[ dabble ] Touching Strangers

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Posing for photographs is not the most comfortable experience at the best of times. Add the possible awkwardness of posing with a stranger and the certain awkwardness of embracing them in some way and you have the striking photographic series “Touching Strangers” by Richard Renaldi.

Renaldi is a New York based photographer who stops strangers on the street, asking them to pose together with their bodies touching, as if they had known each other for more than the few minutes they have. The photos are beautifully shot, and become even more powerful when understanding that the people in the frame have never met before and likely never will again.

Touching Strangers is about breaking down the barriers and erasing the invisible lines that make Renaldi’s subjects strangers in the first place, asking them to come together for photographs that show an intimate connection and a shared moment in time.

Each photograph in the series brings to life the questions of the “other”:
What separates strangers?
What does it take to step beyond the role of stranger and have an intimate connection?
What would it take for the subjects to have a connection outside of the photograph?

To see the rest of the Touching Strangers series on Richard Renaldi’s site click HERE

- What are your first thoughts when seeing the photographs?
- If a photographer stopped you on the street and asked you to pose with a stranger would you do it?

Thanks to Nassim for alerting us to the awesomeness that is Touching Strangers.