ve been going to a lot of poetry readings lately, and people present themselves in such raw forms. And they don’t seem confused at all. They are being so honest and transparent in their poetry. How are you supposed to object and say that ‘who they are’ is wrong?”