Brandon Stanton

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.

It's a very immersive and intense form of travel to walk around with an interpreter and stop random people on the street and ask them about their lives.

Interviewing someone is a very proactive process and requires taking a lot of agency into your own hands to get past people's general normal self-preservation mode.

At some point during my travels, I had a slight change of focus which would end up defining the rest of my career. I began taking pictures of people. In addition to all the buildings, street signs and fire hydrants, I started photographing some of the interesting humans that passed by me on the street.

My two biggest lessons learned as a trader are take risks and get comfortable with taking losses and setbacks to help move you forward.

I've always felt like an artistic person. I can't draw or paint or sculpt. I never really had technical skills, but I've always felt like I appreciate really beautiful things, and part of taking a good photograph is being able to recognize beauty.

Being a doctor, lawyer in war-torn countries isn't easy when the infrastructure isn't there. The money, the food and education is not always accessible to achieve those dreams.

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.

I think it's important to try to get on a kid's level when taking their photo.

I think everyone feels alone in their sadness, and there's a certain value to hearing other people's sad stories.

Everybody asks, 'What does 'Humans of New York' mean?' and I always say that I try to avoid putting any kind of message in the work even if it is a positive or optimistic message. The moment you do that, you're looking for certain people and words that fit into the world view you are trying to show, and it becomes preachy.

I always say that my favorite people to interview are the people who are at the beginning and the ends of their lives because they have two alternate perspectives of the world, and neither of them are less profound.