Monthly Archives: October 2015

Humans of New York was a blog started by Brandon Stanton in 2010, initially focusing on gathering photos of New Yorkers. Soon, however, his project evolved into mini snapshots of people’s lives.

It’s not just the words that tell the story, but the pictures themselves. Like a snowflake, no two pictures are the same, crating a massive canvas of color and life with just the click of a button. Each photograph holds so many stories, ones that are always itching to be told. With his photography, Brandon provides each of theses individuals with the opportunity to tell the world, sharing a little bit of their life stories, creating an endless stream of heartache, loss, love, and hope that manages to connect everybody in one way or another. These photos create an intimacy within this big, wide world allowing people not only to react to the photos, but to react to the responses of the photos. Each picture posted brings on an onslaught of support, a sharing of stories, and a felling of closeness that isn’t always found in a traditional family photograph. Autobiographies are a way for people to tell their whole life stories, giving people a blow by blow of incredible events that made them who they are today. The most popular stories, in the Western societies, are told by people who have changed the world one way or another, allowing the readers to relate to someone who is generally otherwise not relatable. We read the story, but we don’t always get to feel the same rapport as we do with Brandon’s photos. In his, we see the passion in each little boy’s voice as he so proudly comes home form school. We see the ambition in the little girl’s eyes as they tell us their dreams. We see the joy, and also the sadness, in the faces of the men and women who allow us to see just a little bit into their elaborate tales of life. Every person we see on the street is a mystery, but with the sharing of these photos and stories, the world doesn’t seem that big anymore.

She was answering my questions in English, while speaking to her mother in Japanese, so I remarked how impressive it was that she spoke two languages already. “Well her father is Russian,” said the mom, “so she speaks that too.”

I’ve been to enough bookstores to know exactly where I want to look for my new favorite book. Always at the front they have the new releases, the best sellers, and the on sale books all in fancy displays. Usually, I walk right through and off to the left as I head for the juicy, stereotypical, teenage heart throbs: fiction. Yet today, as I painfully kept walking past my go-to safe haven, I noticed that the different types of advertising that big companies go through for their products is incredible. Pretty displays, similar color themes, popular authors, bestsellers, all of theses techniques are used to catch the eye of the innocent passerby.

While perusing through these many books, I happened to stumble across Bossypants, by Tina Fey. The first thing that always makes me laugh when I come across this amazing woman’s book, is the image of her freakishly hairy man hands. Women’s images are so important to society nowadays, that when we see photos that don’t depict the “perfect body”, it’s, sadly, almost shocking. However, if you know anything about Tina, you would know that those are a perfect representation of her strong, comedic self. With gel letters and a bright background, this book is an attention grabber. In case you can’t recognize this famous icon’s face, which is dead center of the cover, her name is plastered directly over head, making it impossible to miss. As one may have assumed, many different editions have been printed of this fabulously entertaining autobiography, all of which have very positive blurbs from well known News Papers and Editors, with “International Bestseller” or “#1 National Bestseller” posted across the top.

It’s the publisher’s job to make the book sell. The author writes it, the publisher makes it look fancy, and the companies sell it. Teen fiction books have the love struck kids with their faces tantalizingly close. Horror has the dead girl with some blood on her white dress. Depending on which life narrative you pick up, you might see a familiar face, or a safe, light colored background advertising just how great this book really is. Bookstores are like a tree, and each leaf is different.