Along with the movement Humans of New York, a project to share the stories of New Yorkers, Humans of San Antonio is part of the Global Humans Project, a network of major cities around the world dedicated to capturing a glimpse into the lives of the everyday citizen. From Amsterdam to India to Rio de Janeiro, San Antonio joins the ranks of cities photographed and shown through social media to the rest of the world.Michael Cirlos is the photojournalist behind Humans of San Antonio, a social media project founded in 2012 that combines photography and storytelling to promote the spirit of San Antonio's growing downtown community. Humans of San Antonio, the book, is the culmination of more than four years of photographs that highlight the people, culture, and vibrancy of San Antonio.The city center is very important to San Antonio. It stands as the Alamo City's urban core; a hub that links the rest of the city to its heart. As a community that has weathered the national economic imbalance and proven itself a leader in urban redevelopment and 21-century innovation, San Antonio embraces change while continuing to celebrate the diversity, history, and individuality that makes it so completely unique.Humans of San Antonio reflects the heart of San Antonio and symbolizes the importance of the people who make up its melting pot of cultures. Michael Cirlos's photography captures individual storytelling images in an unassuming, unscripted way to illustrate the essence of humanity. Each photograph tells the story of a citizen of downtown, and through images and his subject's own stories, Michael is able to communicate not just the human vulnerability to fear, sadness, and anger but also its resilience, strength, hope, tolerance, and perseverance. His unobtrusive nature, compassion and warmth, show how deeply committed he is to photographing the peak moments of San Antonio real life to humanize the individual and to collect flashes of culture.Humans of San Antonio is at once uniquely individual as a photography collection while celebrating the international collaborative that forms its roots. Each personal history maps out the family, friends, and neighbors that populate a lifetime and encourages the reader to explore San Antonio's cultural differences by showcasing the diversity it honors.
