Harry Smith, Magic Moments

"Harry Smith's photographs often touched magic moments, those perfect instants in which his pictures attained universality and greatness. The son of Danish immigrants, Harry A. Smith grew up in San Francisco and began to use a camera at the age of 17 -- a self-taught amateur. Between 1900 and 1913 he recorded the life he knew: the city that saw almost total destruction during a few days in April 1906, vacations in the country among family and friends, the death of his brother, pleasant evenings with neighbors, his honeymoon with his new wife, Agnes Andersen. Amateur photography has often gone unrecognized, yet the vision of the amateur is at times more sensitive and spontaneous than that of the professional. Through the high quality of laser-scanner, duotone reproductions, the sorrow and joy of Harry Smith's world, the magic vision of his youth, is shared with each of us."--Jacket flap.