Touching Strangers

A photo-project by Richard Renaldi. From an interview with the photographer:

It is rather awkward to approach someone and ask them if they are interested in touching another stranger for a photograph.

I think maybe my nervous, slightly pleading voice kicks in, combined with a little charm. I generally give them my spiel about being a photographer working on a project, and I try to have my book, Figure and Ground, to show to them. It was never easy - though most everyone who agreed to participate was a good sport. Most people eventually grasped the concept, and often it seemed to be a pleasant distraction from their day. As far as telling them what I was after, I was initially not sure myself. That seems apparent to me now, looking at the first three or four setups I did. For those first photographs, I asked for the least amount of touching possible because I was not yet comfortable myself with this new way of working. I did however start thinking more about what I wanted to elicit from my subjects, and I studied a lot of portraiture of friends, family, and lovers together, from the 19th century in particular. As a result I became more aggressive in what I would ask the strangers to do with each other.