Richard Renaldi’s “Gay and Lesbian Elderly” series of black and white photographs of gay senior citizens is one of those timeless little collections that lurk in your mind long after you’ve closed the browser. The reason for this, I think, is Richard’s empathy with his subjects. He’s gay and so are they. What he points out eloquently is their dignity. What we need to do, as a community, is simply take more notice of our elders. How many of us bother to seek out mentors and friends older than us these days? Society tells us we’re old at around 50 and anything after that is hardly seen, let alone expressed and portrayed by our news, art and media. While we fight for our own rights, we’re in danger of losing the stories and knowledge of those who struggled before us.

And it’s utter nonsense, isn’t it? We live longer, are healthier and active longer, so why on earth are we as a species discarding people before they’ve even retired from their jobs? Memory is an important part of any tribe, but the world is full and fast these days and tribes get split up and memories lost.

I interviewed Richard online about his very worthwhile project.

How do you envisage your own old age?
Hopefully with my partner of 10 years and as independent and active as possible.

What steps do you think need to be taken in order to improve the visibility of the elderly gay population?
More people coming out. More images of elderly gay & lesbians in the media - including advertising, film, and television. More images of elderly in the general population as well. And more respect given to our elders by younger people. I hear far too often when asking to photograph an elderly person ” why would you want to photograph me I’m old” I think many elderly people are beautiful and it makes me sad to hear them express this negative self-image.

The first few photographs of your series seem to me to show vulnerability in the subjects – did they seem vulnerable to you when you met them?
Not particularly. Perhaps the elderly black man Robert seems more vulnerable in the photograph of him. I remember him having a more subdued, mellow personality.

There’s pride evident in your photographs too – did you talk to your subjects about gay pride at all?
Yes. They were all very out and proud. Self-assured and knew who they were. Many of them had interesting stories to tell about how much things had changes and how much “us kids” took for granted.

You wanted to show the dignity of old age – in the process of finding people to take photographs of, did you have to reject any for not having a dignified appearance or did everyone have an inherent dignity?
Dignity is really not something you can give to a person but I think it is something that you can capture and reveal in how you approach that person and how you treat them.

What kind of feedback have you had to the photographs?
Very positive. I have given these images out many many times over the years to different organizations to help raise awareness and visibility in regards to LBGT Senior issues.

Do you still have any contact with the people you photographed?
No longer. My partner and I become friends with the elderly couple William and Roy but they moved into an assisted living facility out of state a few years ago and we lost touch…

Interview: Ulla Kelly