VIDEO: ‘Outlaw Instagrammer’ Humza Deas Shows NYC Like You Haven’t Seen It Before

By Sameer Rao Jun 24, 2015

By the time that New York-bred photographer Humza Deas was profiled alongside other "Outlaw Instagrammers" by New York Magazine last year, the then-17-year-old had already amassed a dedicated following on his Instagram for his breathtaking pictures of the Manhattan cityscape. Steeped in the city’s skateboarding culture, the teenager took the thrill-seeking, boundary-pushing ethos of that world to a new extreme by scaling bridges and buildings or exploring closed-off subway tunnels to reinvent the way he and others see his city–and evading the NYPD all the while. 

 

 

Top of the Williamsburg.

A photo posted by Humza Deas (@humzadeas) on

 

Since then, Deas has traversed the world and taken similarly evocative and vertigo-inducing photos in cities like Chicago and Dubai. He is the subject of a new mini-documentary, part of the "Hidden" series from Green Label (an online publication from Complex and Mountain Dew), that follows Deas on shoots around the city, up scaffolding and down muddy cliffs, and explores the artist’s creative motivations. 

Click above to check out New York City through Deas’s inspired vantage point.