Richard Renaldi, Photographer

Published on November 23, 2013

Richard Renaldi[1] is a photographer from New York. I recently discovered his work, especially his photographs in the "Touching Strangers" series[2].

He grabs two or more people from the street that have never met before. He asks them to pose for a picture together, pretending they know each other and are close. The trick is in this additional request: he wants them to touch.

The people he chooses are usually from very different backgrounds, age or ethnicity. This already makes for powerful combinations. But what really makes these portraits stand out is the touching.

Obviously, asking strangers to touch each other is going to get awkward results. And this does show in some of the portraits[3] where the depicted look very stiff and ill at ease. You can clearly see that they only touch each other because they've been instructed to and that they try to minimize the contact surface as much as possible.

However, most extraordinarily, some do really look like they know each other! Just gazing at the pictures[4], you can feel the bond, the love, the connection, the caring. It is even overwhelming in some of the pictures. This is the kind of magic I love about Renaldi's work!

After looking at all these pictures, I am left wondering. Do these people just walk away and just get along with their lives? Do some of them exchange their phone numbers or addresses? Really, this would be the icing on the cake for me: knowing that some have actually stayed in touch. But have they?

[1] About Richard Renaldi

https://www.renaldi.com/about/

[2] Touching Strangers project

https://www.renaldi.com/touching-strangers-index/

[3] Some of the awkward portraits