Do you know about “Humans of New York”?

If you are not familiar with this, I’ll let Brandon explain in his own words

“I began Humans of New York in the summer of 2010. 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. I worked for several months with this goal in mind, but somewhere along the way, HONY began to take on a much different character. I started collecting quotes and short stories from the people I met, and began including these snippets alongside the photographs. Taken together, these portraits and captions became the subject of a vibrant blog. With over eight million followers on social media, HONY now provides a worldwide audience with daily glimpses into the lives of strangers in New York City. It has also become a #1 NYT bestselling book. It’s been quite a ride so far.”

I have been following HONY for a while and enjoy the range of NY people that he includes, all ages, all backgrounds, happy and sad lives. The kids are great. Here is the snippet of one little boy who has the biggest smile … “Two days ago at school we learned how to play a game called chest. You have horses and pawns and bishops and castles, and you’re supposed to steal other peoples’ places by squirting your pawn diagonal and eating their pieces. If anyone else wants to learn chest, I’ll teach them.”

The reason I am writing about HONY now, is more serious.

Brandon occasionally ventures beyond New York. He is currently in Europe, photographing and talking to refugees. Their stories are heroic and heartbreaking.

As the human face of the refugee crisis seems to have faded from daily news, I wanted to share HONY and the snippets of these ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

You can follow HONY on Facebook and Twitter but also on his blog at
humansofnewyork.com

Please take a little time to read some of the HONY posts. Thank you.