Excuse Me, Could You Touch That Person Next to You?
TO SEE SLIDESHOW:
http://www.studio360.org/story/excuse-me-could-you-touch-that-person-next-to-you/
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Friday, August 08, 2014
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Alfredo and Jessica (detail) by Richard Rinaldi
(Courtesy of Richard Renaldi and Bonni Benrubi Gallery, copyright 2014)
Photographer Richard Renaldi has
spent years trying to burst the invisible bubble of personal space,
getting strangers to hug or hold hands, and photographing them. It began
in 2011, when he stopped Jessica Ong on the subway and introduced her
to Alfredo. Renaldi asked them to embrace. And then he took a picture
with his big 8x10 view camera, the kind with an accordion lens on the
front. “I was very fearful about doing it,” says Renaldi. “So, the very
first one I did in retrospect was tentative — because I was so
tentative.”
Renaldi has taken photos of strangers all over the country. The project made him a better photographer, more fearless, he says. Not everyone he asked said yes, but many did. The book Touching Strangers collects those portraits.
Almost all the photos feel strangely intimate. But are they? Renaldi calls the pairings fictional and orchestrated. In one image, a middle-aged man kneels on a basketball court next to an elderly woman. Their hands are clasped, each finger crossed through the other. It looks as if he’s asking for forgiveness. “Through 20 long years in NYC, I had not one picture of me with anyone,” the man in the photo writes. “So when I was approached to take one beautiful picture, I did. Not with a stranger but with a woman that spent 80 some odd years on this earth. She was no stranger to me.”
Renaldi has taken photos of strangers all over the country. The project made him a better photographer, more fearless, he says. Not everyone he asked said yes, but many did. The book Touching Strangers collects those portraits.
Almost all the photos feel strangely intimate. But are they? Renaldi calls the pairings fictional and orchestrated. In one image, a middle-aged man kneels on a basketball court next to an elderly woman. Their hands are clasped, each finger crossed through the other. It looks as if he’s asking for forgiveness. “Through 20 long years in NYC, I had not one picture of me with anyone,” the man in the photo writes. “So when I was approached to take one beautiful picture, I did. Not with a stranger but with a woman that spent 80 some odd years on this earth. She was no stranger to me.”
Slideshow: Touching Strangers
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Comments [2]
With all the extreme news of the
Israelis and Palestinians not getting along, I wonder if a project like
this with them would start changing their feelings about each other and
help lead them to finally getting along…. Yes, chip away at mental
barriers leading to peace.
Aug. 10 2014 03:35 PM
Score: 0/0
Score: 0/0
What a great project and exercise in humanity. I'm sure it was therapeutic for participants and chipped away at mental barriers.
Aug. 10 2014 02:25 PM
Score: 0/0
