Meet 12 Unforgettable 'Humans Of New York'

It all began when photographer Brandon Stanton lost his bond trading job in Chicago and moved to New York City without much of a plan. Initially, he wanted to create a massive collection of portraits, cataloging a large portion of NYC's inhabitants. Soon, however, he discovered he was much more interested in the individuals and their stories than creating an exhaustive compendium of people.

So he began the blog Humans of New York, which showcases his portraits, coupled with a poignant quote from the subject. The blog is wildly popular and currently has more likes on Facebook than there are people living in all five boroughs of New York City. In 2013, Stanton published a book of his work and it quickly became a bestseller.

Stanton is currently on a United Nations-commissioned tour to photograph the humans of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Since Stanton's blog has thousands of portraits on it, we did you a favor and compiled his most talked about posts of the last 12 months (using Best of Tumblr), so you can become more acquainted with the humans of New York.