If you happen to stroll around Sofia and someone takes a photo of you, chance is it is Vihren Georgiev. Some time ago he launched a Facebook page People of Sofia borrowing the idea from Humans of New York. His passion is to take pictures of people in the streets of Sofia and the idea to set up the account came spontaneously. He currently has more than 92,000 followers. A private album gathering street photos made by Vihren was the first step. Besides, he has a website of his own.
Browsing the Facebook page the impression is that a large team takes care of it - by shooting, processing pictures etc. Well, quite surprisingly, Vihren does the whole job on his own, and this happens to be his main job. He prefers not to have a team because he fears various creative quarrels. The camera is with him almost 24/7 and photos are never planned in advance. They are the result of intuition and of momentary emotion.
„People of Sofia taught me to be more patient, more balanced because I used to be a man of extremes. It helps me think twice: now I give more attention to detail which is not a traditional Bulgarian trait. We are the type of 'either-or' or black-or-white guys. There is no absolute truth, but we Bulgarians, tend to be too categorical judging people. We are even extreme, and this is wrong.”
Despite its numerous fans, Vihren's Facebook page has also seen hate speech. After he posted photos from last year's LTBG parade groups attacked photos with negative comments and reports. Vihren believes that this is not right, and he prefers to treat people with respect. So far he has never quarreled in the street with the people he photographs. Only few of them asked him to delete their photos from Facebook.
To the young man, photos are both art and safeguarded emotions that capture the spirit of the city.
„My priority is that anybody I photograph like themselves in the photos. I sometimes leave aside photos that are not good enough, of course. I always approach people with respect. Many people 
have told me the photos are great, and they have used some of them for their own accounts. I think this is true acknowledgement.”
Unlike Humans of New York, People of Sofia is not focused on portraits but rather on capturing spontaneous moments in the life of Sofia residents. The brief interviews that Vihren takes from guys that he thinks are interesting and responsive fully complement photos and contribute to his collection of emotions capturing the spirit of the city. People of Sofia is already a book describing the urban environment and dynamism with plenty of photos of people and situations but with an accent shifted to personal stories of Sofia's residents and guests.
English Daniela Konstantinova
