Although strangers surround us, we rarely engage with people we don’t know. Afraid of rejection, we remain in our tightly wound circle of family and friends. Often, strangers remain in the background, emerging in our life’s narrative when necessary. But each of these individuals have complicated and important lives of their own. What if we had an excuse to go up and begin a conversation to know that person a bit more?
The 100 Strangers Project asked aspiring photojournalist students at Fresno State to take 100 photographs of 100 complete strangers over the course of the semester. Meant to improve both the social and technical skills needed for taking portraits, the method is to learn by doing. During the course of photographing each stranger, the students were to engage in conversation to learn more about the person’s life.
This project has been done multiple times by students in Professor Jes Therkelsen’s photojournalism class at California State University, Fresno. To date, there have been over 10,000 portraits taken for this project. These are some of the best portraits that have been taken so far.