Hey there. My name is Brandon and I began Humans of New York in the summer of 2010, shortly after leaving my job in Finance. (OK, I actually got fired.) I started HONY because 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. Somewhere along the way, I began to interview my subjects in addition to photographing them. And alongside their portraits, I’d include quotes and short stories from their lives.
Taken together, these portraits and captions became the subject of a vibrant blog. HONY now has over ten million followers on social media, and provides a worldwide audience with daily glimpses into the lives of strangers on the streets of New York City.
Continuing in the tradition of last summer, I’m going to be travelling during the month of August and posting stories from overseas. Only this time I’ll be visiting two countries instead of trying to span the world, because that was exhausting, and it also caused my poor senile dog to forget my existence. The first stop is Pakistan. Hope you enjoy.
“The most important thing about swimming is to not be afraid.”
“What advice do you have for people who are afraid?”
“Just don’t be afraid. Or you’ll drown.”
(Hunza Valley, Pakistan)
My heart literally sunk reading this..
“I left an abusive relationship and I have nowhere to go. I have Hepatitis C, so no one is willing to take me in. I don’t know how long I will live. I tried to give her up for adoption so that she’d have a good home. The wife of a minister told me about a place where I could drop her off. But when I got there, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.” (1/2)
