In the summer of 2010, Brandon Stanton found himself a laid

off bond trader with little more than a camera, a nascent love of
photography, and a desperate need to reorient his life. In just a
few years, he became one of the most vitalizing visual

storytellers and humanists of our time through Humans of New

York his labor-of-love project, which his mother first saw as a

thinly veiled attempt to avoid employment and which went on

to become a massive cultural phenomenon that moves millions

of hearts daily. It has transcended photography and blossomed
into something much larger, landing Brandon at the White

House on multiple occasions and moving the cultural dial on

issues ranging from public education to interfaith dialogue to the most urgent frontiers of
politics.

In his interview on Debbie Millmans Design Matters one of the worlds first and finest

podcasts Brandon traces the unlikely path that led him to Humans of New York and its global

emanations. What unfolds is a wonderfully wide-ranging conversation about serial obsessions,

depression, how community college changed his life, why he spent a year reading 100 pages of
great literature a day, what it takes to build a creative sensibility, the value of time not as a

means but as an end in itself, the dignity-conferring power of listening to strangers stories, and

the rich, complex, immensely nuanced nature of the human experience. Transcribed highlights
below.

Design Matters

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Brandon Stanton

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On how he went from the deeply introspective state in which depression had left him to being
someone who talks to thousands of strangers:

Being social is a learned skill Being social talking to people, communicating with
people is something that can be developed, just like any other skill, algebra or

spelling I was so scared when I fist started [Humans of New York] I was just terrified of
talking to strangers, I didnt know if it was something you could do. Now its second

nature. Talking to people or approaching anyone is something I dont even think about
its not something that I have to build up the courage to do. It was an earned skill.
On turning adversity into opportunity:
During the time I was working as a bond trader, all I was thinking about was the markets
I was just obsessed with it. But I didnt view myself as somebody who just wanted to

make money that wasnt my personal identity. I viewed myself as a creative person who
was going to build this cushion of security and then make a pivot and do creative things
that I love

Once I finally lost my job, I looked back on those two years and Id lost that time and I

didnt have any money to show for it. I thought that, more than the physical time, I needed
mental time I needed freedom of mind to do the things that I wanted to do. And so

[although] I was so afraid of getting fired, the day that I got fired was strangely relieving
I suddenly had all this thought-energy and I could start thinking about what I really

wanted to do It was through that thinking that Humans of New York eventually emerged.
[]
I was just looking for a way to photograph all day long because, remember, I had spent two
years thinking about nothing but money and I came out of that [wanting] to make just
enough money [so that] I can do exactly what I want to do all day long, and support

myself I had $600 coming in every two weeks from unemployment benefits and that

was enough to maybe pay my rent and eat about two meals a day. And so I lived in a room
in a sublet in Bed Stuy, which just had a mattress in the middle of the floor. There was no

furniture, nothing on the walls. I didnt go to bars, I didnt go to restaurants, I didnt go to

movies I didnt go to anything. All I did was photograph. So that mixed with a few
odd jobs, mixed with some loans from my friends was enough to keep me afloat for
about a year and a half.

On the development of his sensibility lest we forget, the great Agnes Martin asserted that
the development of sensibility is the most important thing through the incremental
transmutation of quantity into quality:

I taught myself to photograph I would find something I wanted to photograph like a

street sign, or graffiti, or whatever and I would photograph it 20 different ways, from 20
different angles, because I had no idea what I was trying to do. And then I would go home

and I would look at those 20 shots, and I would choose my favorite one. And through that,
I started to learn what it was that my aesthetic was drawn to what it was that I enjoyed.
And so, next time, Im not taking 20 photos Im taking 15, because I have a little bit
more of an idea, then ten, then five.

On time not as a means to some achievement-oriented end but as an end an invaluable

resource, or as Thomas Mann believed, the soul of existence in and of itself:

The whole bond trading experience made me realize the value of time as a resource.

Youre oriented to think of time as a means of accumulating not just accumulating

material things, but accumulating degrees or extracurricular activities or things that look
good in a job interview. We view our time as a means to accumulate things that will help
us reach our ends. [And yet time is] not only a resource itself, but the most valuable

resource you have is what you do with your time. [I decided to] say, Okay, Im going to put
that front and center, and Im going to not try to use my time to structure a life, but Im
going to put time front and center and try to make the decisions that are necessary to
where I completely own my time.

On taking the time to honor complexity and nuance amid a culture of black-and-white snap
judgments:

DEBBIE MILLMAN: Do people scare you with some of their stories do you hear things
that frighten you?

BRANDON STANTON: Its a good question. Theres a large range of human experience I

just went to five different federal prisons and I interviewed thirty inmates. I think that the

truth and this is a dangerous line to draw, because you get into moral relativism but I

think the truth is always exculpatory If you dig down into why this woman strangled this
11-year-old girl, you learn about her paranoid schizophrenia, which she didnt know was

schizophrenia she thought [there] were people talking to her. And then if you dig back
even further than that, you find out about the uncle who raped her every night, from the
age of seven to eleven. And you start to realize that these people are acting with the

information that they had about the world, and they were speaking in the language that
they knew.

And once you dig down to that level, everything can be explained.
DEBBIE MILLMAN: Its a very compassionate, very generous view of humanity.
BRANDON STANTON: And, its not a view that can be necessarily acted upon because
there needs to be

DEBBIE MILLMAN: what is excusable and what is forgivable.

BRANDON STANTON: Exactly. And you do need to draw those lines. You had

schizophrenia? Im sorry, you killed somebody [But] this is one thing this prison series

really opened up to me the schism in America between compassion and accountability,

and it is a schism that runs through every comment section I have where somebody
admits something [difficult].

Dive into Humans of New York online and in book form. Subscribe to Design Matters here and
revisit these ten fantastic interviews from the shows first decade.

Published March 15, 2016

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/15/humans-of-new-york-brandon-stanton-designmatters-interview/