Book blurb:

Snapshots are complex and wilful little pictures. Only because they are so small, so frequently and easily made, do we think of them as innocent. But snapshots are mostly premeditated, fussed over, and even predetermined. The postures we adopt, the gestures we pantomime, the exaggerated facial expressions we compose and try to hold for a split second are all meant to express a certain moment in time. Snapshots reflect the needs and desires of all who appear in and make them, as well as the social, commercial, and visual worlds in which they are produced. In a time when digital cameras make snapshot photography all too easy, it is fascinating to look back on a time when image making was more deliberate.

Now Is Then features images from the 1920s through the 1960s, the golden age of snapshot photography. The collection of Frank Maresca, an expert on vernacular art, is unique in the way the images both celebrate and question photographic conventions. The pictures reproduced here are quirky, elegant, and often as heartbreaking as they are heartwarming. Texts by authors well known for innovative work in the field of visual culture present fresh perspectives on the snapshot and its power over us. Unlike previous explorations of vernacular photography, Now Is Then takes a step forward to look at the broader cultural impact of snapshots, why we make them, how we use them, why they become relics, and, most importantly, what they reveal about us.