Strangers Become Friends

When walking down the street, with a destination in mind, lost in my thoughts about work or something happening in my personal life, I admit that I am not always aware of the people around me.

I know that physically there are groups of people or singular people walking towards or past me, but the details of what they are wearing or what they look like are an instantaneous blur.

It's not because I am walking and texting.  If I hear the ping of a text received on my phone and I need to answer it, I move out of the path of the pedestrian traffic and use my telephone keyboard in a self-made safe zone by an office building or a sidewalk bench.

I know that there are people on the sidewalk with me or in a store or a restaurant and I make sure not to bump into anyone but I'm not always looking at people and spontaneously saying "hello" or smiling.  Most of the time I think I am unaware because I need to be somewhere or need to get something done and it is almost as though I am on my own express track.

 

Photographer Richard Renaldi Poses Jenny Wood & Dominek Tucker
Photo Courtesy CBS News

I can't imagine what it would be like if I was walking down the street and a photographer asked me to stop and pose with someone I didn't know at all.  A total stranger.  Someone I might never see again.

 

I'd like to think that I would stop and that I would enjoy the spontaneity of the moment.  The unexpected things that happen to me sometimes make me stop and laugh at the amazing adventures that life can bring.

 

It's fun and it gives me a lift.  We all need those moments, don't we? . . .Those moments when the walls come down and maybe, just maybe, we're vulnerable in our actions.  And when we are vulnerable we are usually our most authentic selves!!

 

Watch this short CBS On The Road piece and see what these strangers on the streets of New York City discover about the human connection:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57596845/new-york-photographer-turns-strangers-into-friends/