Brandon Stanton has the coolest job on the planet. He gets to meet people, hear their stories, click pictures of them and bring them in front of the world.  He’s the man behind the Humans of New York facebook page. To read the full story of how this came to be, read this article. What i love about this story is: 
(1) Brandon gave the job of finding brilliant everyday stories to himself.
(2) His work evolved over time.
(3) Critical mass came naturally through word of mouth Firstly, Brandon wasn’t commissioned by anyone to produce his work, he simply decided to capture something he though was worth capturing. He’s just one guy like you and me. Second, imagine trying to pull this off 50 years ago, trying to use to word of mouth to propagate your work. It simply wasn’t possible that something would attain popularity at such a large scale . There simply didn’t exist a medium to spread information like this. Imagine people trying to telephone each other about this cool photo exhibition they saw in New York, it would barely be relevant to people outside New York . The best the artist could do to propagate his work would be to put out an expensive advertisement for it. On top of that he’d probably need to rent out a gallery to exhibit his work . If he wanted to tour with his work, he’d have to convince someone to sponsor him; which wouldn’t happen if he wasn’t already successful/popular; classic chicken and egg problem with a hundred gatekeepers between you and your audience.

Today you wouldn’t need much more than a camera and a computer. The other aspect i love is explained by Brandons quote:“It went from photography to pictures of people; from pictures of people to portraits of people; from portraits of people to captions with the photograph. It went from captions to stories to where it is, fully formed, today — which is these very deep interactions with strangers on the streets.”  It just wouldn’t have been the same if his work hadn’t evolved and developed into something as he took more photos. Bottom-line: The only thing between you and your work of art is your tenacity to stick with it. There are simply no excuses today. And of course, not just mere tenacity but tenaciousness with an open, ever-learning mind.