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.
I've got 50,000 Facebook fans inside of Iran, and Facebook is banned in Iran. I think the people who follow 'Humans of New York' the most after New York City is Tehran. I have a really special affection for the Persian people because they've really taken to my work.
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.
The most pivotal moments in people's lives revolve around emotions. Emotions make stories powerful.
I am interviewing people with a spirit of genuine interest and compassion, and therefore, the general tone of the site is one of genuine interest and compassion. The moment that culture changes, 'Humans of New York' is no longer viable.
I think everyone feels alone in their sadness, and there's a certain value to hearing other people's sad stories.
'Humans of New York' did not result from a flash on inspiration. It grew from five years of experimenting, tinkering, and messing up.
I never know what kind of people I'll meet just by stopping to take a photo.
It's such a different spectrum of tragedies when you talk to people in developing countries.
I don't want to interview people for the purpose of developing a world view and pushing that on people.
I am a huge fan of biographies. What I'm always looking for is a story. I want a story I have never heard from anyone else.
You know you are an artist if you appreciate beauty.
If I had sat around and waited until I had an idea to be a successful photographer, I would still be in finance.
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.
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.
The interviews have gotten much longer with 'Humans of New York.' When I was first starting, I was just photographing people. And then I went to just kind of including a quote or two. Now when I'm approaching somebody on the street, I'm spending about 30 to 45 minutes with them often.
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.
In July of 2010, I lost my finance job in Chicago. Instead of updating my resume and looking for a similar job, I decided to forget about money and have a go at something I truly enjoyed. I'd purchased a semi-professional camera earlier that year and spent my free time taking photos in downtown Chicago.
Each time I arrived in a new city, I'd get lost in the streets and photograph everything that looked interesting, taking nearly a thousand photographs every day. After each day of shooting, I'd select 30 or 40 of my favorite photographs and post them on Facebook. I named the albums after my first impression of each city.
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.
