Accidental Art

A billion photographs are snapped each week—blogged, harbored in albums or, just as inevitably, consigned to refuse bins at the sight of an unflattering haircut. It is these rustling forests of lost and discarded images that concern photo historian Michel Frizot and photography professor Cédric de Veigy. Their Photo Trouvée, recently published by Phaidon, brings together 285 anonymous, amateur snapshots, salvaged from flea markets and antique shops over the past 20 years. Behind every one is a delicious enigma: Who captured it, and why?

There is, of course, little way of answering this, but then the pleasure lies in the asking. Arranged according to their visual rhythm, the images brim with possibility and are a pleasure to browse. Lovers embracing on the grass are juxtaposed with darting splashes of water; a flight of fluttering birds is counterbalanced with the utter stillness of a male figure lying by a tranquil stream, his head and legs artistically out of frame by benevolent mistake.

The charm of these images lies precisely in such imperfections: light leakages, unplanned compositions, flaws in focus and inadvertent exposures create an accidental art and a welcome change from the sometimes sterile domain of conventional fine-art photography. In fact, the pictures are so enchanting that you almost wish the publishers had reproduced them in larger than actual size. But it's a minor complaint, given the book's beauty. This "anthropology of the ordinary," as the authors put it, is nothing short of remarkable.