Brandon Stanton

Humans of New York' did not result from a flash on inspiration. It grew from five years of experimenting, tinkering, and messing up.

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.

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.

I'm not even really attempting to brand myself outside of 'Humans of New York.' I think part of the reason for my success is that I've put my ego aside and said I'm not going to put all of my effort into trying to promote myself. I'm going to try to promote my work and am going to try to promote my project.

I've done commercial work for Amtrak. However, that was branded as Stanton. I stipulated at the very beginning that it was not going to involve 'Humans of New York,' that I wasn't going to promote it on 'Humans of New York.' So nobody who follows me really even knows that I did it.

As an artist in the 21st century, my two goals are to make the best work that I can, improve as much as I can, and to distribute that work as far as I can.

The media chooses to portray the most extreme and violent aspects of a place. I do the opposite and portray the normality.

Social media is a superimposing place where people are usually bragging.

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.

Humans of New York' is basically somebody walking up to absolute strangers on the street every day and, within minutes, talking with them about very personal things. Some things they haven't even told their best friends or family members.

Humans of New York' wasn't the result of a fully finished idea that I thought of and then executed; it was an evolution. There were hundreds of tiny evolutions that came from me loving photography.