Photographer Ryan Pfluger shares how he came to use the medium of photography as a means for therapy and connection. During several solitary road trips within the United States, Ryan unexpectedly discovered that by the spontaneous meeting of strangers and the gentle expression of kindness showed by acknowledging someone else’s true self-worth, he was able to not only heal his own loneliness but that of many others. Ryan Pfluger is a New York-based photographer. His photographs often deal with the subtly of body posture, the gaze, and the role of self-portraiture, as an exploration of what portraiture means in our presently-saturated culture of images. For the past year, Ryan has been driving cross-country every few months making portraits based off of geo-location apps. Some of his clients include New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and TIME. Born and raised in New York, Ryan received his MFA in Photo, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in 2007. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx