Megan Nieto is a first year student who began Humans of UVA this year, a project that captures the stories and photographs of individuals around grounds. Her work can be found at https://www.facebook.com/HumansofUVa Check it out!
What was your inspiration behind this project? (and how did you first encounter Brandon Stanton’s work?)
I was mostly inspired by Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York. I’m not exactly sure when or how I happened upon his project, but when I did I became obsessed. I thought (and still think) it’s one of the coolest projects to ever exist. His ability to humanize such a huge, bustling city where it’s so easy to simply dismiss the crowds as faceless masses is incredible. The actual humans of UVA also inspired me. We have some real characters here.
What made you decide to start up a “Humans” project here at UVA?
I saw that many other colleges and universities had their own “Humans” projects and was pretty surprised to find out UVa didn’t have one. I started thinking about creating Humans of UVa about two months before I actually started it. I bought a camera over winter break, created the Facebook page, and started it as soon as I could. We walk by thousands of fellow students and UVa-goers every day who we don’t know anything about and don’t really try to know anything about so I wanted to try to change that in any small way I could. Not to mention I’m a first year and Humans has helped UVa feel smaller and less intimidating to me.
How do you choose who you photograph? Are you ever nervous to approach someone?
There’s not really a simple answer. Basically, I photograph people who spark my interest. The reactions from people really vary. More recently, people have heard of the project and so I’ve had people freak out and get really excited. On the other end, I’ve had people simply say no or get really weirded out but let me photograph them anyway. At the beginning, I was pretty terrified to approach people. I’m not that outgoing of a person and so I remember right before I approached the very first person I kind of gave myself a pep talk. I’ve gotten a lot better now though because I’ve realized the worst thing that can happen is that they say no and I walk away and find a different person. Overall, the people at UVa are awesome and end up talking with me and wishing me luck on the project.
What would you tell someone who wanted to start up this sort of project at another school? Any advice?
Look at every Humans of New York post and at every other Humans project you can find and copy them. Seeing the questions other people ask and the style of photography helps tremendously. It’s beneficial to see what works and what doesn’t. Brandon Stanton had a Reddit AMA about his project that was super insightful so I’d definitely suggest reading that (you can easily find it using Google). Also, take an obnoxious amount of photos of each subject. You can never take too many pictures. Above all, don’t be scared. Most people in the world are good, nice people and will happily let a stranger photograph them.