Plagiarism or Pure Coincidence? :Touching Strangers

Hey, you may look at this family like "thats a great looking family there".. But what if I said that those two kids, don't know either of those two adults, and those two adults don't know each other either? What if I went totally left field and just said these people are all complete strangers that just met about 10 minutes prior? That was the vision of Richard Renaldi. A NY Photographer who made staging photos so great… They look like everyday, real-life, photographs.



Plagiarism or pure coincidence… This seemingly harmless Chinese Coca Cola Ad looks interesting, hip, cool, and awesome one might even say, but what is NOT being mentioned is that whole idea, might have been stolen from Richard Renaldi a popular photographer from NY.

Renadli says he wanted “to create spontaneous and fleeting relationships between complete strangers.” To do so, he approached people who had never before met, and had them pose together as intimately as if they’d known each other for years. A great yet in NY somewhat scary and daunting task, to say the least. The results on some are phenomenal, some are ehhh and other just look kinda staged (Ha Ha!). But nonetheless the project was great! A wonderful way to break down barriers and get people talking and stir up some "good" controversy.

Every image captures a certain vulnerability that we’ve likely all experienced, whether at a cringeworthy pre-middle school dance photoshoot or plopped onto some creepy mall Santa’s lap. This project started in 2007 and is still going strong. Salute to Richard Renaldi.

Renaldi hopes to publish a book of the portraits in Spring 2014. He’ll be fundraising on Kickstarter through August 5th. Give a donation, check out the project, and support local talent. I support and applaud greatness, and this is Great!