Humans of New York has become a global phenomenon, with more than 12 million fans on Facebook, multiple book deals, and a partnership with the UN. Street photographer Brandon Stanton, the project's creator, inspired "Humans" pages around the world, from Paris to Tehran to Bangalore.
In Brazil, there are four major Humans spin-offs in Rio, São Paulo, Curitiba, and Recife, with several other smaller pages in those cities. I was curious to find out who's behind the Brazilian Humans projects, so I exchanged emails with the creators and team members of these pages.
Humans of São Paulo
I am 19 years old and I study journalism and performing arts. I am also a part-time English teacher and photographer, but I work as a freelancer.
I run the page with a friend named Bruna Fernandes, 18. She first created the page in mid-June last year and I joined a few months later. We met on the Internet and the page wasn't that popular back then, but we started to gain a lot of supporters all around the world and the media got interested which was very helpful to spread the word.
"'If you could give an advice for a large group of people, what would it be?' 'Do not stand still on the left side of the escalator.'"
Personally I have always been a very curious and caring person. I would always naturally talk to strangers anywhere I'd go. I remember being a kid sitting in the passenger seat next to my mom and watching all the people walking on the streets and riding the bus and just going on with their lives and I'd get so frustrated because I wanted to know where every single one of them was coming from, where they were going and how they were feeling. My friends thought I was weird because I would ask personal questions to the lunch lady or the doorman. So that need to know a little bit more was always there in me.
Then I discovered Humans of New York in 2011 and I became a huge fan. I wanted to create a similar page but I never had the courage. And then I met Bruna through Facebook and we met in person for the first time at a park where I took pictures of strangers with incredibly interesting lives. And that's how it went.
I have a few favorite stories but the one I will never forget is about a lady that has one of the warmest hearts I've ever known. And she was the one that first engaged a conversation with me.
"Everything was set for us to get married. We had been dating for 5 years, and the ceremony was going to happen in September. In June, he told me there was only a month left of his marriage with another woman. I only got out of this one having a lot of faith in God. I suffered a lot, spent years not dating anyone until I met my daughter's father. I lived with him for 10 years, until I got pregnant. She was born 'special.' Her father left me." Read the rest of the story here.
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There's three of us on the team: Caio Queiroz, 20, a photographer and art director at HDRec; Carina Pereira, 19, a unversity student and creative director; and me, Carolina Magalhães, 19. I work in radio and TV production.
Caio deals most with the photography part, but the work of finding stories and transcribing them and updating the fanpage and keeping it active is a collective effort. We also have an
Instagram.
Everyone who gets involved with the "Humans of" brand is a fan of the HONY phenomenon and it was the same for us. We were at my house, and Carina had shown me the original version of what would become our future project. We thought, "We could make a Recife version."
"When I was little and my mom died giving birth to my brother, we went to live with my dad. In this old house there was a door stop; one day my father came and told me to lie down with my head there; he wanted to kill me by hitting my head. But my sister came just in time and didn't let him. Nobody believes in me."
Plus, people in Recife love to talk, you know? (Even tourists who come here notice this, and it's really true.) For example, I'm at the bus stop with another woman and by the time the bus gets there, I already know the woman has three kids, is late to get an x-ray, has stuff to do at home and is so excited to see her granddaughter next weekend. People from Recife have this thing of loving to talk, to be friendly and involved.
The goal of Humanos de Recife - along with finding and showing stories - is exactly to try to remind people of this, to make sure they know more about their own city while seeing the city in a different way. Another thing that we wanted is to make it 100% ours, so when we chose the name, we decided to leave it in Portuguese and make it closest to how we talk.
I think the coolest thing we found was a guy who discovered at age 18 that he was adopted - in the most unique way possible.
"I was in the army barracks when I saw a person who looked a lot like me. Curious, I went to speak to him and he looked like a copy of me. When I went home, I told me mom I'd seen someone identical to me, and she turned to me and said: 'It's your brother.'" Read the rest of the story here.*****
Humans of Rio de Janeiro
See the page on Facebook
Followers: 44,000
Languages: English and Portuguese
Creator: Eiran Kreimer
I'm 43 and I work in real estate which doesn't have anything to do with photography. There are two other people who run the page: Dominique Valansi, a journalist who specializes in photography and Fabio Minduim, a professional photographer.
When the New York page had a little over 30,000 followers, I decided to create a Carioca version in May 2012. Though it's based on the New York page, it tries to do something different with its own personality. Rio has unique local characters which should be seen in a different way than they're usually shown.
"Where is the cable car that used to pass by here?"
We've already published more than 1,500 photos and 80 videos. Sometimes a photo is marvelous and beautiful, and other photos are simpler and have a story with an impact. Some people who live outside the country prefer certain photos, while people who live here identify with other photos.
"They call me 'Di Chicken.' I live close to Central Station, and I pay R$650 in rent. In 2008, I ended up in a shelter, and since I never wanted to do anything wrong, they gave me that nickname. I'm a little late, I'm supposed to go gather cans with someone. That's my job, but I can walk with my head held high."
Humans of Curitiba
See the page on Facebook
Followers: 27,000
Languages: Portuguese
Creator: Gustavo Jordaky
I'm 28 and a photographer. I studied web design and worked with electronics distribution until I decided to bet on, dedicate myself to, and deepen my knowledge of photography.
"Sir, will you take my picture too?"
As an amateur photographer, I went to downtown Curitiba and took a photo of a homeless man. I showed him the picture and he invited me to sit down and talk. He told me the story of how he ended up on the streets. This was my first contact with this type of photography. The same day, a friend showed me Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York project and I fell in love with the idea. So the next morning, Humans of Curitiba was born.
"I always enjoy biking. But what I really like is biking in this cool weather."
I decided to create something in my city when I saw that good messages could come out of stories of "strangers" and a different way of looking at how people see those around them, the people who share their space and society.
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