Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York, published by St. Martin’s Press (2013) is one of the best books I have read in several years. He and his camera have roamed the five boroughs of New York and dozens of his more memorable encounters are in the book.
What we have in this recent blog post are his photographs of four of the people he encountered while roaming around during his visit to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.
“I’m studying to be a civil engineer. Congo needs everything: bridges, roads, buildings, wells. The country is like a workshop.”
“I’m studying law. My dream is to be a judge one day. Too many people in this country are only in prison because they were too poor to defend themselves. When I’m a judge, I’ll look only at the facts, and not at the person.”
She said she’d let me take her photo if I bought some peanuts from her. Afterward, I asked if she could remember the saddest moment of her life. She laughed, and said: “You’re going to need to buy some more peanuts.”
“What is your biggest dream?”
“To have my own house. With two stories.”
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To visit Brandon’s award-winning website and learn more about him, please click here.
To check out his book, Humans of New York, please click here.