A simple idea, a brilliant blog: The Humans of New York

A blog is a truncation of the term "weblog," referring to a catalog on the World Wide Web. The Humans of New York blog, also known as HONY, is a photo blog created by Brandon Stanton, who has dedicated his time and resources to recording the citizens of the metropolis. HONY is a catalogue of the inhabitants of New York with a small quote to give us a little peek into their lives. Stanton has taken over 6,000 portraits and gained 12.1 million followers since he started the blog in 2010.

Stanton, the mastermind behind this culturally rich and unique blog, is a 30-year-old, self-taught photographer who grew up in Atlanta and attended the University of Georgia. He eventually found himself in New York after things took a downward spiral at his job as a bond trader in Chicago. After losing his job he decided to pursue his love for photography and hit the streets of the Big Apple in order to give life to his project.

The project, or at least the very first steps of the project, started in 2010 and included taking photos of 10,000 New Yorkers and cataloguing them neighborhood by neighborhood. Stanton's aim was to create an archive and plot on a map where people could click a neighborhood and scroll through all the inhabitants of the area. In time, however, the plan changed, and Stanton started choosing people at random no matter where they were or what they were doing and photographing them in the moment. Soon after, HONY began to take on a much different character and quotes were added to the collection. Little bits of information and stories went hand in hand with the portraits in order to create a culturally diverse and dynamic photo blog.

Five years and over 12.1 million followers later, Stanton has managed to create a small window into the lives of New Yorkers. His accomplishments have been acknowledged and in 2013, Humans of New York won the Webby Award for Best Use of Photography and the People's Voice Award for Best Cultural Blog. In December 2013, Stanton was named one of Time Magazine's 30 People Under 30 Changing the World.

"Humans of New York" was published as a book and released on 15 October 2013. The book was based on Stanton's widely known blog of the same name and the book sold 30,000 copies in preorders and was on a fast track to becoming a best seller. In January 2015, the book had been on The New York Times Bestseller list for 28 weeks. The feedback on his first book gave Stanton the idea for a second. In an interview with CNN, Stanton reveled that his next release would be a children's book called "Little Humans," which was due to release the following year.

Since the recognition of his photo blog, there have been many spinoffs from the HONY blog. States and colleges in the U.S. began photo blogs with the same concept as HONY, making it a national trend. Eventually, these spinoffs created a worldwide trend as countries and cities all over the world have started photo blogs much like Stanton's. One of these countries was Turkey with a blog called Humans of Istanbul.

Much like Stanton's Humans of New York, Humans of Istanbul has photos and stories of random citizens of Istanbul. Though it is not as keen on updates as Stanton's blog and only has 7,600 likes on Facebook, it is still an interesting page to visit.

Information:

Follow Humans of New York on:

Website: www.humansofnewyork.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork

Instagram: @humansofny

You can also purchase the Humans of New York book on www.amazon.com for the reasonable price of $17.99 or on Kindle for $11.99