On the Road: Photographer proves strangers are friends you haven't met yet

As part of our continuing series "On the Road," Steve Hartman meets a New York photographer who asks strangers on the street to pose as though they're couples, friends or family.

[Wind Blows]

Steve Hartman: 45 year old Richard Renaldi is looking for someone, two someones, actually.

Two total strangers who are meant to be together.

Renaldi: This is Dominic, right?

Hartman: If only for a moment.

Renaldi: Okay, so you guys are gonna be a- a couple.

Renaldi (in interview): They're not exactly sure what they've just signed up for-

Renaldi (on street): Actually

Renaldi (in interview): And people are a little nervous at first.

Renaldi (on street): Okay, I just need you a little closer like-okay, good.

Narrator: Richard is a New York photographer, working on a series of portraits.

Renaldi: Okay, good.

Hartman: For each shot, he grabs strangers off the street.

Like Jenny Wood, an airline employee from Virginia, and Dominic Tucker, a college student from Brooklyn.

And poses them - like adoring family.

Renaldi (on street): Okay um, beautiful. 1,2, and 3.

Camera snaps

Hartman: Richard calls the project 'Touching Strangers.'

He started shooting it 6 years ago, and now has hundreds of portraits of these unlikely intimates.

Some of the photos- you'd never know, they'd never met.

While other capture, quite well, the inherrent awkwardness of cudding some random dude.

Young women (in unison): Hey there, nice to meet you.

Hartman: Even when the subjects seem eager, their body language often concedes a certain hesitance,

At least at first. Ten minutes later, though,
it's like Thanksgiving at Aunt Margaret's.

And that's the really weird thing.

Renaldi (on street): Oh that's great!

Hartman: Yes, Richard puts the people in these poses,
but the sentiment that seems to shine through, is real.

At least, so say the subjects.

Renaldi (on street): Okay.

Older woman: It was sort of awkward but then sort of not.

Young women: Thank You!
Renaldi: You guys did so good.

Older woman: We are probably missing so much about the people all around us.

Renaldi (on street): This is Reiko.

Hartman: At first, Brian Snedon, a poetry teacher,
saw no rhyme or reason for posing

with 95 year-old retired fashion designer Reiko Urman.

Renaldi (on street): Can you just come in a little more - yeah, okay.

Hartman: But eventually he too felt a change.

Brian: I felt like I cared for her.

Hartman: Cared for her?

Brian: Yeah. I felt like it brought down a lot of barriers.

Hartman: Pretty much everyone shared that same sentiment.

Young man: It was a good feeling. Laughs shyly

Young woman: It was nice to feel that comfort.

Renaldi (in interview): Everyone seems to have come away with kind of a good feeling.

It's kind of lovely. It's lovely!

Hartman: Most photographers capture life as it is.

But in these strangers, Richard Renaldi has captured something much more ethereal and elusive.

He shows us humanity- as it could be.

As most of us wish it would be.

And, as it was.
At least for this one fleeting moment in time.

Steve Hartman, on the road, in New York.