making contact.

richard renaldi is a photographer who has mastered the art of capturing regular people he does not know. his photographs are beautiful and portray an intimacy rarely found in pictures which aren't prearranged. it is quite easy to forget to really appreciate the difficulty of approaching strangers and winning their trust.

the increasingly common street fashion blogs everywhere from helsinki to london/paris/beyond rely on the photographer to convince a random passer by that they should submit their image for web content. creating the bond between a total stranger and the blogger requires a multitude of social skills -- especially if the object is unfamiliar with the blog. it is nerve-racking to stand and pose for someone you don't know with an awareness that your face will be publicly exhibited; i can imagine it would be worse if the photographer was doing artwork (rather than a style report), since the tendency to relieve an artist from traditional conceptions of beauty are quite predominant. for someone who is unfamiliar with being in front of the camera and generally does not photograph well (like myself), the experience can be absolutely daunting.

renaldi's newest project, touching strangers explores trust issues even further: he has taken pictures of complete strangers together and convinced them to pose as if they knew each other. respecting personal space hits close to home with finns, but the intimate arrangements in his photos force me to suspect a universal human reluctancy to comply.

undoubtedly, it is true that personal space and the strength of it varies from individual to another, but he has grabbed people off the streets of new york city, one of the most paranoid places on this planet. like finns, people strolling the streets of manhattan are incredibly protective of their personal area: one of my most striking memories of living in nyc was a ride uptown on the 4 train which was so packed i found myself stuck between people unable to grab anything and bouncing abruptly at every jerk of the train. a middle aged man in a puffa jacket next to me said nothing, but offered his arm for me to hold onto and i remember feeling gratitude and a strange, disquieting intimacy with him. he provided me with a random act of kindness which simultaneously made us both feel (and, most probably, look) incredibly awkward.

yet renaldi succeeds in making his objects look natural and as if they know each other. therefore, the triumph of his photos is not about proximity, but that these strangers are in physical contact. truly amazing, i think.