WELLNESS & WELL-BEING
Humans (continued)
an intimate moment on the street with them, whether it was for five or
50 minutes, paired their image with their quotes, and got their thumbs
up to share with our audience. It touches me to finally release each story
and watch the reach it has. It’s the art of getting the story transitions
from this very private to very public thing, and it’s thrilling to watch
the audience offer advice, share resources, joke with each other, get into
discussions with one another, or reach out to HOSTL privately. One
time, a woman bought a little girl an Easy Bake Oven because the child
loved to cook. And not too long ago, a mother wrote us to ask about the
safety of her pregnant daughter, whom I met while she was living on
the street. All of that affects me because people are seeing each other,
and they care.
Q: How many people have you interviewed?
Drew: We’ve shared 2,000 photo stories so far. We don’t actually write
anything. Everything’s directly quoted from the subjects we feature.
Q: How many stories do you generate each week?
Drew: We try to feed the site a story a day. Typically, I'll go out one or
two days a week to talk with people around the city, and in just a few
hours, I’ll come home with a lot of rich content.
Q: Do you stay mainly on the Missouri side, or have you ventured
across the river to cover the entire St. Louis metro area?
Drew: We mainly interview and photograph on the Missouri side, Q: Have you inadvertently discovered particular trends (good or
bad) or social or societal problems?
Drew: Without a doubt. I used to look at this work as a fun art project.
but we have featured people from “HOSTL-ing” in East St. Louis,
Illinois, too. We’ve also done presentations at schools throughout But along the way, my classes at the Brown School informed my
interviewing, and the information I was uncovering in the interviews
HOSTL’s book, “The Humans of
St. Louis,” currently in production,
will feature 250 photo stories of
people from in and around the city.
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the region, including Jefferson College in Arnold and Hillsboro,
Missouri, Lindenwood University, McKendree University, and Holt and
Timberland high schools.
GAZELLE