Photographer Richard Renaldi has been working on his latest project since 2007. In creating the “Touching Strangers” series, Renaldi invites total strangers on the street to pose together—touching—and captures a fleeting moment of intimacy, turning the ostensible discomfort into something wonderfully familiar. Shot with a large format 8×10 view camera, his newer portraits carry the same strength in composition and conceptional boldness that his earlier portraits do.
After more than 20 years of portraiture and almost seven years with this series, Renaldi hopes to publish “Touching Strangers” as a photo book. Chris Boot of the Aperture Foundation, the new book’s future publisher, believes that these images “have something positive to say about human connections.” And in the spirit of bringing strangers together, Aperture aims to use Kickstarter to fund this photo book for print.
The book will compile the best “Touching Strangers” portraits from all Renaldi’s years of work and will also include photos from his summer 2013 trip across the States. Head to Kickstarter to watch Renaldi’s video and get a special signed edition for $50 before the campaign ends.
Images courtesy of Richard Renaldi