“We see things not as they are, but as we are” - Anais Nin (paraphrased Immanuel Kant)

Studies show that in the last decades we’ve become more lonely due to an increasingly digital society, focused more on the individual than on community. In her book ‘Alone Together’ Sherry Turkle examines what continual connectivity has done to our capacity to be vulnerable. Turkle writes that although we’ve become more lonely, we’ve also become more fearful of intimacy and that in that sense we’re “Alone Together”.

I wanted to examine that notion through using a platform like Tinder. Tinder is a platform built on the idea of making a split-second decision based on someone’s appearance. To counteract this, I swiped right on everyone’s profile and photographed anyone who was willing to participate. I wanted to determine just how connected we are and how much trust and openness I could establish in one short meeting, via a photographic encounter.

The work was made in parks in Cardiff to simulate the idea of a ‘date’. Making the images required not just openness but a vulnerability from both the photographer and those photographed. The project is called ‘We’re Not Really Strangers’ because it embarks on the idea that a stranger is just a friend you haven't made yet. The project is in its essence about the intimacy and vulnerability between two strangers, as it is sometimes it is easier to open up to a stranger than it is to someone who you know and care about.