American snapshots
Subtitle: fallen fruit from the cemetery orchard nestled in leaves of grass : featuring snapshots by anonymous Americans of the 20th century from the author's personal collection
By: photographs edited, and introduction and commentary authored by Steven M. Johnson.
Contributors: Johnson, Steven M.
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Steven M. Johnson
Published: May 26, 2008
Place of publication: United States
Language: eng
Format: hardcover w/ dust jacket
Number of pages: 144
ISBN-13: 9780615190952
Subjects: Johnson, Steven M. -- Photograph collections.; Portrait photography -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Work titles: Presents a collection of 100+ snapshots of and by anonymous Americans of the 20th Century, that the author/editor has purchased in junk shops around the nation.
First sentence: Dear Mother, We haven't spoken with each other in quite a long while, so I thought I'd write. The last I knew you were having a terribly rough time of it. I trust you are better now. Enclosed are a few snapshots I've collected over the past several years that I think you will find interesting. . . .
Description: This book is a fascinating personal look at old snapshot photographs the author has found for sale in shops throughout the United States. The fact that the people are captured on film by amateur photographers (presumably family members or friends) in informal settings is responsible for the charm of the natural and unselfconscious snapshot. Indeed, it is the very fact that these images were made by people close to the subjects that creates a golden window into their unguarded lives, their faces, and their body language. This, in turn, allows for an unusual
opportunity to speculate on the culture and character of people otherwise lost to time and even to their own families. (How and why, after all, did the snapshots end up for sale?) This book takes a stand on behalf of these anonymous American photographers and the lost personages captured on film in their slice of time, thus establishing direct connection to the larger family of all Americans and even all humanity.  [P]  The author's impassioned and moving introductory essay is written as a loving and yet (in the spirit of the snapshots themselves) open letter to his long-deceased mother. This powerful heuristic device – reaching beyond his grasp – acts to unite the lives of the deceased with the living in a personal and touching manner. The photographs contained in the album section then act to weave together one great human family of parents, children, and siblings, with different geographic circumstances.   [P]  The central thesis developed in this essay of words and photographs is that the family of man – and by extension, all of life – is timeless indeed when viewed with love's encompassing devotion and assisted by the magic of photography. We are all connected in the cycles of life and death. This is an open book in more ways than one.
Notes: American Snapshots is organized into three sections. Part I is an introduction written in the form of an open letter to my deceased mother which introduces some key anthropological and spiritual concepts in an effort to create a lens, or a variety of lens', through which the reader might look at the vernacular photographs in the following section. Viewed thus, the reader's careful examination of each image might be considered a type of communion with the people of the photograph - people lost to their own families.  [P]  Part II is a collection of 101 snapshots
sequentially numbered and presented one to a page. The photographs are reproduced at actual size and in full color, whether the original is a black & white or color print. No effort was made to "clean-up" the images digitally or in any other way. It is my belief that the fading, stains, tears, scrapes, and creases actually add to the charm of the artifact. In other words, every effort has been made to present the snapshots in the actual condition that they were found.  [P]  Part III is comprised of my personal impressions and observations on the individual snapshots, keyed numerically to the images in the previous section. These are my personal musings and I encourage every reader to immerse themselves in the study of each image, creating their own set of observations and subjective impressions. Sublime empathy is the process through which one makes the strongest emotional connection to each image, and that is where the magic lies.
Table of contents: label: I.
title: Introduction: An Open Letter
pagenum: 9; label: II.
title: The Snapshots
pagenum: 18; label: III.
title: Thoughts on the Snapshots
pagenum: 122