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Amazing photo blog shows real faces of Paris

Oliver Gee
Oliver Gee - [email protected]
Amazing photo blog shows real faces of Paris
A recent subject on the Humans of Paris site. Photo: Humans of Paris

Marco Hazan runs "Humans of Paris", an incredibly popular photo-based Facebook page that aims to show the real side of Parisians. The Local chatted to the 18-year-old student to find out more.

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"One thing is true about Parisians, they're always in a hurry," Marco Hazan tells The Local with a chuckle. 
 
He's jetting off for a walk through the first and second arrondissements of Paris, right in the centre, where he hopes to find some "interesting faces with interesting stories" for his Facebook page - Humans of Paris
 
The 18-year-old law student puts "all his free time" into the project, which has gained 250,000 followers in three years and which was based on the wildly popular Humans of New York blog, which has 16 million followers has produced a best-selling book.
 

(Marco Hazan during a conference about his project. Photo: Private)
 
And one of his goals of the project, he says, is to quash the prejudices about Parisians.
 
"People are always saying that Parisians are rude and won't talk to you, but that's not true. That's just a prejudice people have, people judge them before they know anything about them," he explains.
 

(A recent subject on the Humans of Paris site. Photo: Humans of Paris)
 
"You just have to go outside and see. They're smiling, they're full of stories, full of knowledge."
 
And he should know. He's met and photographed over 2,500 Parisians. 
 
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"I was a taxi driver for 25 years. One day, I gave the car to my wife so she could go shopping with my two kids...All...

Posted by Humans of Paris on Tuesday, 11 August 2015
 
On his Facebook page, he shares daily pictures of Parisians together with captions that are usually based on a part of his conversations with them. The captions are written in both English and French, partly because he has many fans abroad, but also to reflect the international and touristic vibe of the French capital.
 
"Tourists are a part of Paris, I have to show this to my fans," he says. 
 
The Frenchman usually seeks out those walking a little slower than the rest, and often begins with the question: "What's the most memorable moment of your life".
 
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Her: "We realized that we've been married for over 65 years."Him: "It's been a long time, but we're still getting ready...

Posted by Humans of Paris on Monday, 15 June 2015
 
And the results are often intriguing, providing an inside look at the lives of Parisians. Sometimes the stories are simple, like a bartender talking about her daily work life. Other times, the stories take a deeper turn, such as the taxi driver who lost his family in a car accident. 
 
The collection builds a tapestry of the lives of the 2.2 million Parisians in the French capital, and has already prompted the contents of a book, that was crowd-funded and featured 400 new photos. 
 
 
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"Here is a story I felt in love with.I was looking for people to take pictures of. I was near the Louvre, exactly in...

Posted by Humans of Paris on Wednesday, 6 May 2015
 
So what next for the 18-year-old student?
 
Firstly, university, but he has no intentions of slowing down when it comes to sharing Paris with the world.
 
"It's tough, because the people running these kind of sites around the world are often doing it as a full-time job - and I'm a full-time student. With that in mind, I'm just going to keep sharing people's stories - everyone has a story to tell," he says.
 
"Parisians are really cool, and I want to keep showing that to the world."
 
 
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"We've been making music for nine months. We have several projects, mostly short tracks, that are hip-hop and rap. It's...

Posted by Humans of Paris on Tuesday, 18 August 2015

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