Humans of New York

"If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't change a thing."

It seems like a such a simple idea. Take pictures of people on the streets of New York City, ask them questions and write down their responses. Then, put the pictures with the questions and answers on a blog. Anybody could do that, right? Well, if I did something like that (change Cape Cod for New York City), it wouldn't be nearly as interesting nor garner as many viewers. You should try going to Humans of New York and see for yourself. But you have probably done that already. As usual, I think I'm late finding this site.

As you can see from the example picture and caption I've posted here, the pictures combine with the stories perfectly. They make you wonder what the back story is. What is going to happen to this person in the future? Are the people in the picture OK? Do they have any friends? The stories and pictures are sometimes joyous and sometimes sad. They can be uplifting or depressing. How do some of these people get along in life? Sometimes you wish you could follow them to find out how everything works out. In this sense, the captions that accompany the pictures remind me of the six-word stories I wrote about in my "This is the story..." post years ago. So much wonder in such a short space.

Some of the subjects are the kind of people I wouldn't like if I met them. Many of their opinions differ what what I think. Some of the people are just out-and-out wrong about things - at least according to me! But they are fascinating. It opens up your world a bit. If I did ever meet these people, I think it would be interesting to discuss their ideas with them. There are people there that I think I could help and there are others who could help me. There are people I'd rather avoid and people I would love to meet and learn more about. As a Christian, it makes me appreciate what Jesus did and said about our neighbors. Whether we like them or not, we should love them all. They are all loved by God, after all, and deserve our respect. But it does make me realize how, "Love thy neighbor," is both a responsibility and a privilege. It is easy in some cases and hard in others. But it is not an option. It's a requirement:

"Owe nothing to anyone - except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments say, 'You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.' These - and other such commandments - are summed up in this one commandment: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law". Romans 13:8-10 New Living Translation

The owner of the "Humans of New York" site, Brandon Stanton, is talented in both his photography and his interviewing. Where does he get his ability to walk up to perfect strangers, ask to take a picture and get them to open up so readily?  His shots are usually posed and he photographs and composes the picture well. He asks a lot of the same questions to different people but how differently the people answer his similar questions is part of the fun. There is also a book appropriately titled Humans of New York. But the blog is free and updated almost every day. It's great fun and you will learn a lot about people. And yourself.

[Update: For those of you who use Facebook, there is an entry for Humans of New York there, too, at this link. It lets you read the comments others have made on the pictures. I suppose it lets you make comments if you belong to Facebook. I don't. Also, I just noticed, it doesn't seem like you get to see all of the pictures like you do on the blog site: http://www.humansofnewyork.com/]