Peter Varga came to Dublin from Hungary ten years ago, for a summer job. Three months later, he liked it so much that he decided to stay, and convinced his best friend to join him here. After meeting his fiance working in Subway on Grafton Street – “the most horrible job I ever had” – he eventually began the Humans of Dublin project before completing a photography course at the Institute of Photography. Humans of Dublin is a project that documents the stories of our city’s inhabitants through random encounters on the street. The resulting portraits and interviews are collected in a website and a book, as well as on Facebook, where the page has gathered over 120,000 likes. He took some time out on his birthday to talk to me about his work.

 

What motivates you to do this?

I was curious about different realities, you know? For example when you are working in an office, you are experiencing only a very thin layer of reality around you. But when you go out on the street and randomly approach people, you can get inside the head of a homeless person, or a successful businessman. What I learned from Humans Of Dublin is that I have the same amount of respect for both. Their realities are different. But they are both struggling every day – in different ways obviously. When I was working with the Ana Liffey Drug Project, I was talking to a guy who first tried heroin when he was nine years old. Can you imagine? His parents were dealers – it was just left there on the kitchen table. People are making bad decisions every day, but the results are different because the circumstances are different. Anyone could end up in a very bad place if they started in a tough situation and made one or two bad choices.

 

How did the project start?

I was working in Butler’s on Chatham Street and after a very busy day, I just decided I didn’t want to make coffees anymore. On that same day I went out and decided to start Humans of Dublin. That was before the [photography] course started. In a way I risked it. For about six months I didn’t have any income. But I knew that this was what I wanted to make a living from. That was two years ago. This year I had so many opportunities that I had to turn some of them down, because my place is on the street photographing people.

 

Have you noticed anything distinctive about people in Dublin?

Irish people are especially into small talk. But when you skip that, you can make really deep connections with them. I find people here very open. I think in my home country [Hungary], it would be much harder to do this project. Or in New York. Brandon Stanton [Humans of New York] says maybe three people out of ten actually answer his questions. For me in Dublin, it’s eight out of every ten. So many nationalities are living here. Those people decided that they were going to step out of their comfort zone. They already have it mind to be open to conversations, to be open to new people. I think Irish people became more open because of that.

 

A lot of the people you photograph talk about social issues; homelessness, mental health, sexuality. Did you set out to address these things?

If you were able to talk to whoever you want, what kind of subject would you go for? It’s obvious that this is out of your comfort zone: homeless people, rich people, sick people. You’re probably not gonna seek out these people to talk to by yourself. In the first year, I was planning to go home to Hungary and I wanted to keep posting when I was there. I wanted to do a project on a theme, so I could collect the interviews and present them as a collection. That was a project on homelessness. It got a lot of interest. That was when I realised I have the ability to talk to people about these issues, and people want to hear about them, even if they might not feel comfortable having these conversations themselves.

 

 

How do you promote the project?

The project really promotes itself. After about ten thousand likes, people started to recognise each other. Ten thousand must be a number that compared to the size of Dublin, the connections amongst people get really frequent. Every single time now it happens. When I’m talking to a person, they go home and tell their mother that they were talking to me, and then that person checks out the project. Whoever didn’t hear that they were featured, is going to see them on Facebook, or have it mentioned to them, and it gets people talking.

 

How has the work affected your relationship with the city?

I know Dublin ten times better than Budapest, the city I’m from. You are always walking the streets, looking for new locations and new types of people. I know the whole of Dublin, from Dun Laoghaire to Ballymun. It has made me connected with the city more, because of the people I’ve met doing it. I’m friends with the former Lord Mayor of Dublin, I’m friends with Mattress Mick.

 

How did you develop your interview skills?

I think I really developed my interview skills on the streets. When you approach strangers, you always have a kind of script in your brain, but it never works. Before I approached the first person I walked around the block three or four times, collecting enough courage. Probably people were terrified of me because I was terrified of them, you know? When you practice it, it becomes your second nature.

 

What type of encounter do you find most challenging?

The most difficult interviews are around office buildings. They always think that I’m trying to sell them something, they are very suspicious.

 

What are your favourite interviews?

My favourite interviews are when I ask a very short question, and they have a perfect answer for it. I was talking to a band called Mutefish, and I asked them how they met. They said they met in a sex shop while they were doing their shopping! They just started to talk, and since then they’ve been playing music together. These funny or unique things are happening in your life, but you don’t broadcast it. Humans of Dublin is exactly for that. The most uninteresting people have the most interesting stories. You can ask a punk who has blue hair for a story, but you might get something much more special from someone who looks completely ordinary. I like to think that I’m able to open these little windows on the street.