Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 508

Seen in Times Square

Seen in Times Square

While I was taking the previous photograph, a young boy ran by...

While I was taking the previous photograph, a young boy ran by on his way to the store. Both of the seated men said “hello” as he passed, but the boy didn’t seem to hear and kept on running. Seeing this, the boy’s father sternly called him back, and made him shake hands with both of the men. Then he made him shake my hand for good measure. I thought it was a cool little moment, so I reassembled the cast of characters for a portrait.

"What’s the most frightened you’ve ever been?""That...

"What’s the most frightened you’ve ever been?"
"That time the cops brought me home and my mama whooped my ass."

"Technology is ruining people. I work in fashion, so I was at a...

"Technology is ruining people. I work in fashion, so I was at a fitting last Thursday. And there was a girl there— she was the assistant of the assistant. She had one job. One job. She was supposed to hand pins to the assistant. But when the assistant needed a pin, she was texting on her phone. One job."

"We met before the internet. So I did it the old fashioned...

"We met before the internet. So I did it the old fashioned way."
"What’s that?"
"I put a classified ad in New York Magazine."
"What’d it say?"
"Harvard lawyer, runner, and tennis player looking for woman who is beautiful inside and out. And I got it! It was both of our second marriages, but we’ve been together 28 years."

"I’m currently trying to find my place in the...

"I’m currently trying to find my place in the universe."
"What’s been your occupation until now?"
"I’m a photographer."
"Is there a single photograph that you’ve taken which you are proudest of?"
"One time I was photographing from a bridge with a telephoto lens, and I was looking down on a beach. There was this little boy in a cowboy hat playing by the water. I was very patient, and caught this moment when all the adults cleared out of the way, and the tide came in, and the boy was completely alone, surrounded by water. I’ve always viewed it as representative of how we sometimes feel so alone in the world. And when we do, we feel just like a child.”

"If you could give a piece of advice to your teenage self, what...

"If you could give a piece of advice to your teenage self, what would it be?"
"Trust your gut."
"When’s a time you didn’t trust your gut, but you wish you had?"
"Billions of times romantically. But don’t write ‘billions.’ That makes me sound like a train wreck."

"What was the saddest moment of your life?""One night when I was...

"What was the saddest moment of your life?"
"One night when I was a sophomore in high school, my mom poked her head in my room and said: ‘You better figure out what you’re going to do after high school, because you’re not going to college.’ It hit me really, really hard. I remember I took a long walk by myself that night. I hadn’t been applying myself and was doing really poorly in school, and her words really shook me up. That night I committed myself to working through my problems and getting good grades. I ended up getting into a great college and got a degree in political science. And I actually just now came back from my first job interview."

I think this is the first time that I've ever answered a complaint publicly...

I think this is the first time that I’ve ever answered a complaint publicly, but one in...

"I think our memories of childhood are composed of these magical...

"I think our memories of childhood are composed of these magical play spaces that children have. Does that make sense? The places that, as children, we sort of claim and carve out as our own. I think we lose that in adulthood. Does that make sense?”
"Can you give me an example?"
"Well, I moved around a lot. So I had a lot of different ones. But I remember the back balcony of our place in California. There were plants out there, and I used to get on the ground between those plants and play with my toys. It was my space."
"Do you remember the saddest day of your life?"
"I lost a sister."
"How old was she?"
"She was eight. I was twenty at the time."
"What’s the greatest day you ever spent together?"
"I remember this one time we were walking in Pennsylvania, and she was really young so I was a long way ahead of her. And she stopped and kept calling for me to come back. I finally walked back to her and she was pointing down this narrow alleyway— it was blocked off by this wrought iron gate and lined with trees and paved in cobblestone, and the light was coming through just perfectly. It was very beautiful. And I just loved how she’d noticed it and stopped me from my busyness to appreciate it."
"It was one of her spaces."
"Yeah, I guess it was."