Richard Renaldi isn't much for subtlety.
The 46-year-old New York artist is clear in his requests: He wants you to snuggle with a stranger. That one right over there, just for a second or two. Put your arm around him and pretend you like him. Come on, it's for art.
Renaldi's latest book project, Touching Strangers, which recently met its funding goal on Kickstarter, explores the (awkward) intimacy between passersby on the street. Since 2007, he's selected strangers at random and asked to photograph them in affectionate poses. He's hit the sidewalks in New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco and small towns throughout the Midwest, all with a view camera in hand and a bizarre request at the ready.
See also: Girlfriend Leads Man Around the World in Breathtaking Pics
"I got rejected doing this project. Like, a lot ," he tells me with a laugh. "At least 60% of the people I asked wanted nothing to do with me."
We're sitting in a snug cafe in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, just a few blocks from where Renaldi snapped his first photos for the project six years ago. He says he thought of the idea while on the road for another book project, See America By Bus, in which he photographed travelers at Greyhound stations across the U.S.
"The majority of those photos were individual portraits," he says, "but I'd occasionally come across two or more strangers sitting on a bench. I'd of course ask if they were okay with being photographed with the other person. Then I thought, 'This in itself could make for a cool series.'"
It took a little getting used to. The first day he ventured out in lower-west Manhattan, he wasn't sure what he wanted. He found a pair of college-aged students, a guy and a girl, and asked them to pose as if they were a couple. They obliged. Next, he found another college-aged girl and a middle-aged woman.
"The girl was much more receptive, but the older woman was a little stiff about the idea," he says. "You can tell in the photo that their body language is not the most comfortable."

Image: Richard Renaldi
The woman did help him out with the collection's title, though.
"As we were saying goodbye, she asked me if I had a name for the project, and I said 'No, not really,'" he says. "And then she just looked at me and said, 'You need to call it Touching Strangers.' And I thought, 'Yeah, that's perfect.'"
See also: Hitchhiker Blogs His Journey Across the U.S.
From there, he was off to different parts of New York and the country, looking for the right randos to photograph. It wasn't a full-time project; the spontaneity and simplicity of it let him work plenty of other side jobs as well.
Here are a few of our favorites from his collection over the years:

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi

Image: Richard Renaldi
The book deal bubbled up via his August Kickstarter campaign. Renaldi's published a few books in the past, including Fall River Boys, a black-and-white portrait series of young men growing up in Fall River, Mass. This new book will serve as a catalogue of the standard American, inspired in part, Renaldi says, by German photographer August Sander's People of the 20th Century.
Despite the heavy rejection rate he encountered while making Touching Strangers, Renaldi says he was pleasantly surprised with the number of "good sports" he was able to find.
"I learned that people have this deep, universal desire to connect with other people . I'm just the facilitator, the one making it happen here, but I think it partially comes from my own desires as well," he says. "It's not just a social experiment — maybe it's something in me that's looking for connection, too."
It's humanity as it might be — or humanity as it is, if only for a minute.
The book is scheduled for an April 2014 release. Keep up to date with the details of that and Renaldi's other projects on his website.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
BONUS: The Human Behind 'Humans of New York'

Images: Richard Renaldi Topics: art, Lifestyle, photography, Pics, Photos, Travel & Leisure, U.S., Videos, Work & Play
Images: Richard Renaldi