Two dozen fading transparencies purchased at a Los Angeles flea market in the spring of 2001 sparked in me a sentimentality born of a familiarity that was immediately recognizable — even though the era in which these images were made, the Midwest region from which they appear to hail and the ethnicity of the people in the snapshots are wholly different from my own.

They are strangers, but that is perhaps what makes this connection that much more striking.

There was precious little identifying information among the slides. On one of the carboard negative holder, someone had written "Pattersons." But these images depict moments from the lives of what appears to be a single family, circa the 1950s. We have never met them, but they represent the sameness of anyone who has ever toted along a camera to a birthday party, a parade, an afternoon at a swimming pool or to capture a child's smile.

Look closely at the portraits and stolen moments. They are full of innocence, playfulness, maybe a little youthful embarassment and pride. Who they are and where their lives have taken them, we will in all likelihood never know, yet they were real and alive as any of us.

We are all these people, in large ways and small.

—Bruno J. Navarro
9 July 2002

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